Hood Flex

P

philo

New member
I'm going to purchase a Trail Edition shortly (negotiating the right deal is proving to take longer than I expected). I just ran across some reviews/comments about the hood flexing. I probably won't be able to reproduce this during the test drive since I won't be able to get on the highway to get to the 65-70MPH needed to see it. How bad is the flex? What does it look like? Will the hood look like corrugated card board after a few years? Should I be concerned?

Thanks!
 
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The hood flex is noticeable if you're looking for it. My wife's LR4 also does it and her previous Audi did it as well as my Jeep. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Scott
 
There shouldn't be any reason you can't take a test drive on the freeway... how are you supposed to justify buying a vehicle based on parking lot driving alone?

I don't even notice the flex unless I'm looking for it, so it's not anything I'm too worried about right now. Maybe the trails are doing it worse due to the hood scoop catching more wind resistance...
 
Mine just vibrates a lot. I can see it moving up and down about 3/8" sometimes, just in the flat spots in the rear corners of the hood scoop. My Tacoma Sport's hood did the same thing, at exactly the same spots. It's much worse on washboard but still not enough to damage anything. These hoods are basically meant to fold up in a frontal crash, so that's probably why there is not much reinforcement at this area.
 
Yeah I would not have noticed it really if I was not looking for it. Slight vibration at highway speeds. I would not be concerned about it.

Yeah and why the heck can't you take the truck on the highway during your test drive?
 
Thanks everyone for the reply. Sorry, I didn't word my entry very well. The test drives are relatively short including the on highway test drive. I didn't think I would either get to a speed to really see it or it would be too short a drive to really evaluate the hood flex. In any case, I appreciate everyone's thoughts.
 
Get it to 88 mph and see if yours came with a Flux Capacitor!

Sorry, as soon as I saw the post right above this morning, this is the first thought that came to mind.
 
OK, does anyone with a 'hood deflector/shield' installed on their LE's, SR5's, or TE's experience the same problem...hood flutter/vibration at speed?

Mike :artist2:
 
In a head wind you will only need to get it to 58 while in a tail wind you have to get up all the way to 64.5. That's assuming you are at 1100 feet in elevation. For every 234 ft you will have to adjust your numbers by a coefficient of 2.890767.

You can download the hood flexing app to make it easier!:nerd:
 
philo said:
Thanks everyone for the reply. Sorry, I didn't word my entry very well. The test drives are relatively short including the on highway test drive. I didn't think I would either get to a speed to really see it or it would be too short a drive to really evaluate the hood flex. In any case, I appreciate everyone's thoughts.
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:wtf: My dealer allowed me to take one home for two full days with nothing more than my signature and a copy of my DL, and then they gave me a CPO Tundra for three weeks to drive while I was waiting for my 4runner to get here from the port because I told them I needed to tow a utility trailer at least five or six times during that period. I was no special friend of anybody there or anything like that. If a dealer won't let you take the vehicle home at least for the day, I would find another place to buy my vehicle.

I don't ever notice any hood flex, but I am sure it probably does it...I probably just don't tune into it enough to notice.
 
I notice the hood flex a bit more on this 5th gen then I did with my 4th gen. Its not enough to bother me tho. It's a truck! :)
 
Snooperstyle said:
:wtf: My dealer allowed me to take one home for two full days with nothing more than my signature and a copy of my DL...
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All depends where you live! After we moved I took my wife car shopping as she needed something with 4wd. The dealers we went to just copied our license and said you can test drive it or keep it for the day, whatever we wanted to. She was so stunned! Every place she had gone to in the previous state had always had a sale rep with you, you could not even drive it off the lot, they had to, then switch. Don't know if state laws vary.
 
My friend bought his used 07 4Runner at Toyota of Escondido, then I bought my new 2008 Tacoma shortly after, both from the same guy. A few months later my mom wanted to test drive a Prius just for fun, we stopped by and the guy was busy so He grabbed the keys, the dealer plates and handed them over. We were gone for about an hour. Came back, parked it, a different guy came to us and was a little stunned, we told him what the deal was and he was like OK. We wanted to test drive a Corolla next, so the new guy figured WTH and grabbed the keys, stuck the dealer plate on rear and gave us the keys. Good Memories!!

But yeah, it all depends on the dealer, the sales guys, etc. Quite a few variables involved, I don't think they would have let me keep a car overnight though. But then again I never asked.
 
westwind77 said:
All depends where you live! After we moved I took my wife car shopping as she needed something with 4wd. The dealers we went to just copied our license and said you can test drive it or keep it for the day, whatever we wanted to. She was so stunned! Every place she had gone to in the previous state had always had a sale rep with you, you could not even drive it off the lot, they had to, then switch. Don't know if state laws vary.
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Yea I hear you on that. FWIW, my dealer is doing quite well, and has a nice new location with a nice new insurance policy so I am told. I also rolled in there with my fancy Audi which just had a fresh detail job and I was wearing business professional attire...probably made them think I would splurge on the Limited...they were right! Ha!
 
iDRiVaT4R said:
My friend bought his used 07 4Runner at Toyota of Escondido, then I bought my new 2008 Tacoma shortly after, both from the same guy. A few months later my mom wanted to test drive a Prius just for fun, we stopped by and the guy was busy so He grabbed the keys, the dealer plates and handed them over. We were gone for about an hour. Came back, parked it, a different guy came to us and was a little stunned, we told him what the deal was and he was like OK. We wanted to test drive a Corolla next, so the new guy figured WTH and grabbed the keys, stuck the dealer plate on rear and gave us the keys. Good Memories!!

But yeah, it all depends on the dealer, the sales guys, etc. Quite a few variables involved, I don't think they would have let me keep a car overnight though. But then again I never asked.
Click to expand...

Funny :-) When I purchased my Maxima back in 01 the dealer gave us the keys for the test drive. We tooled around for about 30-40min or so.

When we came back the dealer was in obvious distress… He was shocked that we would have taken the car for such a long test drive and thought we may have stolen it!? I was like what the hell is wrong with you. It’s a ton of money and I will be damned if I make my decision from a 5min drive… We bought from a different dealer.
 
Is this thread about hood flex or dealer experiences?

Eh, either way....
When I was test driving cars I spent about 45 mins driving the runner with the saleman. I liked it just for the way it felt driving down the road and was having a good time. Then we found some union group meeting hall which had a small hill, roughed up terrain (they were moving dirt around, landscaping I guess) and some snow. We drove right up the hill and around their yard for 10 or 15 minutes before heading back. Definitely the most fun I've had at the dealer.

I've never seen my hood flexing like so many others. Been through the automatic car wash a couple times, didn't see it. Drove into some gusting 65mph headwinds on the highway, didn't see it.
 
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