I bought a 2021 Toyota 4Runner!

This is a

2021

Toyota

4runner

and what makes it so special is mine. In this video I'll tell you why I chose this particular model compared to the competition and then we'll put it to the test with a challenging off-road exercise at our new test location that's popping up right now on driving sports TV when you talk about precursors, the differences between the models are quite wide, there is everything from the sr5, which is the entry level that has two and four wheel drive options, to the limited one that has permanent all-wheel drive in addition to a low range is like a small land cruiser well the model i chose is the trd off road and the reason i chose this one is all the trd models have mts and crawl control those are the most advanced off road systems you can get in a precursor and that's something that I really wanted to because I want to make videos about that setup and I can think of what better way than to buy a good one.

I made a point of purchasing through Autonation because they are a long time corporate customer, they did not pay to be in this video nor did I get a discount from Autonation or Toyota. I

bought

this at msrp fresh off the truck, as did you, we'll get to the price. a bit, when the vehicle was ready, my wife chauffeured me to Spokane, I signed the papers and drove it home, so what exactly do I have here? This is a

2021

toyota

4runner

trd off-road premium in magnetic gray metallic for 2021, all four runners were. Updated with brighter LED headlights and fog lights.

I didn't go with the regular trd skid plate since the 4runner already comes with basic underbody protection and I still want to investigate some third party options here, but I did go with a sunroof. Prices can be seen here. $44,105 including delivery Under the hood of the four-runner is a time-tested 4-liter V6, it's good for 270 horsepower and 278 pound-feet of torque, this one came with an all-wheel drive system Part-time wheels with A-TRAC MTS crawl control and a locking rear differential. I did not opt ​​for the special KDSS suspension system that is available as an option on this model.

This one has a standard, run-of-the-mill 4runner suspension. EPA economy rates of 19 on the highway and 16 in the city a trailer hitch receiver with hookups is standard on all four runners maximum capacity is 5,000 pounds the rear door is not powered but the locks allow proximity access to the interior There is a generous 47.2 cubic feet of cargo area with all seats up with the second row folded which expands to 89.7 cubic feet. One cool feature of the way the seats fold forward is that it prevents cargo from sliding around. the driver in case of a panic stop in the rear there is an AC outlet so I can also charge the equipment in the field to a DC port, since my children are now teenagers, they will appreciate the extra space in the second row compared to my wife's crosstrek sport.

When we take longer road trips, there are a couple of USB ports back here, but no seat warmers are available. It's up front where the differences between the lower and premium models really start to stand out recently. We had a review of the trail edition and that is based on just the sr5 which is the entry level model and the difference between that and one of the premium models is substantial in the first place. I actually have a push button start here instead of needing to use a key like on the sr5. The fact that any vehicle still uses a key amazes me in 2021.

Plus, we have this really nice decorative inlay with a pseudo carbon fiber look and then. We have these seats that are actually more comfortable than the trail edition and SR5. Interestingly, depending on the trim level, you have a different way of activating the low-range gear. This one has a lever. All trds do the same thing. Other models have a large dial. I love the lever? No really, I would have been fine with the dial but this is what it has so I'm going to live with it, I think for a normal buyer, someone who isn't like you, meets someone tough. -The road has to go get it, the dial is the best option because they just want to be able to shift without having to, you know, physically they feel like they are moving gears, the upgrades here are substantial, especially when you get in and out. a vehicle all day or driving across the country it's the little things inside the cabin that make life with the vehicle so much better if I'm reviewing a vehicle that's one thing but if I have something I I want to be comfortable and this is comfortable it has all the amenities I want and nothing I really don't need now there is one option on this vehicle and it is the sunroof if I was only buying this for myself and not for show I probably wouldn't have gone for a sunroof which I don't particularly like nor would I have used sunroofs every day, however for filming it's much easier to put cameras in them and if necessary we can stand up and point to shoot so I'm not going to do that.

I use it a lot, but when we need it it is very useful to have it, so I chose that option. They now have two different sunroof packages. They only have the sunroof or the sunroof with the sliding tray in the back, it consumes too much. space back there for the benefit it gives me so I opted for just a trayless sunroof more than that this is a bone premium off roader and you know what I love it I really love it it's the most modern. No, definitely not, but it's old enough to be reliable, fun and capable, but new enough to have Apple Carplay.

Sure it's not the most attractive thing, but it's there and it gives me the functionality I need in terms. Active safety this has everything I want and nothing I don't it has collision mitigation for those times when you might be caught off guard unless once it's worth it it also has adaptive cruise control which is really good for interstate driving and lane detection it's there, it came with adaptive cruise control, I'm fine with that, but yeah, no blind spot warning, I don't care, I used my head, I was raised not to have that, so I'm used to it, a new driver might want that and that's fine, it's just not something I want in my car's gauge cluster, traditional dials with a small screen that gives me all the information, I don't particularly like the way they integrate their screen, it has a lot of windows and stuff. which appear at annoying times that obscure other information you might be seeing, so it's not great that way, but all the information I need is there and I'm here to drive, I'm not here to look at my screen. and of course it has a rear locking differential because it's a TRD model, they just get it.

That being said, let's get this out there and have some fun and see what it can do. Now I understand why I chose this particular 4runner compared to other 4runners. However, you may be wondering why I chose a 4runner in the first place. I had some criteria that I set and all roads led to this. I didn't want to spend more than 50,000, I just didn't think it was necessary. buy a mercedes amg gle which is a bit of a ridiculous car and although I love it, it's not something I really want to take to the mountains as a work vehicle and that brings me to the second point: this was going to be a work vehicle either in front of the camera or if you're working behind the scenes, I needed something that was flexible and capable enough to get where we needed it and I also needed something that was mainstream enough to be relevant to viewers.

