The Venza is on the Toyota site for 2021 same with the Avalon 4WD.

Your requirements are clear and these vehicles would meet your needs. A real off-road vehicle like the 4R appears to exacerbate your feeblity. You said the Lexus is beyond your means.
Another choice would be the MDX SHAWD which would best the Highlander’s road manners.

I recently test drove a new Off Road, Limited, and TRD Pro to see how they felt on road compared to my Limited with old XREAS. The Pro drove so much smoother over bumps on the road and felt overall much nicer then all the other trims.

I'll assume you're actually trying to help, but overlooked some of the requirements in my post - primarily the need to be able to be mobile in all weather and road conditions regardless of the status of the snow plows. I also wanted something to take off the beaten path in NM.

Neither the yet to be released Venza nor the Avalon can do either of those - but you knew that.

The MDX SH-AWD - and the Sports Hybrid version - are great cars in rough weather, I wouldn't want to slog 50 miles through a snow storm at 3am.

I spent the last 14 years driving a RWD car in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I could drive a Venza or a 4WD Avalon through almost any snowstorm with my feet while drinking liquor from the bottle. For the little time you spend putzing around in the dirt you could rent something and be ahead of the game in many ways.

Good for you.

I guess I was wrong - you have zero intention of being helpful.

The next time we have a freak snowzilla or snowmaggeddon event and I have to drive 50 miles to my site at 3am, I guess I'll just walk to the local Avis or Hertz office and hope they have a capable AWD with the appropriate tires. I might have to break down their door as it is unlikely to be open at that time.

I was leaving my site during snowmaggeddon (or was it snowzilla?) and we were expecting a light snow (about an inch or so. When I left the site early at noon, there were light flurries. By the time I got to my house, there were about 4 or 5 inches on the ground and people were abandoning cars on the George Washington Parkway. I was driving a 3 series AWD with proper snow tires, but a couple more inches and I'd have been in trouble.

I have zero bias here, and compared a ton of SUVs before buying the Pro last year. Frankly I'm a complete GM fanboy and wanted a ZR2, but had to have the SUV body to meet my perceived needs.

I suppose the real question to me is "Are you going to actually go off road beyond a choppy fire/forest road in relatively stock form?" Anything can drive in snow with snow tires. If the answer to that question is 'Yes' I dunno how you don't go with some variation of 4Runner.

The Grand Cherokee is the best overall vehicle of that group in terms of on-paper features and general drivability/comfort/style/towing IMO. (Full disclosure, I spent about 12 seconds looking at the Lexus) It's also got an air suspension (assuming you're sticking with the Trailhawk config) with a list of issues like a late 90's Kia, before you get to the rest of FCA quality. You'll get 10 years out of it, but it probably wont be cheap. It's got some capability off road, but not to the degree of the Pro or even the OR/ORP/460 with a set of AT tires. The only real problem with the Lexus to me is the semi luxury style, extra cladding and rear gate design.

The 4Runner's feature list in the 2019 Pro compares to my old 2012 Camaro, barely, tech-wise it's on par with slingshot. It gets utterly embarrassing gas mileage and the transmission is about as dumb as a rock for a modern automatic transmission. For some people, those are all plusses, I am not one of them. However, it's one of like 2-3 option that can really go off road out of the dealer without falling apart in 3-5 years.

I haven’t thought of Snowmaggeddon in a long time. I was in northern VA then on a business trip. Wrapped up everything too late, made a bad choice and got on I-66 eastbound right around 4:30 pm as snow was falling, 6 inches on the ground, and dark. There were no snowplows out that night. I found out later their brilliant plan was to wait for all the snow to fall then plow out the roads the next day.

The highway was full of slow cars, spinning their wheels, sliding off the road, stuck and abandoned cars, three tractor trailers jackknifed in the road and on the shoulders. It was a mess like I’ve never seen.
I learned to drive growing up in the western NYS snow belt and I was doing OK driving a RWD big monster rental sedan with all season tires, but I had to do evasive maneuvers constantly and fishtail around so many cars, while the snow kept falling, it was exhausting. Since I couldn’t keep my momentum up very well due to the other cars stopping, I got stuck several times myself and had to rock the car to get going again. And we waited and waited. Good thing I had a full tank of gas and drinking water and some snacks. To go 17 miles if took 8 hours to get to my hotel.

So yes, if you have some skills and experience and are comfortable with winter driving (and there’s space on the road) you can drive a rear wheel drive car and survive in some pretty awful conditions. But it sure wasn’t comfortable. I wished I had my 4Runner.

PS: @cb1111 , if you really want to ruin your desire for a 4R, test drive a Landcruiser

See you didnt read and understand what I wrote. I said you could buy an Venza or a Avalon 4WD and use it for most instances and when you go to NM you could rent a Jeep. I rented a Jeep and drove/4wheeled all over the island of Hawaii a few years back and it was great fun. I would not buy a Jeep. I rented a Land Rover once so even the high end stuff is available.

Your concern with the 4R is tipping over and being uncomfortable leaves it as a no go. We did a Sunday drive in the Poconos on Sunday. We were in our 4R for 6 hours. I felt great and could have done another 7 or 8 maybe more no problem. I could drive to St Augustine or Orlando with only a few gas stops. For me it’s comfortable enough to drive all day.

