Ask any 70 Series owner what they love and you'll hear about the engine, the suspension, the resale, the indestructibility. Ask what drives them mad after a big touring week and the answer changes: wind noise, a wheel that does nothing, a head unit from the previous decade, and a gear knob placed as though ergonomics was a foreign concept. Almost every technical write-up on the 70 Series covers DPF issues, clutch wear and chassis concerns. Almost none of them cover the thing you live with every day, which is the interior.
This one is about the cab only. What Toyota left alone, what changed and when, and what you can actually do about each complaint. Where there's no good fix, you'll read that too.
At a Glance
- The 70 Series interior has changed very little since the current body style arrived. Most of the meaningful updates only came with the 2023 facelift.
- Factory cruise control arrived in 2017. Any 70 Series built before that has none at all, and an aftermarket kit is the only solution.
- Factory steering wheel controls didn't arrive until the 2023 facelift. Every pre-facelift 70 Series has a plain wheel with no buttons and a clock spring with no provision for them.
- Noise, seat comfort and the hard plastic dash are genuine long-haul complaints with limited factory solutions.
- Several of the cabin frustrations have practical aftermarket answers. A few don't, and it's worth knowing which is which before you spend money.
Three eras of the 70 Series cabin
The interior history of the 70 Series splits into three periods.
Pre-2017: No factory cruise control. No steering wheel controls. The wheel is a plain four-spoke design that has barely changed across decades of production. The factory head unit is a basic analogue system with no steering wheel integration, because there's nothing on the wheel to integrate. If you own one of these, every convenience feature you want has to be added from scratch.
2017 to 2023: Toyota introduced factory cruise control with the DPF model update. That's a genuine quality-of-life improvement for highway driving. Steering wheel controls stayed absent. The wheel stayed the same, the clock spring stayed a single-function unit for the horn and airbag, and head unit integration with the wheel still wasn't possible from the factory.
2023 facelift onwards: Toyota finally addressed both. The facelift brought steering wheel controls for the first time in the model's history, so the new wheel has buttons and the factory clock spring has the contacts to carry audio, cruise and phone signals through it. On a 2023 and later build, none of this needs extra hardware. The wheel plugs straight into the clock spring and everything works as you'd expect from a modern vehicle.
If you own a pre-facelift 70 Series, knowing which era you're in matters a lot when you're deciding what to upgrade.
The steering wheel
The factory 70 Series wheel is a large, plain, four-spoke rim that hasn't meaningfully changed in decades. It isn't offensive, but it isn't comfortable on long drives, it gives your hands nothing to hold onto around corners, and before 2023 it has nothing on it at all. No audio buttons, no cruise resume, no phone answer. You reach for a button that isn't there, every trip.
On a pre-facelift model, the reason you can't just wire up a replacement wheel with buttons is this: the factory clock spring has no provision for steering wheel controls. The clock spring is part of the SRS airbag system and you don't touch it. The clean solution keeps the factory clock spring exactly where it is and bridges the new wheel's button signals to the head unit wirelessly through a steering wheel controls module, using the horn power circuit. No custom loom, nothing permanent. The 70 Series Steering Wheel Upgrade Kit does exactly that on pre-facelift vehicles, using a 300 Series style flat-bottom wheel design. On a 2023 facelift, the wheel swaps directly and the buttons work through the existing clock spring with no module.
If your build is pre-2017, you have no cruise control
A 70 Series built before 2017 left the factory with no cruise control at all. It isn't a setting buried in a menu. It doesn't exist. On a long highway run or a stretch of outback bitumen where the limit holds for hundreds of kilometres, that wears you out in a way mechanical issues rarely do.
An aftermarket cruise control kit is the practical answer, and it's one of the more worthwhile things you can do to a pre-2017 70 Series. The kits are model-specific and pre-programmed for the 70 Series, so you avoid the calibration headaches that come with generic units.
The head unit and screen
The factory head unit in the 70 Series is a basic analogue setup, and so is the wheel. The button signals, where they exist at all, are a simple resistive signal rather than anything on a data network, which is why adding controls is a wiring question and not a software one. The factory screen is small, the resolution is dated by any current standard, and on a facelift running the factory unit you still don't get navigation, streaming or split-screen.
An Android Automotive OS head unit makes the biggest single difference to daily usability in the cab. You can run apps like Newtracs or Wiki Camps straight from the unit without your phone connected, which is genuinely useful for touring.
The dash: hard plastic, glare and heat
The top of the 70 Series dash is a hard, textured plastic that reflects light into the windscreen on bright days and radiates heat into the cabin in summer. After a few hours you notice it. Toyota hasn't changed the dash material across the production run in any meaningful way.
A replacement dashboard is how this gets fixed properly. It's a complete dashboard assembly rather than a cover laid over the factory one, wrapped in Italian Napa leather or Alcantara and moulded to the factory mounting points, so it deals with the glare and the heat absorption while changing how the whole cab feels.
Door trims, storage and the missing armrest
The factory door trims are flat, hard and give you little storage beyond a shallow pocket. There's no armrest from the factory. On a long drive, having nowhere to rest your left arm against the door is a small irritation that builds over hours.
Fit an armrest to your door trim and you get one of the simplest comfort improvements available: it bolts onto the factory door panel on a magnetic mount, with no drilling and nothing permanent. Door pods add speaker enclosures with proper grilles and integrated USB-C charging, so the storage and connectivity gaps get covered in one piece.
The shifter and gear knob
The factory shifter sits low and asks for a reach that's awkward if you're tall, especially on long runs when fatigue sets in. The factory gear knob is functional and nothing more. A 2 inch gear stick extension moves the throw into a more natural position without changing the factory look, and an aftermarket knob improves the feel of every change.
Noise and cabin drumming
The 70 Series is loud. Not loud in a performance-car way, loud in a wind-roar-and-road-drum way that wears you down on the highway. Toyota fitted very little sound deadening from the factory and the basic door seals don't help. There's no elegant fix. Most owners who take it on go with aftermarket floor mats, better door seals and targeted deadening on the firewall and floor. That reduces the problem rather than solving it, so be realistic about what you'll get.
Switchgear, accessories and phone charging
The factory centre switch panel has always had blank switch positions, and most touring owners fill them over time with compressor, light bar and fridge switches plus UHF wiring. The tangle accumulates. A switch panel with a wireless charging tray fits the factory switch panel location, tidies that up and adds fast charging without cables across the centre console.
Where to start
If you're only going to do one thing to the 70 Series interior, start with the steering wheel. On a pre-2017 build, pair the wheel upgrade with a cruise control kit, because you're solving two of the biggest daily frustrations in one project. On a 2017 to 2023 build where cruise already exists, the wheel upgrade and its controls module on their own change how the cabin feels every drive. On a 2023 facelift, the factory wheel with its buttons is already a step forward, so put your money into the head unit, the noise or the door trim depending on how you use the vehicle.
The 70 Series will outlast almost everything else you could buy. The interior just needs a bit of help keeping up.
