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The 2025 Toyota 4Runner is the Sixth technology of the icon
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Each 2025 Toyota 4Runner has a turbo-4 beneath its hood
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The 2025 Toyota 4Runner prices between $42,265 and $68,350
The 2025 Toyota 4Runner has been dragged into the fashionable period like a toddler screaming and kicking on the mall. For the primary time in 14 years, the 4Runner is new.
The previous one was nonetheless going sturdy. Toyota offered 92,156 examples in 2024 and 119,238 in 2023. That’s regardless of the actual fact it was sufficiently old to have its bar mitzvah and develop chest hair. The brand new one? From the body to the powertrain and electronics, it’s new. This isn’t only a reskin. However it’s not but clear how diehard consumers are going to adapt. Change is tough.
From a hybrid powertrain and extra muscular look to larger screens and much more compromised packaging, the outcry on social media has been swift. That’s earlier than addressing the ever rising matrix of a lineup, which now stands at a complicated 9 trim ranges. Welcome, Trailhunter.
After crawling round and blasting round on- and off-road, in a lot of the lineup, I’ve discovered the brand new 4Runner drives higher, will get barely higher gasoline economic system, and has extra energy than its historical predecessor, whereas being simply as succesful off-road. That makes it a greater car, and disgruntled lovers must get used to the change as it will inevitably be the 4Runner the world lives with for the following decade plus.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
2025 4Runner goes turbocharged and hybrid
The V-8’s lengthy gone, and now the naturally aspirated V-6 engine joins it within the historical past books. RIP. The mob on-line appears offended about this.
Each 2025 4Runner has a turbo-4 beneath its hood. The bottom engine, a 2.5-liter turbo-4 rated at 278 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque, will energy most 4Runners offered because it’s the one alternative for the bottom SR5 mannequin, which Toyota says represents about 51% of 4Runner gross sales. Torque comes on actual fast down low within the rev vary with peak torque arriving at 1,700 rpm. It’s simple to tear off the road and energy supply is clean, however a high-pitched turbo whoosh is ever-present.
Higher trim TRD-badged fashions like TRD Professional and Trailhunter, together with essentially the most lux mannequin, the Platinum, come customary with the brand new hybrid powertrain dubbed i-Drive Max. Off-Street, Off-Street Premium, and Restricted fashions may be optioned with the hybrid system. It bolts a 64-hp motor powered by a 1.9-kwh battery pack into the transmission housing. Mixed system output checks in at a wholesome 326 hp and 465 lb-ft. That’s V-8-like, stump-pulling torque. Peak torque additionally is available in at 1,700 rpm, and it’s shockingly fast, for a 4Runner at the very least. My butt dyno estimates the hybrid 4Runner may hit 60 mph from a cease in 6.0 seconds.
Each 4Runner now has a contemporary 8-speed automated transmission. It’s a pleasure, and is bsolutely as swift and clean because the ZF-sourced 8-speed in a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The 4Runner’s transmission cracks off shifts with ease, and the Sport and Sport+ modes dangle onto gears longer for even higher energy. However don’t go searching for paddle shifters in any 4Runner, together with the TRD Professional.
Full-time four-wheel drive is barely on the extra lux-oriented Restricted and Platinum fashions. In a quite low-cost cop-out transfer, Toyota equips all the opposite 4Runners, together with the most costly TRD-badged off-road-oriented fashions with part-time four-wheel drive. Each four-wheel-drive 4Runner has a 2-speed switch case. The TRD Professional and Trailhunter fashions additionally web a rear locker and digital disconnecting entrance sway bar.
Gas economic system improves from yikes standing of 17 mpg mixed for the final mannequin—which wasn’t even attainable in the actual world—to a borderline respectable 23/24/23 mpg in hybrid kind. The amount SR5 with its turbo-4 knocks a number of mpgs off for 19/25/21 mpg with 4WD. Choosing rear-wheel drive provides 1 mpg throughout the board. Briefly on-road testing I noticed a mean of 15.3 mpg on the freeway in a Trailhunter and 19.7 mpg in a Platinum. Each fashions have been hybrids.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
2025 Toyota 4Runner
How to decide on between the 4Runner TRD Professional and 4Runner Trailhunter
Consumers searching for the highest of the 4Runner off-road foodchain now have a call to make because the Trailhunter joins the TRD Professional. At $68,350 (together with the $1,450 vacation spot cost), the 2 off-roaders price the identical and even have the identical off-road angles. It comes all the way down to how these 4Runners journey and are outfitted.
