I’ve owned my 4Runner for roughly 6.5 years, and put ~ 62000 miles on it. A general update:
- Model: 2018 TRD Off Road
- Usage: my daily driver. Occasional long trips (skiing or other mountain adventures). A handful of off road adventures per year.
- Maintenance: so far it’s all been stuff you expect given age/mileage – fluid changes, tires, air filters, brakes, battery. No actual repairs yet (knock on wood) .
- Modifications:
- All terrain tires (BFG KO2). Good for off-roading, but maybe a little disappointed in on road performance in heavy rain. Otherwise generally satisfied.
- White Knuckle Off Road rock sliders. A little trickier to install than I expected but it eventually worked. Maybe should have sprung for the step plates – they do get slippery when wet and adding traction tape is unappealing to me. But, in addition to the protection they provide, they can also serve as a hi-lift jack point.
- Front facing trail camera. With the OEM screen, a little too small to be a huge help, but occasionally handy. At least some newer models have some version of this stock.
- LFD Offroad rack crossbars – this is a work in progress, but my goal is to be able to mount my hi-lift and traction boards (and possibly other items) on the roof versus having to chuck them in the back with my camping gear and figure out how to secure them. Decided this route instead of a full custom rack partly because of price.
- Future modifications:
- May consider a small lift at some point. Otherwise am hoping my Hi-Lift can serve as an emergency winch, and I have a portable compressor for airing up.
- General comments: overall I’m still very happy with my purchase. The mileage is not great, but it is a very versatile vehicle – can carry a lot inside (including being comfortable for 4 adults), serves as a reasonable one person camper, tows smallish trailers (up to 5000 pounds) without complaint, is a decent highway cruiser on long trips, and has more off road capability than I have bravery. A few things that could be improved:
- It would be nice to have more of the driver assist stuff (adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, etc). They added this in later model years but mine doesn’t have it.
- The part time 4WD system can be a bit of a pain – you can’t engage it on dry roads so there is a certain amount of shifting in and out required especially when driving around town (or even on mountain passes) on snowy days. Not a huge deal but I might like the Land Cruiser (or Limited trim 4Runner) drivetrain a bit more (full time AWD with a locking center differential).
- There isn’t much in the way of interior storage. I’ve worked around it using a combination of jamming things under the front seats, plus a couple soft sided tool bags in the back to hold tools, jumper cables, etc.
- The rear locker can be finicky. Likely partly because I rarely use it, and partly because it appears to rely on the rear wheels actually spinning at different rates to engage.