2023 Toyota 4Runner TRD PRO Blog #4runner #Toyotalover #Roughmachine

     It might be overdue for complete refresh but somehow the Toyota 4Runner continues to break sales records in this blog we're going to see what's new in the 2023 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro and then put it to the test on our off-road short course that's coming up right now on driving sports tv twenty three marks 40 years since the introduction of the original Toyota 4Runner it also marks 13 years of the current generation vehicle that is incredibly old in terms of car years even so this dinosaur of an SUV continues to be extraordinarily popular with buyers.

                            In fact last year it had its best sales year ever moving almost 145,000 units in the U.S alone but the competition is catching up unibody family crossovers are becoming more capable and Ford's new Bronco is finally getting its production issues sorted that said Toyota isn't standing entirely still for the new model year All 4 Runner trims get a smart key system with push button start blind spot warnings and rear cross traffic alerts in this blog we're going to be focusing on this 2023 TRD Pro which is the top trim we're going to check out all the features and then test its off-road capabilities to see if this is still the SUV to get in 2023 under the hood is a naturally aspirated 4-liter V6 engine it puts out 270 horsepower and 278 pound-feet of torque it is connected through a five-speed automatic transmission and it has a dual range transfer case of course it's also enhanced with Toyota's multi-terrain select system crawl control and this one also has a rear locking differential which does come on both the Tre Pro as well as the TRD off-road trims a full-time four-wheel drive system is available but only on the street oriented limited trim EPA rates economy at 16 miles to the gallon in town and 19 on the highway because this is a TRD Pro Edition it does get some extra goodies standard like a TRD aluminum skid plate TRD alloy wheels Fox shocks with rear remote reservoirs and it also gets a funky rack.

                  Whereas the TRD off-road level trim gets some really awful dualer tires which are basically all seasons the PRD Pro here does include the Nitto Terra Grapplers now these are not three Peak rated so they are not good for deep snow but they do have kind of a nice tread pattern so it'll be interesting to see how they deal with the off-road course a little bit later in this video I do love these TRD Wheels they are a 17 inch which is nice lots of sidewall in the back we get 46.3 cubic feet with the second row in place now that is slightly smaller because we have this slide out cargo tray personally I would rather have more cargo capacity than this but that's just me fold the second row down and you have a totally flat sleeping surface oh yeah totally luxury accommodations Additionally you do get a DC and AC socket back here and on the underside you get a spare tire although it is not a matching spare it's not a Terra Grappler it's just an all-season back here we also have a tow hitch this is good for towing up to 5 000 pounds of course this being a forerunner it has the trademark rear window action I love that being a body on frame SUV you gotta climb on up but that's okay once you get here you get kind of stadium level seating I can look above the people in the front which is fine I get a little pocket here I get two USB sockets down here hey they updated them to USBC that's new like that and of course this is being a TRD Pro I have mud mats in the back they're also up in the front I get an armrest with integrated cup holders and as an added bonus I can even adjust the Tilt where's that level there's a lever down there I can adjust the tilt of my seat for comfortable cruising.

                  Which is really good I can actually tilt back because I do not have a lot of Headroom here it is a little bit Limited in space for adults but you know for most kids it'll be fine I might also get a pocket to put like an iPad or something like that plenty of legroom I am six foot one leg's torso proportionate and my legs and knees are fine one nice feature for 2023 is that all trim levels of the Forerunner finally have keyless entry also you get push button start this is a very familiar workplace in early 2001 I actually bought a 4Runner TRD off-road Edition this feels very similar with some minor adjustments they've obviously updated the switch gear here slightly but I do have that faux carbon fiber down here and like my TRD off-road we get a big chunky lever for switching into four high four low and whatnot okay well let's Power It Up the TRD Pro has had the push button start for a while now that is now standard across the board though with all four runners which I like personally although a lot of people argue with me that the key is better I'm not sure why as far as the gauge cluster is concerned it's pretty traditional it's old school this is a vehicle that's been around for 14 years now so yeah it kind of shows it We have a gauge cluster that has attack on the left speedo on the right and a really small little Toyota standard interface in the middle which does give some useful information you have Tire steering angle you have your MPGs which are not going to be great on this you do see your lane information in here because this does have adaptive cruise control with Lane detection but it is Toyota's older system in that it does not actually Auto steer down the center of the lane it just notifies you honestly it has the basics that I think are required for if you're doing long distance trips that adaptive cruise control is a real life saver and I love it don't really need the lane detection personally but it's a nicety that is on competing vehicles in this class so if you're looking at say for example a Subaru Outback Wilderness that will come with Lane detect which is kind of like a rudimentary Auto steering system you don't get it here but I don't think that people who are buying the 4Runner are really looking for that they are looking for something that is capable comfortable can fit the whole family plus gear without being an overly large vehicle and I think in all those respects the Forerunner really delivers now in terms of comfort these seats are one of my favorites I have driven many many miles in my personal Forerunner and I've also driven more miles in these press loaner forerunners and I've never had Comfort issues they're very comfortable to use the climb controls are big chunky knobs that are very easy to use even with mittens on so I like those overall just this whole cabin experience is quite nice I do wish they'd update the headliner though this faux felt just looks kind of cheap but you know a fully new Forerunner is coming it is around the corner I don't know if it's going to be a 2024 or 2025 at this point because they keep punting it but it is coming and I think that we'll see updates on these little things like we'll have a new gauge cluster we'll have this we'll have a more efficient powertrain I think those things are coming but in the meanwhile this still is a very comfortable very nice place to hang out now in the center here we do have this little eight inch color screen and it's fine it is running Toyota's older system we won't get the update until we get an all new version of course you have XM Satellite Radio you have mapping and it will do breadcrumbs on the mapping so if you go off grid you can actually find your way back when which is nice and it even has Apple carplay but it is the cabled variety and even though the second row gets USBC sockets up here we still get the old school USB a so plug it in.

