Ready to Hit the Road in Style?
Save money and reduce emissions with vehicles designed to deliver exceptional mileage. Visit our inventory and find a car that fits your lifestyle.
Ready to Hit the Road in Style?
Save money and reduce emissions with vehicles designed to deliver exceptional mileage. Visit our inventory and find a car that fits your lifestyle.
Buying a 4WD in Australia used to be simple. You picked a LandCruiser or a Patrol and got on with it. These days the choice is wider, prices are higher, and the wrong pick can leave you with a rig that's too heavy for the tracks you drive, or too soft for the load you carry.
The trick is to start with the job, not the badge. A vehicle built for remote touring is a different animal to one built for a work site, and both differ again from a weekend adventure tool.
This guide sorts five capable off-road vehicles by what you actually need them to do, with verified specs and honest trade-offs, so you can shortlist with confidence.
Quick Answer
- For long-range remote touring, the Nissan Patrol GU leads on fuel range and simple mechanicals.
- For family touring with on-road comfort, the Toyota Prado 150 is the easy all-rounder.
- For heavy towing and payload work, the LandCruiser 79 Series is the default choice.
- For compact family adventure, the diesel Mitsubishi Delica D:5 does what no wagon does as neatly.
- 4WDs with genuine dual-range gearing made up 27% of all new cars sold in Australia in early 2025 (GoAuto/FCAI, March 2025).
A white 4WD climbs a red dirt track in a vast outback landscape.
Why does your use case matter more than the badge?
4WDs with genuine dual-range gearing made up 27% of all new cars sold in Australia in early 2025 (GoAuto/FCAI, March 2025). That popularity means more choice, and more ways to get the pick wrong. Matching the vehicle to the job is the single most useful filter you can apply.
Think in three buckets. Touring rigs need fuel range, towing grunt and comfort over long distances. Work vehicles live and die on payload and towing ratings. Adventure tools reward compact size, all-terrain grip and a liveable interior for weekends away.
Once you know which bucket you sit in, the shortlist gets short fast. If you also want to avoid the costly inspection traps that catch used buyers, our best used 4WD buying guide walks through the checks that matter.
Five 4WDs Compared at a Glance
Australia's 4WD market is huge and competitive. In the first half of 2026, the Ford Everest led sales with more than 11,000 units, ahead of the Toyota Prado on over 9,000 and the Isuzu MU-X on 7,564 (CarsGuide, August 2026). The table below sorts our five picks by the job they do best.
| Vehicle | Engine | Braked towing | Combined fuel | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nissan Patrol GU (Y61) | 4.2L turbo-diesel | 3,500 kg (manual) | 10.9 L/100km (manual) | Long-range touring |
| Toyota Prado 150 | 2.8L turbo-diesel | 3,000 kg (2018+ auto; 2,500 kg pre-2018 and manual) | 7.9 L/100km | Family touring |
| Toyota LandCruiser 79 | 4.5L V8 turbo-diesel | 3,500 kg | 9.6 L/100km (2.8L auto, claimed) | Heavy work |
| Mitsubishi Delica D:5 | 2.2L turbo-diesel | Not rated for heavy towing | 12.5 L/100km (Japan claim) | Compact adventure |
| Toyota HiAce 4WD | 2.8L turbo-diesel | Not published | Not published | Adventure van, work |
Figures are drawn from manufacturer specs and published road tests; see each section below for full sourcing.
Which 4WDs are best for touring?
Toyota alone shifted 14,388 4WDs in the first two months of 2025, the biggest slice of a 49,085-unit market (GoAuto/FCAI, March 2025). Plenty of those buyers are tourers who need range and towing muscle above all else. Two used options stand out for the long haul.
Nissan Patrol GU (Y61)
The Nissan Patrol GU, the Y61 series, is the outback tourer plenty of Australians still measure everything else against. Its party trick is range. A 95-litre main tank plus a 30-litre sub-tank gives roughly 1,200 km between fills in touring trim (CarsGuide). On remote runs where the next servo is hours away, that counts for more than raw horsepower.
2010 Nissan Patrol GU
Under the bonnet sits the proven 4.2-litre turbo-diesel, an engine known for simple mechanicals and easy bush repairs. In manual form the Patrol GU tows up to 3,500 kg braked, dropping to 2,500 kg with the automatic, and returns a combined 10.9 L/100km manual, or 11.8 L/100km auto, on the official figures (CarsGuide). Coil springs all round give it genuine wheel travel off-road.
It's not the pick if you mostly do school runs and tight city parking. The Patrol GU is thirsty around town, big to manoeuvre, and its cabin feels dated next to modern wagons. For long-haul touring and remote-area reliability, though, few used 4WDs make more sense.
Toyota Prado 150 Series
The Toyota Prado 150 Series is the 4WD that families and touring couples keep coming back to, and the sales tell the story: the Prado nameplate was Australia's second best-selling 4WD in the first half of 2026 with more than 9,000 sales (CarsGuide, August 2026). It blends on-road manners with real off-road ability.
2015 Toyota Prado 150
The facelifted 150 (2015 on) runs Toyota's 2.8-litre 1GD-FTV turbo-diesel, producing 130 kW and 450 Nm through the automatic. Toyota's combined-cycle figure for the diesel is 7.9 L/100km, and it's rated to tow 3,000 kg braked from MY2018 onwards (2,500 kg on pre-2018 and manual variants) (4x4 Australia). Full-time 4WD, a locking centre diff and generous ground clearance handle most touring tracks without drama.
