The 2025 Toyota 4Runner Is Finally Here and Appears Worth the Wait

Well, at long last, we have a sixth-generation Toyota 4Runner to look at and talk about. It's been a long time, because the fifth-generation vehicle came out in 2010. This is a 2025 model, and it'll be available this fall. As expected, it looks a lot like a Tacoma. And that's true inside and with some of the offerings as well. For example, this is a Trailhunter, a new trim for this year that debuted on the Tacoma. In addition to the Trailhunter, there's going to be the familiar SR5, TRD Sport, TRD Offroad, Limited, TRD Pro. This Trailhunter is new, and there's also a Platinum on top of that. So lots more 4Runner to talk about this year. The front of the new 4Runner is very similar to that of the new Tacoma. And it's also quite a bit wider, just like the Tacoma was to its predecessor. This 4Runner is 3 inches wider than the last generation. Now, you can see there's some big, chunky fender flares covering these 33-inch Trailhunter tires. So I'm not really sure if the body is any wider or not. But the overall width, being measured here, definitely is wider. As for the wheelbase, it's 112.2 inches, which is a magic number among Toyotas. It's the wheelbase that the Land Cruiser's been for a while and still is. The new GX550 has that wheelbase. But it's 2 and 1 half inches, 2.4 inches longer than the fifth generation 4Runner. So a little bit of extra space here. Consequently, it's a little bit longer, but really not very much more than a couple of inches. It's actually a little shorter than the GX, a little longer than the new Land Cruiser. So we're talking, you know, this is a tweener for sure. The biggest difference between this and the GX and the Land Cruiser is the height. The height, not including this roof rack, is about 5.5 inches shorter than a Land Cruiser or a GX. And it's actually almost 3 quarters of an inch shorter than the current fifth generation truck. So that's the big difference. You know, the 4Runner's always been a lower vehicle than the GX, and that continues today. There's two engines in the 4Runner lineup, and they're similar to those that are offered in the Tacoma. The base engine is a 2.4 liter turbocharged four cylinder that makes 278 horsepower and 317 pound feet of torque. That's standard in the SR5, the Limited, the TRD Sport, and the TRD Offroad. Now, there's another engine, which is the 2.4 liter turbocharged hybrid max, which is the same engine with an electric motor grafted between it and the eight speed automatic transmission. That one makes 326 horsepower and 465 pound feet of torque. Now, that's standard in this Trail Hunter. That's what we're looking at now. The TRD Pro, the Platinum, but it's also optional in the TRD Offroad and the Limited. So the suspension on the 4Runner is very similar to that of the Tacoma, but there are definitely some differences, especially on this Trail Hunter. You can see it's got a forged aluminum upper arm. The aluminum knuckle is here. These are ARB Old Man Emu shocks. You can see the bump stop is here at the top of the shock, no longer on the lower arm like the last generation. The current generation 4Runner offers something called KDSS, which is a hydraulically disconnectable system of front and rear stabilizer bar. But that's no longer available on the sixth generation, moment of silence for KDSS. What does it have instead? It has this. This is a stabilizer bar disconnect for the front that's the same as what's on the Tacoma. So that will unlock the stabilizer bar to give you more articulation. Will it be as much articulation as KDSS gives a current generation 4Runner? I'll have to wait until I can put one of these on my ramp at home before I can tell you that. To control that stabilizer bar, you use this button right here, which disconnects it in high range or low range. It operates pretty much like the Tacoma's stabilizer bar disconnect. Now, what we're not sure of is which trim levels will get that feature. I'm pretty sure that the Pro and the Trailhunter will come with it standard. And if it's packaged like it is in the Tacoma, this will be optional on the TRD Off-Road and not available on the other models. Anyway, this Trailhunter also has a lockable rear differential. Apart from that, this interior looks very much like the Tacoma and in a good way. I mean, this grab handle, I really like it. Lots of storage here, places to lean your phones here. One of these is a wireless charging pad. Use this control, just like a Tacoma, to put it in low range, two-wheel drive high, four-wheel drive high, tow-haul mode, selector drive modes, downhills, all of that stuff. It's right here in this thing that kind of looks like the Millennium Falcon, if you ask me. There's also a tow-haul button. And here is an electronic trailer brake control. Another thing that I really like that's shared with the Tacoma is the fact that this screen is very prominent and easy to see, but it doesn't stick up high enough that it interferes with your view over the hood. And also, there's not a lot of important things you have to control all the time here. The standalone stuff has its own switches and knobs, as it should. So if you want to do air conditioning, that's here. If you want to do cruise control, that's here. There's all kinds of controls for all that day-in, day-out stuff that you use all the time. And here, it's pretty much infotainment. And maybe, do you want the lights to stay on 60 seconds after you lock the car? That kind of stuff. So nothing about this is hard to use. It