In a nutshell, all the regular "American" brands (Chevy, Ford, Dodge) are crap and not even worth looking at. Toyota and Subaru are about on a par for quality and longevity. Subaru offered better fuel efficiency, but Toyota offered more serious offroad capability. I thought long and hard about just what sorts of things I wanted to do. The 4runner won. No regrets.
Invisible underneath are almost a full set of RCI skid plates. On top there is a Gobi rack. I have 285 BFG KO2 tires, along with 2.5 inches of lift up front and 1 inch in back. Bilstein springs give the lift. Bilstein 6112 shocks in front, 5100 in rear. A tiny bit of trim on the front fender to accomodate the tires. It sometimes rubs a bit on the mud flaps in extreme turns, but who cares?
As of August 5, they say it is being loaded on a train in California. I'll note that it only spent about a week on the ship, then has been sitting in Californina for nearly 3 weeks. Well we don't really know what was going on in Long Beach. Maybe it was at the bottom of a hold being unloaded; maybe it was parked in some storage yard. Maybe it got dropped into the ocean and had to get washed off and dryed out. Then I got notified on August 11 that it was in Phoenix. It spent about a week there waiting to get placed on a truck and hauled to Tucson. I found it amusing that the trip from Japan to California was only a week out of the six it took to get it to Tucson.
I began this decision in early 2023. I have notes dated from early April. I considered another Tacoma. I considered a Subaru Outback or Forester. The 4runner won out. Another Tacoma would have been a fine choice, as would a Subaru if I didn't want hard core 4x4 capability.
Well, the skid plates came first.
Then a Gobi roof rack.
I am still thinking about lift and the answer will probably be no. This then leads to tires, replacing the stock tires with the same size KO2.
Tom's Auto repair pages / tom@mmto.org