Where it falls short is heavy towing and payload. If you're pulling a big van or loading a tray to the limit, the Prado runs out of headroom faster than a ute or a 79 Series. As a comfortable, capable family tourer, it's still one of the strongest all-rounders you can buy used.
What's the best 4WD for hard work?
Work 4WDs live and die on their weight ratings. The current LandCruiser 79 carries a 7,010 kg gross combination mass and a 3,510 kg GVM (CarExpert, March 2026), the kind of headroom trades and farmers genuinely need. One vehicle owns this category outright.
Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series
The Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series is the default work truck on Australian building sites, farms and mine leases, and it's been that way for good reason. Live axles front and rear, a ladder chassis and a no-nonsense cabin make it easy to load, easy to fix and hard to kill.
2007 Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series
The 2007-on cab-chassis is built around the 4.5-litre 1VD-FTV V8 turbo-diesel, making 151 kW and 430 Nm, with a 3,500 kg braked towing rating. A newer 2.8-litre four-cylinder automatic later joined the range with 150 kW and 500 Nm and a claimed 9.6 L/100km, though CarExpert recorded 12.1 L/100km in real-world testing (CarExpert, March 2026). Either way, payload and towing are the headline.
Comfort and running costs are the trade-off. It's firm, thirsty and basic inside, so it's the wrong tool for a family day-tripper. As a load-hauling workhorse that shrugs off punishment year after year, nothing else in the used market really touches it.
Which 4WDs suit weekend adventure?
Adventure buyers want capability in a smaller, more liveable package. Toyota sold 12,082 HiAce vans in Australia in 2024 (CarExpert/VFACTS, 2025), proof of how trusted the platform is, yet the factory 4WD version was never offered new here. Two Japan-built options open up the weekend nicely.
Mitsubishi Delica D:5
The Mitsubishi Delica D:5 is the oddball that makes total sense once you've seen one on a bush track. It's a genuine people-mover with a raised body, all-wheel drive and standing-height headroom, so it swallows a family and their gear while still fitting down tight forestry trails.
2007 Mitsubishi Delica D:5
The diesel CV1W runs a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel making 107 kW and 380 Nm through an 8-speed automatic, with all-wheel drive, a lockable centre diff and 186 mm of ground clearance (Chasing Cars, 2023). Mitsubishi's Japanese combined claim is 12.5 L/100km, while Chasing Cars recorded 13.7 L/100km in Australian testing.
It's not a hardcore rock-crawler and it won't tow heavy loads. But for gravel roads, beach tracks and campsite access with the whole family aboard, the Delica does something no conventional 4WD wagon manages as neatly.
Toyota HiAce 4WD
The Toyota HiAce 4WD is the quiet achiever for van-based touring and work. The HiAce sold new here is rear-wheel drive only; the factory four-wheel-drive version was built for Japan, where snow and mountain roads demand it. That makes it a rare, purpose-built base for a camper or a capable work van.
2024 Toyota HiAce 4WD
The GDH206 variant uses Toyota's 2.8-litre 1GD-FTV turbo-diesel, tuned to about 110 kW and 300 Nm in HiAce form, lower than the same engine's HiLux tune (Wikipedia, Toyota GD engine, 2026). Ground clearance sits near 185 mm and payload is around 1,075 kg (CarExpert), with cargo volume of 6.2 m³. Crucially, it's factory 4WD, engineered as one system rather than converted after the fact.
At 185 mm it won't crawl gorges or ford deep crossings. For corrugated station roads, soft sand and long-haul touring with a proper fit-out, though, it carries more gear and more people than most wagons while keeping Toyota's service network within reach.
Which one is right for you?
There's no single best 4WD, only the best fit for your job. With 4WDs now a quarter of all new-car sales in Australia (GoAuto/FCAI, March 2025), the market has a specialist for every use. Here's the quick way to narrow it down.
- Long-range remote touring: Nissan Patrol GU, for fuel range and bush-proof simplicity.
- Family touring with on-road comfort: Toyota Prado 150, the balanced all-rounder.
- Heavy towing and payload work: LandCruiser 79 Series, for its weight-rating headroom.
- Compact family adventure: Mitsubishi Delica D:5, for tight tracks and standing headroom.
- Van-based touring or work: Toyota HiAce 4WD, for cargo space and factory 4WD.
Be honest about the driving you actually do, not the trip you take once a year. Most buyers over-spec for the extremes and under-spec for daily life. Get that balance right and the shortlist almost writes itself.
How Carbarn can help
A camping-equipped 4WD parked beside a tent at an outback campsite in warm evening light
Once you've settled on the right type of 4WD, the next job is finding a clean, honest example, and that's where Carbarn comes in. From its Lidcombe, Sydney warehouse, Carbarn sells inspected, compliance-ready 4WDs and vans with buy-now pricing, extended warranty options, finance, and nationwide door-to-door delivery, so you can browse the current 4WD range or the wider used-car stock online. If the model you want isn't on the floor, such as a diesel Delica or a factory 4WD HiAce, Carbarn's Japan import and compliance service can source it from Japanese auctions and manage SEVS eligibility, shipping and compliance from start to finish. Either way, the aim is the same: matching you to a 4WD that suits the touring, work or adventure you actually do.