Anyone have trouble getting their 4Runner in the garage?

P

Pdog

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My wife and I are planning on purchasing a 4Runner soon, but my concern is the width of the vehicle. Mind you that my wife will be driving the truck and pulling in and out of the garage, so keep that in mind. :D Our garage has an opening of 106". I see from Toyota's website that the width is approx 74". That seems like plenty of room, but I do not believe the 74" takes into account the side mirrors.

I may be wrong, but does anyone else have trouble getting their truck in/out of the garage?

Thx
 
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I don't put my truck in the garage but my wife took out the mirror on our Sienna the other day on our garage door.

:mad:
 
Just do what I did, measure the minium amount of clearance: width, length, and height. Then when shopping, measure the truck from the points that stick out the most. As far as the mirror goes, you can always fold in the driver side mirror, which then gives you a few extra inches. You could do that on the passenger side, but unless you have a passenger there doing it for you, I doubt you want to reach over, or run around to do it everytime.
 
Iman sounds good but hindsight is 20/20. I can tell that even now she is not going to fold in / fold out the mirror every time so I'm not going to even bother trying to insist on her doing it. btw I got 9' doors when I built my house precisely to try to avoid this, oh well.

I DO think she will be more careful now that we have to shell out $180 for her mistake.

I forget what it is but there is a funny wife saying about the wall in between the two garage doors. Has to do with how they are always hitting it. I'll post if I remember it.
 
Pdog said:
My wife and I are planning on purchasing a 4Runner soon, but my concern is the width of the vehicle. Mind you that my wife will be driving the truck and pulling in and out of the garage, so keep that in mind. :D Our garage has an opening of 106". I see from Toyota's website that the width is approx 74". That seems like plenty of room, but I do not believe the 74" takes into account the side mirrors.

I may be wrong, but does anyone else have trouble getting their truck in/out of the garage?

Thx
Click to expand...

i would just tell the dealer you have this concern and they should let you take one home and try it out, especially if it means they will make a sale.
 
Re: Re: Anyone have trouble getting their 4Runner in the garage?

momo.75 said:
i would just tell the dealer you have this concern and they should let you take one home and try it out, especially if it means they will make a sale.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did when I was shopping - in fact the dealer suggested it (helped that it was a slow day for them). Physically driving the car into your garage is the best way to check the fit, how much room you'll have for opening the doors to get out, and whether or not you can open the rear hatch without smacking into the bottom of the garage door.
 
Re: Re: Re: Anyone have trouble getting their 4Runner in the garage?

crmartin9 said:
... whether or not you can open the rear hatch without smacking into the bottom of the garage door.
Click to expand...

Speaking of that. If I want to open my rear hatch, I have to pull in farther than normal and I have plenty of room. I have put down those small parking blocks on both sides of the garage (one for me and one for the wife) so we always park in the same spot. Anyway, my neighbor and I had run to Home Depot and before I could say anything, he had gotten out and opened the hatch without holding the handle.........THUD!! It hit the bottom of the garage door. It made two little chips in the paint. Sometimes if there is something small in the balc, I will open it and just hold the strap....I should have warned him.:arrow:
 
Momo what kind of parking block do you use? I was going to rig up a tennis ball on a string from the ceiling to hit the top of the windshield when the van is pulled in to the right spot.
 
Easy to park.

I park my 4Runner in a fairly small parking strycture and have found that it is as easy to park as my Camry.
 
I had to clean out my garage before I bought my 4Runner. I just took the measurements from the brochure and made sure I had more than a few inches to spare. I added a about a foot to the width since I couldn't tell if they included the mirrors or not.

Definately watch for the hatch clearance. I didn't realize it how high the door lifted until I got it home. Thankfully it clears my door with about an inch to spare.
 
toybox said:
Momo what kind of parking block do you use? I was going to rig up a tennis ball on a string from the ceiling to hit the top of the windshield when the van is pulled in to the right spot.
Click to expand...

http://www.griotsgarage.com/catalog.jsp?&SKU=77041

I bought the pair and put one on my side and one on my wife's side. I just had her pull in the garage to the point where she had enough room to get in her trunk, then put her's down. Where I put mine leaves me about 6 inches behind my truck, but I really never have ot get in the back. I mainly got 'em so I would have plenty of room in front of the cars to mess around. With these blocks, I am assured to have at least 5 feet. Before I put my wife's down, she wasn't consistant, si never knew how much room I would have.

Just pull you van in where you want it, push te block up against the tire and mark it, then clean that area, peel and stick. I think they are well worth it.

I also put these bumpers on the wall, on my wife's side, because she was tearing up the sheet rock with her door. I had one left over so i put it on my side, just in case I opened my door that wide, to protect the door. I can't remember where I bought mine but they are just like these.

http://closet-masters.com/Garage_storage/Tools_racks/door_guard.asp
 
A cheaper way is hanging a tennis ball off the ceiling. Once you have it exactly where you want it, all the driver needs to do is stop the car as soon as the ball touches the windshield.
 
Thank you everyone. I didn't even think of the rear door. I was too concerned about coming out one day and seeing my wife ripping a mirror off the side. We are going on Saturday to look at the 4Runners. I will make sure I bring a tape measure to get an idea how much extra to add for the side mirrors.
 
I have standard width garage doors and don't have any problems backing in. I have noticed that the 4Runner just seems a lot wider than my old Explorer and that I don't have as much clearance, even though it is really only about 1-1/2 inches wider. I think the issue is that the 4Runner mirrors are a lot larger than the Explorer mirrors.
 
Broken Mirror vs. Damaged paint job

Want to keep your SUV in good shape? Don't let your other half drive it! At least your repair can be fixed w/ a simple part swap. My gf decided to close the garage door from the wall mounted switch w/o first checking to see if I had lowered the lift gate after a trip to the grocery store less than two weeks after I got it. Fortunately a place called "AeroColours" was able to do an airbrush repair ($40) and I camoflaged the scratch with some small pinstriping ($5) around the license plate area. (the scratch was on the creased area near the plate)

As for parking, I bought one of these laser parking aides that put a red dot on the dash -- I can park in the same spot every time:
I got mine at Target on clearance, but here's a pic/source:

http://www.codymercantile.com/item-detail.cfm?ID=5189&storeid=1&Cat_Display=static
 
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