2025 Toyota 4Runner Trailhunter and TRD Pro First Drive: Off-Road Energy

MotorTrend

One of Toyota's most exciting vehicles from its lineup is back. MotorTrend's Jonny Lieberman takes the new 4Runner offroad to see how it drives...and jumps.

Transcript

00:00Hi there, I'm Johnny Lieberman with Motortrend here in surprisingly cold and windy, yet still

00:17sunny, San Diego, California.

00:20This is a 1985 Toyota 4Runner.

00:24And while I hate to admit how old I am, back when I was in high school, this is what we

00:28dreamed about.

00:29This was the car, if you lived in Southern California, that you just wanted.

00:33Why?

00:34It fit our lifestyle.

00:35You can go to the beach, you can go skiing, you can go out to the desert, it just did

00:39it all.

00:40However, if you take a good look at it, it's kind of primitive, right?

00:43There's leaf springs at all four corners, you've got to get out and lock your own hubs,

00:46and of course you've got to do that when you're stuck in mud.

00:49The rear window doesn't slide down because it's part of the top that pops off, it slides

00:53sideways.

00:54And if you look at it, it's just a pickup truck with a bent seat and a roll bar bolted

00:58into the back.

00:59Fast forward four decades to the all new 2025 sixth generation Toyota 4Runner, and I know

01:05what you're thinking, what's that snorkel doing there?

01:08That snorkel indicates to you that this is the latest, newest 4Runner trim.

01:13This is the Trailhunter.

01:15This one is intended for overlanding, so forget about the top coming off, there's not even

01:19a sunroof because Toyota thinks you're going to put like a tent or a fridge or a satellite

01:23dish, whatever, up on the roof.

01:24It can hold 700 pounds, which, that's pretty impressive, but the question is, is it really

01:30worth the money?

01:33That's what we're going to find out.

01:42Right now we're on a pretty good off-road trail actually, a little frame twister stuff

01:47right here, and I've got to say, compared to the fifth generation, this is so much more

01:53capable.

01:55There's a little bit of a creep, but no big deal.

01:59I could've disconnected the sway bars, I could've locked the rear diff, that doesn't have a

02:04front locker, didn't need to, and it just went over it, whereas I know for sure the

02:11old fifth gen, it really would've struggled right there, even in four low, even with the

02:15locker locked.

02:17So they've done a much better job at making a piece of off-road machinery.

02:22So there is some bad news with the new 4Runner, and that's that it's a hybrid.

02:27There's also some good news, and that's that it's a hybrid, and here's what I mean.

02:32Horsepower's up by over 50, this thing makes 323 horsepower, but much more importantly,

02:38torque is up, I don't know, the old one made two, three, four torques.

02:42This one makes 465 pound feet of torque, and it makes it at 1700 RPM.

02:51That's real low, and why is that important?

02:53Well, when you're off-roading, you don't want to sit there and rev the engine to get torque,

02:56you want instant torque, and electricity has some real advantages off-road, that low-down

03:02torque is one of them.

03:03So at least with the Trailhunter version, you've got all kinds of cool off-road goodies.

03:07We've talked about the front sway bar disconnect, we've talked about the rear locker, I've got

03:13like the yaw and angle indicators right here in the dash, really cool off-road cameras,

03:19not the greatest angle, but you can see exactly what the front wheels are doing, which is

03:23really nice.

03:24It's got all the Toyota off-road goodies, so if you hit the MTS button, those are your

03:28off-road modes, and you get the options of rock, mud, and sand.

03:32There's also auto, I've just left it in auto because this is not the most challenging course

03:37on earth, it does a really good job of figuring everything out.

03:40Right now, we're headed up a dirt trail, we're about to hit some rocks and some kind of frame

03:44twisty type things, and it's just going to go over it.

03:48I mean, they've done a really good job on the new 4Runner of just like optimizing it

03:52for off-road.

03:53You've got hill descent control, actually the hill descent control is actually not called

03:58that, it's actually the crawl, so it's like off-road cruise control, and you use the dial

04:02itself to kind of select how quickly you want to go, you have five settings there.

04:07And again, and I've done a lot of off-roading in the old 4Runner, the 5th gen, and the TRD

04:14Pro model, well, at least this trail hunter is much more capable than the old TRD Pro.

04:19One thing we haven't talked about is the price, and it's ballooned, there's no nice way to

04:25say it.

04:26Truck we're sitting in now, MSRP, and that means there's no destination charge in there,

04:32it's listed at like just under $67,000, probably a grand for destination, so it's going to

04:39be a $68,000 vehicle.

04:43The Toyota Land Cruiser, not to even mention other competition, the Land Cruiser can be

04:48had for, I think it starts at like $57,000, $58,000, and you know, that's the same engine,

04:55but supposedly a Land Cruiser you would think would be, I don't know, more capable, more

04:59durable, more something, for less money, so it's a bit of a head-scratcher, TRD Pro costs

05:05about the same, yeah, the base truck is way down in the 40s, but still, cars are expensive

05:10in 2025, SUVs are more expensive, and it turns out that 4Runners are even more expensive.