The essential off-road TRD Professional and Trailhunter angles:
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Departure angle: 24 levels
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Breakover angle: 24 levels
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Floor clearance: 10.1 inches
2025 Toyota 4Runner
Toyota offers the TRD Professional a set of three-way adjustable, 2.5-inch diameter Fox shocks with distant reservoirs for higher warmth dissipation. Trailhunters swap these Fox shocks for a set of two.5-inch solid ARB Previous Man Emu shocks with exterior piggyback distant reservoirs. Each journey on 33-inch all-terrain rubber from the manufacturing facility, and nobody from Toyota may reply whether or not 35s would match with out rubbing.
The Trailhunter sports activities skid plates masking each bit from the entrance bumper again to the behind the switch case. The TRD Professional solely has skid plates that cowl to the again of the engine.
The skid plate differentiation highlights the supposed use circumstances. The Trailhunters is designed to crawl over tough, rocky, slippery terrain, whereas the TRD Professional mannequin is designed to go shortly over free terrain.
Every revealed its persona shortly each on and off-road. The TRD Professional is ready as much as journey a lot firmer with shocks which might be tuned to take impacts at pace. The Trailhunter swings to the opposite finish of the spectrum with shocks that includes a comfortable tune. The Trailhunter rides the softest of the lineup, and displays essentially the most physique roll on the road and whereas slowly traversing over tough terrain. The digital disconnecting entrance sway bar turns out to be useful in deep ruts, enabling the impartial entrance suspension to drop farther.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
The TRD Professional feels higher tuned than its Tacoma TRD Professional counterpart. The shock tuning stored the 4Runner TRD Professional extra planted, extra settled, and total much less jittery. However after one lap on a considerably tame “high-speed” off-road course, the 4Runner TRD Professional’s brakes smelled and a warning popped up within the gauge cluster noting the transmission oil temp was scorching and that the car ought to cease in a protected place.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
The surround-view digital camera system additionally comes up brief. In a Ford Raptor in Baja mode, the system will stay on at pace, exhibiting the terrain forward. That’s not the case within the new 4Runner. The forward-facing digital camera turns off inside seconds of rushing up after an impediment. Even within the MTS off-road modes. That is infuriating whereas making an attempt to repeatedly activate the system whereas at pace to make sure you can see the decrease terrain forward. Ford will get it proper. Toyota doesn’t.
The hybrid’s immense torque is a boon off-road, however the throttle tuning leaves one thing to be desired with a hair-trigger tip-in response that may break traction, even when the motive force is trying to feather the throttle to climb a hill. The throttle and brakes aren’t progressive, which makes it laborious to be clean. The Trailhunter’s pillar-mounted snorkel consumption accentuates the turbo whoosh to the purpose of being comical and annoying.
Each 4Runner is quieter inside on the freeway than the comparable Land Cruiser, which shares the 4Runner’s powertrain and platform, due to a much less upright windshield.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
4Runner will get muscular and tech stacked
The Sixth-gen 4Runner didn’t skip leg day. Or arm day. Toyota made certain this SUV is ripped. It appears like a Transformer actively making an attempt to morph. The sheetmetal ripples with muscle mass from the bulging fenders to the pretend hood scoop on the TRD Professional. That hood scoop looks like it’s taped on, and it shakes to no finish whereas off-roading at pace. The entrance grilles of the TRD Professional and Trailhunter get the LED driving lights from the identical fashions within the Tacoma lineup with the identical 10,000-lumen ranking. That’s double the output of the weak lightbar on the full-size Sequoia and Tundra TRD Professional, which at 5,000 lumens has a decrease output than an $80 flashlight. I didn’t get to check the lighting in the dead of night so judgement day comes later.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
The general form and stance of the 4Runner hasn’t modified. The design’s evolutionary, at greatest, however the further muscle mass may not be to everybody’s liking. Toyota made an enormous deal concerning the throwback rear aspect home windows that wrap over the roofline as a nod to the first-gen 4Runner. They’re a cool throwback, however opinions appear to range. Fortunately, the tailgate glass nonetheless powers down into the tailgate to haul longer objects or simply to extend recent air within the cabin.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
2025 Toyota 4Runner
Inside, the 4Runner evolves to be tech-filled. The laborious plastic dashboard now sports activities an 8.0-inch touchscreen with a big plastic bezel in lower-rent SR5, TRD Sport, and TRD Off-Street fashions. That bezel is a painful reminder that you simply didn’t select a dearer mannequin. The dearer fashions have a hulking 14.0-inch touchscreen straight out of the considerably wider Sequoia hanging off the upright dashboard. It looks like overkill. A regular 7.0-inch digital gauge cluster solely makes an look within the base SR5 mannequin, whereas each different 4Runner will get a 12.3-inch digital cluster that shares its design with different latest Toyotas. A minimum of there are laborious buttons and knobs for the local weather and audio controls.
