Any Regrets

I did. I just bought a '17, but we still have our '09 with 240k miles on it and no issues. Well...almost no issues; the driver's window doesn't roll down. I have absolutely no regrets buying the 3rd Gen. I like everything about it better than the 2nd Gen. I had an '02 4Runner that we put 209k miles on and sold. I don't regret selling that at all. The 4Runner had the transmission crap out at 70k miles (Toyota fixed it for free in spite of being 10k past warranty)...so the earlier Gens were not perfectly reliable either. But regardless, I think Toyota makes the best trucks and SUV's, and there will always be one in my stable from here on out.

 

Not a regret but a question. I came from a vehicle with automatic headlights, so I never touched them. I keep forgetting to turn them off in the taco. Is there no chime/beep if you shut the engine off and open the door with the lights on? I thought I heard it once, but I've tested it a couple dozen times and the only thing I see is a message on the dash.
Seems odd if there's no warning chime.

 

My 01, when I open the door (leaving headlights off), it turns them off automatically.

I have to go check my 17. It has never been driven at night, so not sure how the headlight works. I will check it today.

 

Just wait a bit longer. I believe it is set to 1min from the factory. I turned it to 30sec with Carista or in the head unit settings.

Leave your lights on, take out the key, and open and close the door. You don't have to lock it. The all of the lights will turn off in both headlight and parking light settings.

This is probably my favorite type of automatic headlights. It does what I want manually, but covers my ass if I do something that would drain the battery.

Combine that with the fact that our gauges are not back lit in the daylight / off setting, I'm pretty confident that you won't see a Taco running down the road at night with just the DRLs on.

Contrast that to our Forester, where the interior lights and hatch light will not turn off even after 20min or an hour. Yep, drained that battery a few times in that.

You want worse? Subby didn't install a timed relay for the lights, but used two of them to connect the rear seat back release levers in the hatch to the seats instead of a simple, short cable. Just baffling.


Edit: another little leave-on feature that you might or might not know, the side windows will still work for about 45sec after turning off the key. Opening a door will stop them though.

 

get a manual, that's my only regret