looks very simple. And it's attractive, too. Now, that's where I can tell that this is a little bit lower at the roofline than the fifth generation 4Runner. Had to duck a little bit more. But once I'm in here, I have good headroom. I'm 6 foot 2. This is my adjusted driving position. So yeah, I could definitely spend some time back here. This is as good as the current 4Runner, as far as I can tell, except maybe a little bit lower right here. So this is the back of the Trailhunter. And it's a little bit higher here, because that's where the battery is for the hybrid system. But I've noticed something, and that is right here. If I pull this off, that looks like a bib for an air compressor. So I believe this has a built-in air compressor. There's a 12 volt, a couple of USBs, and a 120 volt plug here as well. So this thing looks pretty well set up. Now, I don't know what the other trims have, but the Trailhunter seems to have an air compressor. This is the one a lot of people want to know about. This is the TRD Pro. And as you can see, similar stance to the Trailhunter, but there are some differences. These wheels, these 18 inch wheels, are definitely different than the bronze colored ones on the Trailhunter. It's the same 33 inch Toyo Open Country AT3 tire, but the wheel is different. The fender flares here are gloss black instead of textured black. Same thing goes with the mirrors. And of course, the hood scoop, that still doesn't scoop, but it looks cool. Back here, we have the normal roof rails that we'll see on most of them, although I'm not sure they'll all be black painted here. The windows here, you may have noticed these, they roll into the roof. And this calls back to the original first and second generation 4Runners, which had this kind of cool detail. And it's nice to see this returned. You see this and you know, oh, 4Runner, that's awesome. And then down here, these rails, these are different from the ones we saw on the Trailhunter. The Trailhunter had tube steps. This is a little bit more of a platform. Other than that, of course, the TRD Pro has different suspension than a Trailhunter and the rest of them. These are Fox shocks, and we should have a look at those. So the TRD Pro's suspension is different from the Trailhunter's. Now, it's not just the color of the forged aluminum upper arm, which is red here and has TRD on it, which I love. It's also got Fox shocks instead of the old man Emus. And these have clickers to adjust compression manually. These are Fox QS3 shocks. And I believe the rears have remote reservoirs. No room for that up front here. Also, we've got, as ever, the TRD-branded skid plate up front. Like the fifth generation, the second row seat tumbles forward, but the action is quite a bit different this year. Instead of doing two things, folding the seat bottom forward and then the seat back down, they go together as one, and it's much easier. And also, that's here this way because in some versions of this new 4Runner, they're offering a third row seat. Now, you wouldn't be able to do it in one that has the hybrid max powertrain because this is the battery, and there's no place for feet back here. So I'm thinking that the third row seat is something that is not paired with the hybrid max. We'll have to wait and see. Well, I've noticed something back here. There's no air compressor like we saw on the Trailhunter, and that makes sense because, well, the TRD Pro can't have all the goodies, right? And the Trailhunter's mission as more of an overlanding-focused rig is a little different, so it makes sense there. But still, I think people would want to air down and air back up the TRD Pro. One of the features that's been around the 4Runner since it got started is the window that rolls down, and a lot of people really like the ability to just get something out of the back without having everything fall out of the back by opening the hatch. Something that I've seen here in the Pro and in the Trailhunter is this TRD light bar, which turns on a light in the front, an LED light bar that comes on when the lights are in high beam. And then there are four aux switches, which you can hook your own accessories up to. Well, what does this mean for the sixth-generation 4Runner? I don't know exactly because I haven't driven it yet, but based on what I'm seeing, it's gonna create a problem for me because I own a fifth-generation TRD Off-Road 4Runner. And what I'm seeing on the interior and the suspension and a lot of the features, I really like. Now, what's it gonna cost? Well, we don't know that, but it's surely gonna cost less than a Land Cruiser, even though they brought the Land Cruiser's price way down. Why is that? Well, this has part-time four-wheel drive, not full-time four-wheel drive. This has a standard I-Force engine and the I-Force Max Hybrid is an option, and that makes this a cheaper vehicle, at least in some trim levels. I'm not sure about the TRD Pro and Trailhunter. The Land Cruiser doesn't have anything like that, so we could have a situation where some 4Runners are cheaper than the Land Cruiser and some cost more. All I know is the TRD Off-Road Tacoma is a really nice package over there. I like the TRD Off-Road in my generation of 4Runner, so I think that's gonna be one, once we know the pricing, that might really be the hot ticket. But we'll just have to wait until we can drive one and see what the prices are. That could happen closer to the fall 2024 introduction of the 2025 Toyota 4Runner. It looks like the 15-year wait for a new 4Runner has been worth it.