I have experienced many of the same brake problems mentioned. When I first got the 4runner in February, it was just fine. However about 2000 miles, the brakes began to get mushy and variable. I never new when the brakes would engage. At times they did not engage until they were almost at full travel. I finally had an incident when traffic stopped in front of me and I applied the brakes and had none. I veared off the road and pumped the pedal and the brakes came back. I called the dealer and they told me bring in. After I got the courage to try it again, I made it to the dealer safely. Immediately upon my arrival, the service advisor told me that was normal, that the 4 runner had soft, mushy brakes, I became very irritated and demanded they be checked. A Senior Technician checked the brakes and said they were OK now. I asked him what he did and he said to make an emergency stop every now and then and it would reset the ABS brake controller. What he did was to take it up to ca 40 mph and make a hard stop. That works for a while, but they become variable and I didn't know the next time I would have to recycle the brakes until I had a near brake failure again. Like some one said, after getting the car back, it seemed like everything was fixed. I soon learned that not applying the brakes hard would render them soft and would need full pedal depression get a brakes response. I contacted Toyota and also worked with the Dealer Service Manager and talked a district service rep. My 4 runner was tested on a computer with other 4 runners on the lot and found that the brake response was less than others tested. They changed the complete master cyclinder assembly. I have soft brakes now, but they are consistant and responsive. So far the variable brake problem has gone away. I did learn that on some units a compressor can be heard building up pressure in the brake accumlator. That is necessary for the brakes to work. On some units it can be heard when the pedal is depressed.
