There's an extremely subtle point where the brakes actually engage during pedal travel on the 4Runners and its easily missed; usually within about 1/4 ~ 1/3 of the pedal depression. I mentioned in another thread that Toyota really shouldn't have made the brake feedback so soft because it throws off a lot of drivers off with how consistent the pedal is. You can literally push the pedal to the floor without feeling any significant change in resistance, but the brakes will engage and even over engage if done quickly (as many 5th gen owners have commented on this forum). This disconnection between pedal engagement, feedback, and brake engagement tends to confuse and disorient many drivers as a result.
Most owners are used to traditional braking systems where pressure built up in the master cylinder is fed back to the driver as a stiffer pedal the farther it is depressed. With the hydraulically assisted systems the way the system is designed and the effectiveness of the hydraulic assistance is so great there is little to no real feedback. This was an issue with the Prius and there was a software update for the 3rd gens to firm up the response of the pedal, because the first 1/3 of travel actually does nothing in terms of engaging the brakes hydraulically ("light braking" in a hybrid is done through the regenerative braking system mainly, after 1/3 pedal travel the brakes operate normally in conjunction). Toyota needs to adjust the programming in the system to allow more back pressure to build up in the master cylinder portion of the system and provide a better simulated feedback in my honest opinion...
But then again, many soccer moms tend to drive our vehicles, so I guess that won't be happening...
