Thanks for all of the replies. I think I posted this in the other thread, but my wife and I took a closer look at several SUVs (and test drove two) at a CarMax a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, they didn't have any 4Runners, so that was going to be next. We test drove an '07 FJ Cruiser and an '08 (I think) Toyota Highlander. I was expecting my wife to prefer the Highlander, but she surprised me and liked how the FJ made her feel like she was driving something indestructible. I love the look of the FJ, but I'm worried that it is a bit too impractical and know that we'd never be doing any serious offroading with it. We just got back from a week vacation, so hopefully we'll get to test drive a 4Runner this week.
One dilemma I'm having now is whether to treat it as being *her* new car replacement, or mine. Right now we have an '07 Mazda CX-7 (which she drives to work and I drive when we're driving with the three of us or I need to carry around extra stuff) and an '02 Lexus SC430 which I drive most of the time, and she occasionally drives for fun. I'd honestly like to get rid of both of our vehicles. We live in CT and the SC430 is tricky in the winter. The CX-7 has a turbo 4-cyl which I don't love, needs premium gas and only gets about 21mpg, and doesn't have the torque to tow anything (hence the recent interest in a 4Runner). While at CarMax, we had them give us a price on our CX-7 and they came back at $10k (meanwhile they had a couple of the same make/model/year/mileage that they were selling for about $15,500).
Part of me is thinking about trying to sell both of our cars and replacing them with a 4Runner and something that gets super-high-MPG (e.g., a Prius). Then I could really splurge (in terms of not worrying so much about the less-than-stellar MPG) and get the V8 4Runner. But the thought of going through the stress of buying two cars and selling two cars sure doesn't sound appealing. My wife likes driving the SC430 in the summer with the top down and my brother thinks I'm crazy for wanting to sell it. It's paid off, has about 99k miles, and could probably go another 100k miles. If I had a 3-car garage, I'd think seriously about keeping it and buying an older Prius or something. In CT (and my town, in particular) they hit us pretty hard on annual property taxes, so I also hate to own three cars and give the town any more of my money.
Anyways, sorry for the off-topic rant. In any case, I'm thinking that if I can score a lower-priced 4Runner (under $13k), I might go ahead and buy it without trading in one of our current cars, and then try to sell one of the cars by way of a local used car dealer that might be willing to sell it for a cut.