I wanted something that could be used as a kind of benchmark, since any future overlanding or off-road vehicle would have to be better than any vehicle I

bought

because progress would have to move forward, so the short list contained a lot of you know , really obvious choices: there's the Subaru Outback Onyx. xt which I have had for a full year, I love that vehicle but we bought my wife a crosstrek sport last year and I didn't think she needed two Subarus necessarily and yes I know I need to do some more videos with it and I have been so busy with new cars with limited deadlines that i have had trouble scheduling that one but i will, next thing that was on my radar was the chevy colorado bison, i love that we reviewed about a year ago, maybe a little more than that and it was so capable, so comfortable, looks great from the factory, I really can't think of anything I don't like about the bison, it was close enough to 50 grand that I could do it.

I've justified it, but at the end of the day I decided I didn't want a truck. I wanted an SUV that I could put the camera equipment in and feel like I was reasonably safe in the location. One vehicle on my short list that might surprise you is the new bronco sport the real bronco is still a year away if you don't have a preorder I don't have a preorder and I needed to film things this year so I looked at the broncos sport I actually went to the dealership that is near my office because they bought one of the Badlands editions which is the Overlanding model and man it drives like a Focus, yes it has recovery hooks, yes it has kind of an off road look, but when you really get into the way it drives, the way it handles, it feels like a focus and I'm looking forward to a larger review, like taking it off-road and seeing how well that system works on more challenging situations. but on my test drive around town it just didn't impress me, it wasn't something I wanted to drive for the rest of the year, in my mind I thought: is this better than a precursor to what I want to do?

The easy answer was no, I also considered a jeep or jeep gladiator. We have a whole video about that where we took a Rubicon Gladiator and a 4runner Trail Edition into the mountains, but again it came down to just not wanting a truck and the long range ride quality of a Jeep just isn't as good. like that of a precursor. In the end I ended up choosing the precursor. It is an old vehicle that has many new things and is very well modernized. The screen is excellent. All terrain. The equipment is excellent and when you compare new to used in a precursor, it really makes sense to buy new, at least in the Pacific Northwest.

I was looking online and found five year old models with 60-80,000 miles on them cost 10 grand less than new and when you buy new you get adaptive cruise control which was added two years ago, you also get the bigger screen with Apple Carplay and you get the LED headlights that were just added for 2021 so all in all I got this vehicle now you're wondering why I didn't get a trd pro. I didn't want a trd pro and the reason is that they always put trd pros in the press fleets. I can usually get a trd pro if I want one to shoot the premium off road which is the more conventional version of the vehicle, like this one it is a very popular equipment package on a very popular platform with the suspension that is the same as the one obtained in the other four corridors.

This is the most popular best 4runner you can get and that is why I chose this one. Now we are going to the mountains and I have a new location that I want to show and we are going to test this 4runner, so it is new. New vehicle year and new filming location, so entering this location is a challenge. Typical crossovers with a transversely mounted engine probably won't be able to make it this far simply because the access road is too challenging and has too many back and forths. which are quite deep and require ground clearance now luckily this precursor has 9.6 inches of ground clearance and right now I'm trying to get in with two wheel drive and I'm not getting there try again it's ok you'll notice that way .

I haven't switched to four-wheel drive yet, although I clearly should, so let's put the stick down and now it's no big deal, well, here we have all the different courses we need to test advanced off-road machines like this. I tell you what we have here: there are approximately eight different short courses with a wide variation in obstacles and surfaces including mud, rock and dirt. In the coming months we will try different courses with a variety of vehicles, but as much as possible. I'm sure many viewers would like to see us drive a hyundai kona around here.

This location will be limited to more extreme off-roading. Standard crossovers will continue to be tested on the rock trail. We are not going to do all the options today. We're going to start with just a couple to have some fun with this vehicle, then we'll be bringing in other vehicles in the next few weeks, so I'm not doing this just for fun, I'm also doing it to test out this new location. to see how suitable it is for various vehicles because if the predecessor has trouble getting up then I know it isPretty extreme and I'm running all season radials right now these are literally the ones that came with the vehicle a few hundred miles ago and uh yeah. let's do this one here oh, that's a pretty deep hole to prepare the vehicle.

I'm going to put it in neutral. Change it to four low, which simply slides in and turns off the traction control. I'm going to go and turn on the tracks because they don't come with a front locking differential which is kind of a reasonable facsimile. However, it does have a rear locker in case you need it. All four racers come with basic underbody armor, so that's a win, let's see how this works. Have I not inflated the tires? I did nothing. This is how you get it from the lot. It is important to note that this obstacle was overcome with only four bass and one track enabled, which is standard equipment on all four wheels.

Drive 4Runner Every time you engage four-wheel drive in a 4Runner that locks the center differential that splits power 50 50 front to rear on a track and then manages the available power by applying brakes to the individual wheels that lose traction. You can see it in action in this slow motion view every time the wheel stops the energy is transferred to the opposite wheel yes I'm not taking the crosstrek there no definitely not although it's true that crossovers like the subaru crosstrek have adopted a similar braking torque vectoring system in recent years, in my experience the a-track is much more aggressive and because it is an off-road trd it also has the multi-terrain select system which takes the functionality a- track and adjust it for even more challenging and specific situations that we will play with in future videos, specifically, you will want to check out the upcoming Lexus LX 570 review where the 4runner will make a cameo.

I think it's a very good introduction to our new test location and a better introduction to our new 2021 Toyota 4Runner TRD off-road premium. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more with this in the coming months to host sports television I'm Ryan Douthit , thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe, leave a comment, hey, tell us what we should call this new off-road testing area. I was thinking maybe Power Line Park or maybe really tough hills or not. I don't know, you came up with a name, he posts a comment below, we'll see you back here next week.