Looking to buy

looking to buy a 4-runner 2012. Any problems and what do you like about them?

 

There is a 4-runner part here. I am keeping my taco.

 

I traded in my 2009 Tacoma double cab trd on Dec 10th 2011 for a 2012 4runner Limited. I couldn't be happier with the 4runner. The trade in was based solely on the fact that with our growing family (2 year old and 6 month old) that the Tacoma wouldn't work for us.

The problem with the Tacoma was the back seats aren't quite big enough. With one forward facing car seat behind the passenger and a rear facing in the middle it worked. When the time comes to turn the 2nd carseat forward facing we'd have to push the driver seat forward 3 inches. This would render the vehicle undrivable.

We have a 17ft travel trailer that we tow as well. We do miss the Tacoma for its storage capabilties (we had a canopy) This allowed us to take anything we could ever want. This also allowed us to take way more stuff than we ever needed which is a minus sometime.

The 4runner back seats are quite large and we opted for the 3rd row (you don't have a choice in Canada, you want the limited you get the 3rd row.) both car seats fit with tons of room now, the 3rd row seats work pretty well. I'm 5"10 230lbs and I sat in the 3rd row for about 30 mins on a shopping trip just for the fun of it. I wouldn't want to spend hours in the seats, but for shorter kids and emergency 7 passenger use, they work.

Gas mileage has been on par with the Tacoma (we've only put on 6200km yet) Power wise the 4runner feels a little soft down low, but the consensus is that Toyota programmed the throttle like that for better gas mileage. If you step on it the 4runner moves pretty quick.

Overall the 4runner has quite a bit more creature comforts (the limited anyway) The base SR5 is quite similar to a loaded Tacoma.

 

Never heard of any major problems. Probably most new generation problems were fixed by now.

The only 5th gen I'd take is the Trail Edition