4th Gen better than 5th according to Consumer Reports

Toyota blew it with this one!!

I agree with the report. I drove a 2011 4runner yesterday and was really disappointed. Just didn't feel right. The overall style is terrible with bulging lights and squared off features.

I am in the market for another vehicle and still own my 93 & 07 4Runners and wanted to keep the trend going. I'm sorry, it just doesn't do it for me and I'm probably going with a 2011 Tacoma, 70% made in USA, assembled in TX. Plan B is to find another 07/08

Sorry, 5th Gen owners but They look and feel totally different, and not in a good way! Toyota blew it with this one!!
 
I'm not happy with the decontenting on the 08 so forget it for an 11. My kids rav4 has more built in options than my 4r :gun5:

BTW, I will never buy any vehicle that doesn't have a locking fuel door.
 
KB084RUNNER said:
I'm not happy with the decontenting on the 08 so forget it for an 11. My kids rav4 has more built in options than my 4r :gun5:

BTW, I will never buy any vehicle that doesn't have a locking fuel door.
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Completely with you on that one, my Xterra didnt have a locking fuel door, and that $12 Auto Zone Loccking Gas Cap was a pain in the A$$.
 
I bought an '09 sport with 18K on the clock. I had a choice of buying a 2010 SR5 - same color with 5k on the clock for the same price - we went with the '09 for most of the reasons already stated in these threads. So far I'm happy.
Btw, the dealership I bought it from gives a LIFETIME power train warranty on the vehicles you buy from them. I guess my wheels will never fall off - so I suppose that means I can drive it until we are out of gas! (which hopefully will be a long time from now):biggrin2:
HP
 
I "stole" a 2009 4th Gen runner about 6 months ago. As is most often my habit, I had thought of driving it about 3 years, usually until the miles are about 80-85K, and then selling it and then was going to buy a say 2 year old 5th Gen runner with about 30K. Rinse, repeat.

However, before I ever bought the 4th Gen, we rented a 5th Gen, and drove it for a weekend trip. I don't mind the looks of the 5th Gen, and I actually felt it drove OK (this was before I had bought the 4th Gen, and was still driving a Highlander, so didn't yet have experience with a 4th Gen), but the fit and finish were not up to the standard in my Highlander. And when I went to fill the gas tank, I looked for the release for a long time, then finally figured out there wasn't one! The jerks deleted the remote release. I wasn't at all happy about that.

Then I found out about all the other long list of deletes on the 5th Gen from the 4th Gen, and bottom line, I have decided to keep my 2009 for quite a few years, and run the miles up to say 150K minimum, then we'll see from there, maybe quite a bit more, if it's still as solid and reliable as I expect.

I understand it's business -- that Toyota is deleting things on the runner to keep the price down, due to the rising yen. But don't they realize that Toyota owners are mostly repeat owners, so pay a lot of attention? I think they are going to lose a lot of business over this long term. I mean, I'm an example. I wouldn't have moved up to a new 5th Gen, but would have bought a late model one in about 2 years, but now, no way. So lots of folks doing that will soften the resale of the 5th Gen, and hurt the rep of the runner, which hurts sales of the new models.
 
I am certainly not interested in the 5th gen. The only one I have seen that I liked are the pearl white color ones. But I am a little preturbed at Toyota right now. I had the infamous seat issue and had to replace my seat frame. The part cost was a little over 500.00 plus 200.00 to install. And I also have the infamous rattle in the sunroof. I have tried the TSB fix for it, but that isn't what is causing my rattle. It's the glass. The rail has some slack in it and I can push up on the glass a little. I can see where the problem is, but don't see a way to fix it without replacing the frame assembly. I am not going to that expense.

I am not sure what vehicle I would buy in place of this because I like the 4runner, but I am not happy with Toyota's attitude about fixing design issues. The seat frame issue is still showing up on newer 4runner, meaning they haven't fixed it yet, and the sunroof needs to be redesigned. I feel like Toyota is using their previous quality reputation as an excuse to not address some problems.

It just seems that when Toyota has a problem with something, they are TOO slow at finding a resolution. I think this is now well documented with the gas pedal problem. I still am not sure which story to believe on whether this was driver error, or mechanical/electrical issues. And I think the reason I can't decide for myself is my lost trust in Toyota in general.
 
RickC said:
... I feel like Toyota is using their previous quality reputation as an excuse to not address some problems.

It just seems that when Toyota has a problem with something, they are TOO slow at finding a resolution. I think this is now well documented with the gas pedal problem. I still am not sure which story to believe on whether this was driver error, or mechanical/electrical issues. And I think the reason I can't decide for myself is my lost trust in Toyota in general.
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Agree. I lived in Japan many, many years ago and learned the Japanese loathe losing face. Family honor is everything. They are wonderful is so many other ways, but very slow to admit making mistakes. To that end they do all they can to prevent errors, and are basically pretty successful in their quality ratings, but when an error is found it can take forever to get it fixed.
 
To be fair to the 5th Gen, I think if Consumer reports were to do a review on the 4th Gen now, they would probably come down as hard on the 4th Gen as they did on the 5th Gen. The 4Runner really is now in pretty much a class of its own as a BOF SUV and any comparison review has only the CUVs to compare to now, which means it gets dinged on handling etc etc.
 
DaveS said:
To be fair to the 5th Gen, I think if Consumer reports were to do a review on the 4th Gen now, they would probably come down as hard on the 4th Gen as they did on the 5th Gen. The 4Runner really is now in pretty much a class of its own as a BOF SUV and any comparison review has only the CUVs to compare to now, which means it gets dinged on handling etc etc.
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Even though that's purely hypothetical, I still disagree. They wouldn't criticize the 4WD system or the engine noise. The handling and brake dive are partially due to increased height -- a feature to many but a bug to CU. Driving postition and fit and finish are both fairly timeless so presumably those criticisms would still be absent.

That said, I still don't know why anyone cares what CU concludes about the current 4runner. Consider and investigate the specific points and then apply to personal wants and needs.

But we know most auto consumers buy vehicles on image so I guess the CU conclusion offends that.
 
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