Anybody hoping the 4Runner TRD Professional would sport the flowery entrance seats with built-in shock absorbers from the Tacoma TRD Professional can be disenchanted. Toyota spokespeople stated the Tacoma is a “me truck,” whereas the 4Runner is a “we truck.” These neat-looking entrance seats within the Tacoma eat all of the rear legroom, in order that they don’t make an look within the 4Runner. However the TRD Professional 4Runner nonetheless requires the selection of camo-patterned black or pink leather-based, which is kind of the life alternative. Like within the Tacoma, “TOYOTA” is stamped throughout the passenger aspect of the dashboard within the TRD Professional and Trailhunter fashions, and might’t be eliminated. It’s a three-piece molding and a part of the trim itself.
Packaging and supplies high quality appear to be an actual subject with the 4Runner, similar to its Land Cruiser sibling. Shut the doorways and it seems like a skinny, hole, tin can. Taking place the freeway the complete hood flexes within the wind. Decrease-spec trims have low-cost laborious plastic on the door uppers, and even in increased trim fashions the soft-touch materials on the door uppers simply covers extra laborious plastic. It’s the identical story for the soft-touch door-mounted armrests and middle armrest, each of which permit elbows to sink into the laborious plastic in seconds. The middle console deal with wiggles, and the roof-mounted seize deal with on the passenger aspect felt prefer it may rip off if used to get into the 4Runner.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
2025 Toyota 4Runner
2025 Toyota 4Runner
Street journeys may not be terribly snug within the 4Runner, and that might doubly so for these seated in again. Anybody discovering themselves within the entrance passenger seat of the SR5, TRD Off-Street, or TRD Sport fashions will observe the shortage of lumbar changes. Passengers in again will discover no room for toes and even toes beneath the entrance seats. The second-row seat bottoms are low, flat, and mounted above the rear axle. A tiny, barely existent, third row is an possibility on the bottom SR5 and Restricted fashions. It’s probably not liveable, and it’s not supplied on the bigger Land Cruiser, which signifies its lack of usefulness right here. The cargo space of hybrids induces the next liftover peak as a result of the load ground is raised to accommodate the battery pack. To make sure Toyota can declare there’s a flat load ground a plastic compartment beneath a canopy is put in close to the tailgate, like GM did on the last-gen Tahoe and Yukons. One of these packaging ought to make an engineer unhappy.
2025 Toyota 4Runner
The 2025 Toyota 4Runner presents worth equation
The 2025 Toyota 4Runner begins at $42,265 together with a $1,450 vacation spot cost, however that’s for a base rear-wheel-drive mannequin. Tack on one other $2,000 for four-wheel drive, which is nearly a given. That’s the amount mannequin, based on Toyota. A lux Platinum prices $64,310, whereas the TRD Professional and Trailhunter fashions price a wince-inducing $68,350.
The 4Runner carves out its personal territory amongst its competitors. The Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler are priced proper on prime of the complete 4Runner lineup, however these are louder, cruder SUVs with a extra outlined objective that compromises livability. Plus, their doorways and roofs come off. The Jeep Grand Cherokee undercuts the 4Runner at $38,290 to begin, however the Trailhawk off-road mannequin, which has a plug-in hybrid powertrain, prices a TRD-like $67,980. It’s additionally not as centered on off-roading because the 4Runner.
The 4Runner SR5 makes essentially the most monetary sense as, in comparison with the TRD Professional or Trailhunter fashions, consumers could have greater than $20,000 left of their budgets to change their autos with aftermarket components quite than choosing the TRD-badged fashions. However factory-integration and a manufacturing facility guarantee are understandably fascinating.
In the long run the most recent 4Runner is best than the outgoing mannequin. It stays to be seen if prospects must be dragged kicking and screaming to sellers to purchase one or if they are going to be prepared to just accept a lot of new know-how in a car that was beloved for its old-school enchantment.
Toyota paid for journey, lodging, and all of the mud in my hair and ears so Motor Authority may carry you this take a look at drive assessment
