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Hi all! At the encouragement of @Administrator, I am creating a thread to share the story of my first 4Runner (and Toyota!) that occurred under fairly unique circumstances.
Like many here I'm sure, I had been eyeing the 6th gen 4Runner's long before their official announcement. Since launch, I've been debating what to go with while kicking the can down the road given that my previous vehicle, a 2019 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk with some mods, had been plugging right along. My wife and I own a small teardrop camping trailer which doesn't require a ton of towing capability and can go just about anywhere any vehicle can given it's axle-less suspension and high clearance. Back in 2022, we were en route up into the Rockies when we experienced a sudden engine failure. After a two hour tow into Santa Fe and eventually having the Jeep shipped back to Texas, we learned that the engine would be swapped just within the 60k warranty (59,890). Since then, things have been great on the new engine, but of course future failure was always in the back of my mind. I've since debated quite a bit between the '25 Trailhunter and an ORP, but anytime I tried to find the two for a test drive in Houston, was met with disappointing dealership experiences.
Fast forward to last week when we were off on a much needed off-grid adventure in Big Bend country in Far West Texas for the holiday break... 6 hours into our 9 hour drive and nearing the section of the drive with limited to no connectivity, we both hear a noise and I notice a loss of power under foot. We turn around and head to the nearest town, Del Rio, to attempt to assess. A late day visit to the Jeep dealership led to some uninspired diagnosis, leaving us unsure of what to do.
Fortunately, the Jeep dealership shares a parking lot with the Toyota one. So, bleary eyed, we head over just to have a look while we figure out how to proceed with getting the Jeep looked at the next morning. At Toyota, we were met with incredibly kind and sympathetic staff and were very happy to find that they had two ORP's available on lot that we could drive and look at. I had had my heart set on a white, stormtrooper-style colorway, but with that unavailable, we were actually both immediately drawn to the Heritage Blue they had.
Long-story long, the Heritage Blue ORP ticked just about all of the boxes I had my heart set on, and after some negotiating and a night to sleep on it (and with a very generous trade-in offer on the Jeep), we awoke the next morning, signed the paperwork, declined its first wash, piled our week's long gear out of the Jeep and into the new ORP, hitched up the trailer and were on our way!
We were able to adjust our plans from going to a very remote campsite accessed by some very rough trails to one that would be gentler on the new setup (and yet to be replaced tires) for the first few nights, followed by one accessed a very mild off-road trail two round it out. In the end, we went from 20 miles to around 1,100 and couldn't be happier with the first experiences. In that first 1k+ miles, I averaged 16.9 mpg, the majority were done towing a ~2k lb. trailer keeping conservative speeds and driving on the new engine, and the rest were done in and around the park at less than 45 mph and maybe 25-30 miles off-road.
Next steps for me are to install the Trailhunter skid plates, a set of TRD flat black wheels with Wildpeak AT4W's, and swap my old roof bike racks for a hitch mounted one. I'll share more photos as I do. Thanks to this community for sharing such a wealth of information. I've been a lurker for some time and am excited to join in as a new 4Runner owner myself.
Like many here I'm sure, I had been eyeing the 6th gen 4Runner's long before their official announcement. Since launch, I've been debating what to go with while kicking the can down the road given that my previous vehicle, a 2019 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk with some mods, had been plugging right along. My wife and I own a small teardrop camping trailer which doesn't require a ton of towing capability and can go just about anywhere any vehicle can given it's axle-less suspension and high clearance. Back in 2022, we were en route up into the Rockies when we experienced a sudden engine failure. After a two hour tow into Santa Fe and eventually having the Jeep shipped back to Texas, we learned that the engine would be swapped just within the 60k warranty (59,890). Since then, things have been great on the new engine, but of course future failure was always in the back of my mind. I've since debated quite a bit between the '25 Trailhunter and an ORP, but anytime I tried to find the two for a test drive in Houston, was met with disappointing dealership experiences.
Fast forward to last week when we were off on a much needed off-grid adventure in Big Bend country in Far West Texas for the holiday break... 6 hours into our 9 hour drive and nearing the section of the drive with limited to no connectivity, we both hear a noise and I notice a loss of power under foot. We turn around and head to the nearest town, Del Rio, to attempt to assess. A late day visit to the Jeep dealership led to some uninspired diagnosis, leaving us unsure of what to do.
Fortunately, the Jeep dealership shares a parking lot with the Toyota one. So, bleary eyed, we head over just to have a look while we figure out how to proceed with getting the Jeep looked at the next morning. At Toyota, we were met with incredibly kind and sympathetic staff and were very happy to find that they had two ORP's available on lot that we could drive and look at. I had had my heart set on a white, stormtrooper-style colorway, but with that unavailable, we were actually both immediately drawn to the Heritage Blue they had.
Long-story long, the Heritage Blue ORP ticked just about all of the boxes I had my heart set on, and after some negotiating and a night to sleep on it (and with a very generous trade-in offer on the Jeep), we awoke the next morning, signed the paperwork, declined its first wash, piled our week's long gear out of the Jeep and into the new ORP, hitched up the trailer and were on our way!
We were able to adjust our plans from going to a very remote campsite accessed by some very rough trails to one that would be gentler on the new setup (and yet to be replaced tires) for the first few nights, followed by one accessed a very mild off-road trail two round it out. In the end, we went from 20 miles to around 1,100 and couldn't be happier with the first experiences. In that first 1k+ miles, I averaged 16.9 mpg, the majority were done towing a ~2k lb. trailer keeping conservative speeds and driving on the new engine, and the rest were done in and around the park at less than 45 mph and maybe 25-30 miles off-road.
Next steps for me are to install the Trailhunter skid plates, a set of TRD flat black wheels with Wildpeak AT4W's, and swap my old roof bike racks for a hitch mounted one. I'll share more photos as I do. Thanks to this community for sharing such a wealth of information. I've been a lurker for some time and am excited to join in as a new 4Runner owner myself.
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