Tacoma & 4 Runner sharing same interior

What “car functions” are on the screen that trouble you?

 

They may have a lot of the same components, but if Toyota continues to assemble the 4Runner in Japan, it will make a difference in the quality. People would like to think it won't, but it will.

 

It’s not just the functions, they crowd all of the physical switches into a small row underneath the screen which makes them hard to use.

I drive a lot outside the US and you don’t realize how pointless and distracting all that is until you drive cars without it. And it’s only getting worse.

Cars are much more practical elsewhere.

 

Re: the same interior, I consider it a good thing. In a multicar family it would be nice to hop in between vehicles without remapping the brain. This current version interior is like they reached into mine and said here it is.

 

It’s only been a month or so, but I haven’t found the controls harder to use or more distracting than those in my 99. Ymmv

 

Worse design or placement in automotive history. That truly makes zero sense, and I hope the trend does not continue. The Silverado still has a switch. No idea what the '25 SUV have.

 

Is that the Rangga interior? Toyota please don't name any US vehicles anything like that, I know that trucks has a few other names MV something.

 

Simple, yes. Horrible, also yes. Drove a couple service vans with this setup at my last job and they sucked IMO.

 

This design sounds sooooo familiar...but I can't quite place it...

don't say it moon, don't say it...

I'm not even being facetious; how on earth could this suck from a functional standpoint? Sure, it looks like it's straight out of a '90s Econoline; but clear controls, tactile feedback, can operate blind, with gloves, and with wet or dry hands..

Also - how do you guys with polarized sunglasses like your digital dashes? The center screen on my 3G was all but impossible to see in bright light with mine on, granted it was probably a pretty archaic screen.

 

I am with you. In other desires:
I want a dedicated button to turn off the screen without stopping any underlying functions I have running.
In other words, I do not want to hit the large physical on-off button turning the entire system off.
I just want to turn the screen off or significantly dim it to where I cannot easily see it..then be able to touch it to turn it back on.
Android Auto has all sorts of issues. And so does the huge screen.
I often wonder how google can produce a great OS in Android, and make the "Auto" stuff so obtuse.
(No experience with Apple CarPlay).

 

I love analog gauge clusters and interiors with minimal or no screens.

With that said - the 4th gen has grown on me - and Toyota did a good job keeping controls tied to physical buttons. I purposely avoided the 14" screen - I felt it overpowered the cockpit. No issues at all with connectivity using an iPhone 15 - Car Play has been flawless, and the infotainment fires up by default into CarPlay.

My biggest gripe is illumination control. One of my favorite features of my 80 and 200 series Land Cruisers is the physical dimmer rheostat that lets you completely blackout the cabin with the headlights on. It's taken a bit of tweaking - but I've got the gauge cluster and infotainment screen harmonized for the most part on brightness and dimming day and night.

Light bleed/lack of true black is annoying on the gauge cluster - this could be solved with an OLED panel - but I'm tolerant of it at the price point of my base TRD OR. A simple screen-off button for the infotainment screen should come standard - if you are listening, Toyota.

 

That’s a big deal if you do any amount of night driving. When I pass a car and every single touchscreen in the car is brighter than oncoming traffic I don’t know how these people are seeing anything.

 

Bro, err, sorry I mean gramps, I paid for all those LED's! I'll be damned if they're not on full blast at all times..besides I have airbags and collision avoidance. I'll be fine.

 

I completely agree with you, but it should also be noted that Toyota doesn’t exactly have a good track record with nighttime interior illumination.

Blue dash lights? Great I didn’t want my night vision anyway.

 

The good news is that the 4th gen has gone to white backlighting. There is still a bit of blue in the AT shifter - but you can opt-out w/ the 6MT.

 

That's the opposite of good news. White is about the only backlight color that may be worse than blue for nighttime visibility.
The only backlight color that doesn't affect your night vision is red/orange. Though green isn't all that bad either.

Sorry I know that's coming off as crotchety (from someone in his 30s haha), but I genuinely see it as a safety issue.

 

Interesting - I'm partial to the all orange illumination in my Sprinter - and the green in my Land Cruisers is relaxing as well. Thankfully, you can dim the white lighting in the 4th gen quite low. Back of the napkin for me says it's easier on my eyes than blues in other vehicles - but maybe just superficial.

An interesting read here about Orange v White in the cluster: https://www.autoblog.com/features/bmw-x4-toyota-tacoma-gauge-illumination

 

Interestingly, the LED head lamp I have for hiking (Black Diamond) has a choice of red, green or blue selections in addition to white. Adjustable light level for all.

 

One of my biggest complaints….amber/orange in my Frontier was amazing. First thing I noticed in my truck was driving it home from the dealer at night and noticing the blue. Thankfully it doesn’t bother me much if I turn it all the way down, which I do.