I commend those that tow 5000lbs with it , I suppose short trips wouldn't be bad , I wouldn't even consider it for a trip like I just did though.

I don't drive the 4runner much as I bought it for the wife I might of put 100Km on it at the most before doing this trip , but one other ting I noticed with it is when you start it up and put it in gear it pushes alot and wants to take off on you and you have to be aware and on the brake like it is in high idle or something ( but its not according to the tach) and seems to get better as it warms up . anyone else notice this with their's . My father has an 09 toco and it does it even worse.

Nice trip.

Side question: Did you take the Trans Canada or dip down into the States via Chicago/Detroit? Cheaper fuel that route.

Trans Canada , went through Northern Ont. instead of down by the lakes as it has less hills , and as we all know less hills for the 4Runner the better. Never even kept my gas receipts , I don't even want to know what it cost as it was an average of $1.40 /liter the whole way across . Had to use my emergancy jerry can once as I tryed to strech out a tank one time . I was getting tired of stopping every 3-4 hours to fill up. Was ony getting 400 KM out of a tank at best.

On second thought , maybe I should of went through Detroit and then my 2 sea doos would of dissapeared and I wouldn't have to worry about towing that extra weight anymore.

Towing our big-ass camper with our T4R worked much better when I just left it in 4th gear. Until I hit 115 km/h it didn't use more gas, cruise control was fine, and while louder, it's no longer hunting for gears unless you hit a moderately steep incline.

Dual VVTi engines are funny things that way, and all Toyota engines traditionally like to rev higher than competing designs, in fact, they're designed to do that. In return, they don't guzzle gas the same way when run that way. It's not an American (or Windsor) V8, and it's not an inline 6 turbo diesel, so don't drive it like one.

Heck, even my Tundra really really likes doing stuff at 4000 rpm, but unless there is a lot of stuff in the back, maintaining traction becomes challenging. With stuff in the back, maintaining stuff in the back becomes challenging.

Just sayin'.

I was aways a believer of , each engines life is only good for so many revolutions and it is up to the driver on how he chooses to spend them.

I am so use to old school lower revs = better milage and easier on engine.
Maybe as you say keep it at higher revs and I would of been better off.

I just couldn't get over the voices coming from the engine at 5000 RPM saying GET OFF ME !!!!!!! GET OFF ME !!!!!!!!!!!

Mind you after 85 hours of pretty much continus driving I was hearing all kinds of voices.

"Good for a number of revolutions" is a gross oversimplification. Modern engine design and lubricants makes it even less relevant.

The issue is gearing vs. power band. Most Toyota (gas) engines' power band is pretty flat until 2200 or so, and at 2800 rpms - 4000 is ideal for power. My 4Runner sat around 2100 rpms at 70 mph/120 km/h in 5th, and at 2500 in 4th. With a real load, 4th is where you want to be.

Should be "Hours at design revolutions." Your Cummins is good at 2100 RPM or high idle. The Toyota V6 4Runner is much higher. Different design is all.

Slight grave digg, but coming from a 3rd gen v6 owner that has nowhere near the horse power or torque or well. Anything on a newer 4runner, my truck also likes being over 3k rpms pretty much no matter what I wanna do. And often goes over 5500 rpm. (Kinda got a lead foot) I have a limited with 4.10 ( I think) gear ratios. And it seemed to do fine with 2000 pounds fully loaded but it squatted pretty bad. Old suspension. And over it's gross weight which it didn't like.
Did a good 400-500 mile round trip fully loaded with gear for camping. And about 1250 pounds of people in my truck. And a "roof top carrier" aka the great widcatcher. And I wanna say I was getting 10-12 mpg and my truck stayed around 3000-3500 rpm in 4th gear with overdrive. But wen I hit the 30 degree incline into the park it dropped to 2nd gear and was around 4500 rpm. I personally think it wasn't half bad for being a 15 year old v6..


And to whoever was talking about these bein designed for higher rpms, thy are right. Most jap vehicles are designed like this. And this whole engines live by their revolutions, there's two good motor manufacturers out there. GM and toyota. Only two I've ever really seen survive over 400.000 miles.

What? Nobody is going to throw a fit because the OP complained about how the 4R tows? OMG! (No offense to you Pattycakes).

NO NO YOU AIN'T ALLOWED TO CONPLAIN BOUTS DUH TOWIN POWAS OF TEH 4RUNNA. IT'S DA BES'

But no seriously. You can only expect so much from it. It's a v6 off road passenger SUV. And I use the term of road loosely. They are losing their prowess.

It's funny that you posted this, because three weeks ago I had almost the exact opposite situation.

My wife and I are moving to Chicago, and she went up first about three weeks ago. I decided to go up with her to get her setup and to take our boat up (2007 Seadoo Speedster 150 Supercharged) so that it would be one less thing to mess with during the big move. The boat weighs about 1,500 lbs. dry, it had close to full gas tank (22 gallons), plus oil, and trailer weight. It was my first time towing with the 4Runner as we haven't had time this summer to take the boat out. Now on flat ground I was able to use the cruise control, but for probably 75% of the trip the hills made cruise impossible. I simply put the transmission in Sport mode and when the hills got to gnarly I would bump it down into 4th, and then shift up to 5th and it honestly did great. My average mpg stayed firm at 17.4 which is what I was averaging city, on the way back with no boat it increased to 18 average.

I also almost lost the boat cover, the wife and I had to get creative with tying it down in a gas station parking lot.

Moral of my story is the 4Runner doesn't tow like my Hemi Jeep, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared and got a hell of a lot better mpg.