It absolutely is and I get it. My point was that Toyota got their V6 above where it needed to be competitive to the market in 2010 with HP numbers higher than the previous V8, so they just wrote off the V8 and called it a day. Hell, in 2010 Jeeps 3.8l and 3.7l had 205-210 severely underpowered HP and were unreliable trash. Jeep had the 4.7L still for 2010, but those numbers were similar to our previous V8 and separated their awful V6s from the Hemi. That would mean Toyota would have needed to put in the 5.7L in the 4R to compete there with those HP numbers. At 270HP the 4R looked very promising for a V6 SUV, so that was the only option they decided to give as it was right in the middle range of it's class at the time. I'm sure emissions and mpg regs helped with Toyota's decision to drop the V8 too. Maybe they wanted to keep the GX more separate from the 4R and not pull sales from the Lexus. I don't know. Could totally be wrong for the reasons, but that's my thought on it.

The difference later is that other companies upped their games with newer transmissions to help with the mpg and advance the power game where as Toyota did not. The 5th gen got a refresh in 2014 just like the Jeep GC, but they got powertrain improvements and we didn't even though Toyota I'm sure could have.

Interesting because I actually love the vehicle I bought, instead of whining online about what I wish it had? Lol yeah sure, I guess..

Never had manual windows, sunroofs, or mirrors, but yeah, I definitely miss them so much... Spot on, Mr. Bronson.

That actually is pretty sharp looking, and $28.3K MSRP?! I bet one with low miles would get about 40 with today's market.

We love the 4Runner too, but aren't so blind to point out it's very obvious faults. Relying solely on it's stellar reliability as a major selling point can only take the 4Runner so far. Oddly, our 2 year old 4Runner has been less reliable than my 6 y/or BMW M235. The 4Runner was out of service for repairs for approximately 3 weeks and has required $2,500 in warranty work whereas the BMW had no warranty work in 4 years under it's warranty period and I've only spent $800 in maintenance/service items for it in 6 years. Our 2015 Outback 3.6R (owned since new) has never had warranty work either and neither did my 2012 WRX (owned for 4 years) Our Toyota service/warranty experience has been dismal as well. Experiences at BMW and Subaru have been great. Hopefully our 4Runner's issues were just a fluke.

You must be an old soul then because I assumed you were a 60+ y/o "get off my lawn" type. I've owned cars with manual windows, sunroofs, or mirrors and no ABS. It sucked. Reliable technological progress is nice.

But didn't the 4Rs also gain like 500lbs going from the 4the Gen to the 5th Gen? Don't know much about if that's a big deal in P/W ratio.

Looks like 250-300 as per The Google. Again, I'm only speculating as to why they might have dropped the V8. I don't know the exact reason.

Your experience of BMW v Toyota reliability is atypical.