Toyota Dyna Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance VAN: Toyota Dyna Range
Prices: from £12,670 (ex. VAT)
Safety: Driver’s Airbag, Side Impact Protection

DYNA GETS MORE DYNAMIC

Our Rating: 4.3 / 10

A much stronger 3.0-litre D-4D diesel engine has done wonders for Toyota’s Dyna dropside truck, thinks Jonathan Crouch

The market for dropside trucks may be small but it’s closely fought. Toyota’s Dyna might just blow the whistle on the competition by combining spacious cab design, rugged mechanicals and a pedigree stretching back to the 1970’s. Perhaps most importantly, it now boasts a willing and powerful 3.0 D-4D diesel engine that Toyota hope will stump rivals.

With a Gross Vehicle Weight of up to 3.5-tonnes and a payload of up to 1.5-tonnes, the Japanese maker is in this instance tapping into a market colonised by urban hauliers, builders and landscapers – people who need fast, easy access to bulky loads.

You’ll never award the Dyna any prizes for great beauty. Like the geeky, bespectacled girl your classmates sympathy dated, the only looks the Dyna is likely to garner are ones of pity for its awkward profile, bluff lines and seemingly front heavy posture. You’d never give it front of house duties, but behind the scenes is where the Dyna should count. On paper, the truck stacks up well: plenty of live R&D, rigid construction and the addition of a brand new, state of the art common rail 3.0-litre D-4D engine. But commercial vehicles aren’t driven on paper…

The Dyna is aimed at quite a specialised sector of the market. As a dropside truck or in tipper form, it is ideally suited to the movement of large, heavy objects that would be impractical to load into any other vehicle. You wouldn’t carry a tonne of sand, 4,000 breeze blocks or a selection of potted trees in a panel van. With a Dyna, you can load and unload using a mini crane or even a forklift. As far as the Range goes, the short and medium wheelbases can be supplied with a tipper back instead of the dropside so in theory they will attract customers who need something other than a mobile sand pit. Now that we’ve established the arena in which the Dyna will fight, let’s move onto the practicalities.

The Dyna is certainly a strong competitor in the 3.0 to 3.5-tonne chassis cab market. Three basic models are available: the Dyna 300 with standard wheelbase, plus the Dyna 350 with a medium or long wheelbase. Each is available in chassis cab or dropside alloy form, with the 300 SWB offered with a one-way tipper body and the 350 MWB a three-way tipper.

The latest engine develops 108bhp (109 DIN hp) at 3,000rpm, a significant increase on the 88 and 102bhp outputs offered by the old 2.5 D-4D. More torque is generated, too, with a maximum 286Nm available from 1,200 to 1,600, compared to 192 and 260Nm from the older engine. A five-speed manual transmission is fitted as standard to all Dyna models. With the torque situated in the lower part of the rev band, you’ll find that pulling away with a heavy load is no problem and that you should be able to get up to speed quite comfortably. Once on the move, the D-4D unit should produce respectable fuel economy and sensible use of the 5-speed gearbox to keep the revs down will also aid your diesel bills.

The D-4D Range boasts low emissions, instantly starting and low operating noise in addition to long major service intervals, all of which is meant to significantly reduce the costs of ownership. Passenger cars have been relishing Toyota’s D-4D units for quite some time now, and the signs are that commercial users will be doing the same.

ABS and speed sensitive power steering make the standard equipment list, as does a fully adjustable steering column, driver’s airbag, rake adjust and sliding drivers seat and three-point pretensioned seatbelts for driver and passenger. Should you be carrying a third passenger, they will have to make do with a two-point lap belt. While we are on the subject of accidents (or their prevention at least), the Dyna features a stiffened cabin structure and side impact protection beams to absorb the worst of any impact and a driver’s airbag to make a nice cushion. A fully laden Dyna can carry 1,300kg