I think you’ll only be happy with a car based vehicle with AWD. MB’s are expensive however you can find well equipped E Class off CPO 2 year leases around here for extremely good prices. This year I saw one that had barely 10k miles on it, dark green metallic paint, leather, Nav, AWD and a bunch of other options (thats all I can remember now) for $39k. Thats a $65K car new. MB E’s probably have the best ride and nicest interiors you will find. I recently sold my C’ after driving it for 14 years. I did almost all of the work, when things broke, myself. It wasn’t “unreliable” however it did occasionally have things quit working.

BMW’s are garbage. Both their cars and their motorcycles. From personnel experience and experience from close friends. Getting stuck in one with only 5 inches of snow on the ground would be embarrassing. I would set it on fire where it got stuck instead of digging it out.

I'd just like to point out the elephant in the room.
The OP has been on this forum citing all sorts of legal factoids and "do's and don'ts" for modifying vehicles, some specific to the 4R for a year, and doesn't even own one. I get doing your due diligence and researching before you buy, but you've extended beyond ad nauseam at this point.
In summary, buy a JGC so you can flood their forums with DOT regulations.

4 or 5 inches?

You'd be unhappy living here. A good snowstorm is 3+ feet.

IMHO the AWD of the Limited is great at higher speeds.

About 2 years ago was hitting the washboard highways near Mammoth in a 2011 limited (stock + Tires). It was way better than my 2K Tacoma (lifted & 32s) ever was.

The AWD provided traction at 60+ mph. Stopping is always fun on washboard, don't know that stopping has anything to do with TRD OP or Limited. The brake system is exactly the same.

The Limited will not be able to take some of the rocky trails without significant modification. The Limited's lack of approach angle and ground clearance is less rock friendly and more mom friendly.

Some info about your original question.

You need to decide what you will actually do with it. If you will be on paved and dirt/gravel roads or actually off road/overlanding. i.e. going places that you wouldn't normally want to take a car and requires a 4wd Low.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee is not a body on frame truck like the T4R/GX. It's a unibody platform that is shared with the Mercedes GL line. So the GC should ride and handle better than the T4R/GX. However, the GC has very limited natural off road capabilities, towing capacity, and available modifications.

There own picture shows the lack of articulation. They are likely high centered and the driver's rear wheel is off the ground.
https://www.jeep.com/content/dam/fca...image.2880.jpg

They created the Trail Hawk with a lot of electronics to try to make up for the lack of suspension articulation. In the end it's best suited for paved road and a bit of gravel or dirt.

I briefly look at the Trail Hawk but didn't go that way because it's not body on frame. It's really a car with a 4wd system.

T4R is the same platform as the GX460. The GX460 is essentially an AWD T4R Limited with the fancy electronics of TRD ORP (Crawl Control, Multi-Terrain Select), KDSS and a V8. The Crawl Control, Multi-Terrain Select not really useful for anything over about 10 MPH. KDSS is useful for slow driving on rough terrain (rocks).

If you move to the T4R TRD ORD you get the rear locking differential, which is very useful for highly uneven surfaces. However you loose the full time AWD (great in the rain and snow).

I upgraded to a 2020 in April, from a 2011 T4R.

There area few reasons I went with the T4R Limited.
- It's was about $20K Less than the GX.
- The front bumper of the GX is (IMO) hideous and would likely be removed on trail.
- I can get more parts for the T4R if I want to modify it.

Just for the record 4Runner and it is highly unlikely to tip over under normal driving. Yeah you can do something dumb and induce a roll but that's true with a lot of vehicles. The tires wills start singing to you in hard cornering long before you're even close to flipping it. The 4runner suspension is going to be softer than a cross over SUV (Jeep GC) because it's meant for off road not trips to Target.

Subaru Outback?

Yes, I've driven rear wheel drive cars with summer tires in all sort of conditions and learned that the proper tires do help, but snowmaggeddon was something else. The problem was that the weather report was wrong AND it was a really heavy snow event. I think that by the time it was done, we had well over 20 inches.

To this day, I'm still trying to figure out what those people were thinking abandoning their cars on the parkway. Where did they go? How did they et there? I drove that parkway a couple of days later an there were still abandoned cars.

Yes, the LC is interesting, but is it worth 30 large more than the 4R - and 15 more than the GX?

It ended up with over 28 inches. Because I sent my team home early, they all got home before it got to the 6 inch mark.

Later that day, the only thing moving outside was the honor guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier

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OK, so you are trying to be helpful and if it was just the NM trips then I would agree wholeheartedly, but my big concern is that infamous call at 2am.

I'm actually contemplating trading my TSX for an E class and looking for a CPO. You're right, they are stupid cheap - but that won't replace my need for a 4R/GC/GX - maybe a used LC.

I don't think I said anything about the 4R tipping over or uncomfortable - didn't I say it had some nose dive?

And yes, BMWs are crap. I will never buy another BMW outside of Germany (well, maybe Austria) - for high pressure fuel pumps were enough for me....