05:17So now we're going to go over just a big pile of rocks, and again, it's like nothing, it's

05:29just like doing it, a little hung up there, but it just has enough torque to just launch

05:35it over, and yeah man, no problem whatsoever, this is a capable vehicle.

05:41So right here I'm going to go ahead and disconnect the sway bar, not because I need to, just

05:46I want to check out the steering, I always find whenever you disconnect something, or

05:51lock up anything, like your steering changes, I just want to see, because I have a tight

05:54corner coming up, if there's any noticeable difference with the sway bar disconnected,

06:00and steering feels the same, I don't know what I'm talking about, however, you do feel

06:04more immediately, a little bit more undulation, you'll also hear the beeping, and it is a

06:09Toyota, and it just beeps, they like to beep, and as far as I can tell, there is no way

06:15to turn that off, but more importantly, it just glides off road, it's really easy, it

06:24takes the work out of it, which I don't know, is that good, is that bad, I think it's good,

06:27some people will probably say, oh I want to struggle, so sure, go ahead, struggle.

06:31One thing we haven't talked about is the snorkel, which is standard on the Trailhunter,

06:37and it sounds ridiculous, if you have a turbocharged car, and you remove all the sound baffling

06:42from it, that's what it sounds like, it's just constantly like blow-offs, and as the

06:49turbo's catavating, and speeding up and slowing down, and it's really hysterical, be sure

06:54to put a mic on that right now.

06:56Do you need a snorkel, no you don't, but hey, you know, if you have to escape a flood

07:04one day, you'll be glad it's there.

07:07It's a very much improved off-road vehicle, again, just talking to the Trailhunter here,

07:12compared to the old TRD Pro, but man, this is good on the trails.

07:18The price does sound high, but like, man, it's a very, very good truck, for about the

07:23same money, you could also get the TRD Pro, and supposedly, it can jump, so let's go check

07:30that one out, right now.

07:37Now we are running around in the TRD Pro version of the new 2025 Toyota 4Runner, what is the

07:46difference?

07:47From where I'm sitting, the exhaust sounds a lot beefier, maybe it's the lack of that

07:51snorkel intake, and also, there's a sunroof, about to pop up a big hill, 4 high, wow, literally

07:58no problem, there is electric torque, I've got my camera, no worries, no drama, no nothing,

08:08wow, incredibly capable vehicle.

08:12Like the Trailhunter, it's on 33 inch Toyo, Open Country 3, how good of a tire is that?

08:18I have them on my truck, yeah, no problem whatsoever, this does feel a little bit sportier

08:23than the Trailhunter, I really do think it's that exhaust, kind of gives us more of a droney

08:27roar, sounds more guttural, more torquey, more powerful.

08:32Big difference between the two is the shocks, this is on Fox remote reservoir shocks, so

08:38you know, you can jump it, but it's more for like Baja running, open desert running, little

08:43bit of a mini Raptor, if you will, and it just feels much quicker and sportier for some

08:47reason than the Trailhunter, I guess playing with shocks, okay, I'm going to tell the dude,

08:54we're going to jump, okay, you call it, and I think we're good to go, oh, hey, that was

09:16good, you're alive, so you know, if you compare it to the last one, which again, that was,

09:24if you bought a 2024, that was a 15 year old platform with a really old boat anchor, let's

09:31be fair, engine and just kind of a dumb transmission, this feels so much more sporty, the platform

09:40is way more capable, way more power, but if you looked at the old 4Runners, they looked

09:46sporty, right, especially the orange and green, kind of the official car of Los Angeles,

09:51they looked great, they just were kind of dogs, whereas this one is not, it's real good,

09:56it's real capable, it's real fun, and it feels quick and sporty, and boy, I would like to

10:02maybe take the Trailhunter on this trail to see, because right now, if you said take one

10:07home, it would be TRD Pro for me, but different trails, different trucks, that was a low speed

10:12kind of rock crawly course, this is more of a little bit of a mini Baja course, that

10:17said, I like this TRD Pro, plus I think it looks a little cooler too, the price, I guess

10:23it's just, you know, everything's expensive these days, everything just got inflated,

10:28you know, the average price of a new car, I believe in 2024 is over $48,000, so if you're

10:35putting $20,000 on top of that, to get something as capable and frankly special as a 4Runner

10:42TRD Pro, or even the Trailhunter, like, it's not the worst deal in the world, they've also

10:46done some cool stuff on the interior, they have four aux inputs standard, which is great,

10:51they put a light bar on there, which is super cool, and then you've got all the off-road

10:55goodies that you get on any other hardcore Toyota off-roader, so again, and just to sound

11:00like a broken record, but like, man, color me impressed by the capability, just the overall

11:05everything on these trucks, I think it's a massive improvement from the one that came before.

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