Hello, new member here. I’m on my second 4Runner, a 2007 SR5 V8. It’s been a fantastic vehicle. But it’s getting a little old in the tooth, and wife and I had been trying to decide whether to put some money into it or replace it. We just finished a 3 week road trip and it was such a pleasure the whole time that we figure we’ll do some repairs and try to get another year or two out of it. It has about 120,000 miles.

The drivetrain has been flawless all along and most of the current issues are about the body and interior.

The biggest problem is the moonroof. A bunch of pine needles got into the mechanism, jamming it, and it stopped working about 5 years ago. Besides being unusable it makes a rattling noise, which bugs the heck out of me. My local mechanic (who is excellent) tried to fix it and gave up. The dealer wants over $3000 to repair it. Is it really THAT difficult a repair? I’m in the L.A. area and wonder if there might be some specialty shop that could repair it for a more sensible price. Any ideas?

The next issue is seat wear. The driver’s seat has lost some of its shape and springiness, and has become less comfortable. The fabric shows a lot of wear and has some small holes that are worsening. I’d love to have both seats looking and feeling like new again but don’t know where to begin and don’t want to be disappointed by a bad job. Suggestions?

One final, minor annoyance is a dead lamp (lamps?) in the up/down button for the window in the rear hatch. Not a huge deal, but the button is a little hard to find at night while driving. My mechanic was reluctant to tackle it and thought that the disassembly / reassembly might be extremely time consuming. Possibly the issue is the wiring harness and not the actual lamps. Are there 1 or 2 lamps, and are they LED’s or incandescent types? It it really a huge job to access that switch?

Thanks in advance for any advice. The vehicle gives us everything we need, and in comfort. It’s been perfect for 14 years, probably has some life left, and we’re glad to put some money into it at this point. We just need some help figuring out what our options are.