In all seriousness my 4R was never that loud till i put off road tires on and my Maxtrax on the roof. Sure its not quiet like my Acura, but its also no 3-4th gen 4Runner noise wise without that stuff.
I Higley doubt they did much of anything to the 21-22 models to make it quieter, it was not a loud vehicle to begin with. Thicker glass? More sound deadening? All welcome improvements but I doubt they would do this now, maybe 6th gen.

In measured db tests, the 4R and GX460 have the same highway noise db. The aerodynamics and sound levels change significantly when you add stuff that causes turbulence - roof racks, lifts (especially "leveling" kits that send a ton more air underneath), tires, sliders, etc. It's easy to forget how quiet they are on stock highway radials when they are new and unmolested.

I know some have the hood inside cover/sound absorbing mat and other don't. I'm not sure what other differences there are between years and production cycles. IIRC all vehicles after sometime around 2019 are required for FMVSS purposes to have laminated side glass. That likely adds sound absorption to the front side windows as well.

I find mine to be very similar in highway noise on street tires with no roof rack to my RX350 in most cases. The place where the 4R is noticeably louder is at higher highway speeds - 80mph plus, and on concrete highways. Concrete highways are just loud AF anyway, but it's a lot worse in the 4R. The RX is obviously a CUV and has more underbody cladding and highway oriented tires that no doubt help a lot. And it has some sort of felt like material on the inside of all of the fender liners that probably is noise absorbing where the 4R has think plastic. I think that area alone would be a good spot to target sound dampening. Probably something as simple as spray on bedliner there would go a long way toward quieting the road noise.

I think it is decently quite depending on if you start adding roof rack, tires, exhaust ect....

Maybe this explains the 50/50 split in the comments between “yeah it’s great!” and “what are you talking about?”


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Safety Glass on all the side windows? Seems like that would open up a whole new safety issue if someone were trapped in the car.

Yes. Laminated side glass is now requirement unless the rule was delayed for covid or something. Keeping passengers inside the car during collisions saves more lives than the added difficulty of exiting through the laminated windows. The rule is FMVSS 226. Sound deadening side glass is basically just laminated side windows and has been used for a long time by some manufacturers mostly in luxury cars. Technically the rule requires ejection mitigation for the entire window area and you could have some other mechanism to do that, but I think practically laminated windows are the functional solution for most cars.

You can read all about the analysis here if you're super bored:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.go...FR_Jan2011.pdf

We just last month took delivery of a '22 TRD Off Road Premium to bookend our '10 Trail first production year 5th generation T4R. Identical drivetrains etc. between the two, and both stock with 265/70-17 C-load BFG All Terrains. What I can emphatically say, is that the NVH package on the '22 is significantly more robust than on the '10. The '22 is much quieter than the '10. I was really taken aback by how much quieter the '22 is as I was assuming the only difference would be in up to date multi media enhancements having never driven a later model year 5th gen before.

It wasn’t a big enough deal to prevent manufacturers from doing it. My 2004 Dodge Durango has laminated front driver / passenger glass, as does my 2012 Range Rover L322. I actually find it odd that my 4Runner doesn’t.


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Truth!

I don't find our 2020 4Runner ORP to be overly quiet or very refined. It's put together very well and has no rattles after nearly 2 years. If it's not rattling now, then I don't expect to rattle much in the future.

I've had every door card off, the rear hatch cover off, the entire rear cargo floor and rear seats out. There is next to NOTHING in the way of sounding deadening other than some foam blocks and thin foam fabric on the backside of the door card/panels. It is a stark difference from my 2016 BMW M235 which has very heavy rubber foam insulation all over the backside of the interior panels. That car is a quiet bank vault in comparison to the 4Runner. The sheet metal on the BMW is also way thicker.

I also note that the interior volume increased a decent amount on the 4Runner when we traded out the stock all season tires for a set of Nitto all terrain tires (same ones used on the Pro).

The OP has a Nightshade which is equipped with street based all season tires. That certainly makes a difference in terms of tire noise. I have a hard time believing that the Limited and Nightshades come with more sound deadening.

I actually agree; the 4Runner is really quiet for a vehicle at its price point.

But if you want to fix that, throw on some MTs!

I have a 21 TRD Pro and the best thing I ever did for noise is swapping out the TRD exhaust. That made things MUCH quieter.

I will also be adding sound dampening to the rear fenders and both from and rear doors. I am sure that will make a pretty big difference as well. I am curious as to how much improvement I would get from adding some density to the plastic wheel well covers (like bed coating or rubberized undercoating).

Any other thoughts on the best way to reduce road noise inside the cabin. (Keeping my Nitto Ridgegrapplers).

^This. That damn exhaust was "exhausting" on the highway. Huge mistake to have added to our ORP. It only lasted 6 months before we put the stocker back on. Now that $700 exhaust sits in the basement.

With the TRD exhaust, I used 2lb mass loaded vinyl as sound deadening across the whole rear cargo floor and under much of the rear seats. It didn't do much in the way of reducing the resonating/drone of the TRD exhaust. Since that exhaust was so loud on the inside, it wasn't obvious if it cut down on road noise.

It's my understanding that most of the road noise in cars comes from interior fender areas, the firewall, windows (i.e., thickness), and to a smaller extent, the cargo floor if it's an SUV or hatchback. Surprisingly, not a ton of noise comes through the doors themselves on vehicles assuming they have good exterior edge and interior seals which the 4Runner does. Adding deadening to the doors is more helpful with respect to capturing the best audio quality from a speaker.

I find that the wind noise is low, even with the sunroof open. I have a 2007 Volvo XC70 wagon as well, and just opening up the sun shade for the sunroof. Introduce is more wind noise, and having the sunroof open on the highway is almost unbearable.

On the other hand, I feel like an unacceptable level of engine noise makes it into the cabin of the 4R, and I find the 4.0 very unpleasant sounding. In the Volvo, I hear very little mechanical noise from under the hood.

Lol

The 4R has to be the quietest and smoothest vehicle I've owned. Even the TRD exhaust is mild and only becomes noticeable on hills/mountains or when you put the pedal to the floor.

I don't know why they made 1GRE-FE sound like a diesel...but they did. The whole valve train is just noisy.