Hi folks!!
Newbie here. Not new to Toyota, driving Tacoma's & 4Runners for a while. This looks like a great place with a plethora of information and ideas on these great trucks.
I have a question that is just burning me. I bought my wife a new 2014 4Runner SR5 Premium. Dark Blue....

Anyhow, I am alarmed by the recovery rate on the factory shocks. I took it to a dealer this afternoon, they of course racked it up and looked over everything. Then they drove it, compared it to others on their lot, and came back with the old "normal" thing. Sorry, but the recovery rate on these shocks is appalling. Damn thing bounces up and down four or five times before it can recover fully. Front end nose dives in braking, hard braking must be avoided altogether - hoping I never have to actually do that.
The thing just wobbles like a shrimp trawler. I took a look at the front end tonight for the hell of it over at my buddy's house. He's got two late model 4Runners in his garage and he's a master mechanic. He looked at the front end and noticed that the springs are larger than on his, but then again, the 2014 gains a hefty 1000 + lbs over the prior model. Our collective guess is that they stuck with the same stock shocks as previous models, and yes - the recovery rate is very alarming. Originally, even he thought I was over exaggerating the whole thing until he went for a ride. It is a high sitting SUV that has a lot of weight (over 6000 lbs) to haul around empty. He was surprised at the nose dive on braking and the 4.5 bounces counted before that thing stopped. Was even better at night - you could see the headlights bouncing up and down repeatedly well after stopped. Not the springs, they are quite large, has got to be the cheap shocks they threw on these to save a couple dollars on each unit.
Ok, question, is anyone else experiencing this? And if so, have you had any success at the dealership with shock replacement? Sorry, turning into a three question quiz...... A am interested in something like CaveTroll did as a fix, if this is what he experienced. I was already playing around at the Bilstein website looking for replacements. Found 24-187541 Front & 24-187558 Rear.
My thoughts are it's too damn new for Toyota to want to do anything about it until they get a few thousand complaints. There's no TSB on it, and there are not enough of them out on the road yet that may have been brought back in for this issue.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.....