     There we go okay then once we're connected basically we just tap the button and now boom we're working with apple carplay and I because I don't particularly care for the Toyota system I'd be rocking car play 90 of the time and it's very nice here this is a good size screen I personally don't think you really need anything bigger than this in most cases the one downside with this screen though is actually we get into the rear camera because they do provide the pro model does have a surround view camera system but it looks like it's off of a Super Nintendo it's super low res and then when you cram the surround view into this really small screen it just it's hard to see anything here not my favorite aspect of this vehicle though still it is nice to have a surround view system and if we switch into four low it goes into a trail cam setting again like I swear this little tilt meter is straight out of something that I like flight simulator from the PC like back when you had VGA Graphics that is what I'm looking at right there it's ridiculously old school could give or take the Tilt meter because there's no actual numbers there I prefer real numbers not just vague little dials but it's okay more important though is we have these side views on the wheels so we can see wheel position and also our tracking line so that's going to be really useful today and we are going to test that out a little bit later so what are we going to do today we're going to take this on a short drive around town to you know kind of check out some of the features but the main thing with this vehicle is its off-road capability when the pavement ends is when this vehicle gets really really good and makes it Head and Shoulders above any family crossover and so we're gonna we have a trail that we set up it's a new test course and we're going to show you just how good this TRD Pro 4Runner can be but first let's hit the street foreign ER always a good time the funny thing to me is that this rig is very closely related to the Toyota Tacoma of course yet I don't fit in the Tacoma I also think that the transmission and engine combination in this particular vehicle is just smoother to drive on a regular road we just don't get the same hunting that you get with a Toyota Tacoma which is just kind of fun Toyota was able to get this vehicle just so right that it hasn't needed to have a significant update for many many years and that is why it is still popular today sometimes you just nail it and Toyota did with the Forerunner now I hope they nail it again with the new Forerunner which is just around the corner people keep saying but nobody knows anything yet Toyota is a pretty conservative company so I'm guessing they're going to stay pretty close to the original formula here I don't think that they're going to go like way off the deep end with anything crazy I think.

                               It's probably going to be about the same size it'll have probably a turbo or a hybrid turbo motor and we'll also have updated infotainment and some better materials all things that people would want to see in this to keep the Forerunner competitive going forward because you just have so much competition now oh I Love Actually I really like the exhaust sound oh that TRD exhaust on this Pro very very nice the suspension on this is of course a set of fox shocks and they're using remote reservoirs in the back which is really good if you're doing like desert running if you're going over really rough surfaces for long periods of time that prevents your suspension from overheating which is a potential issue you overheat your suspension and then they can start to leak and then you have problems this is set up for that kind of more endurance style driving however today we're not doing that today we are going to hit our new short course now this is designed to test out some of the other aspects of this Forerunner namely the articulation and the ability to transfer power around the system using specifically the MTS system which is the multi-terrain select now it's interesting on this vehicle we have both MTS as well as a-track because MTS is a variation of a track it's like a more advanced a track but in this one they give you both so if you come from like an old school Toyota that only had a track and you're like I'm comfortable with that boom hit the button if you want to have something more advanced you can start playing with different traction modes over here so they haven't done a lot to make this vehicle refresh for 2023. it's mostly a holdover from 2022 and over the years they've added some other stuff here which is nice the headlights are finally LED of course we have the push button start and they did upgrade the head unit to handle apple carplay and all these little things help keep the Forerunner competitive in today's very competitive market I mean this competes in some ways with the Subaru Outback but on the other hand it also competes with the Kia Telluride which is kind of crazy you know because there is a seven seater version of this 'll be at the third row is kind of tight but uh yeah I mean this this is really the Swiss Army knife of family SUVs I just feel like I'm at home in a forerunner it's so comfortable everything falls to hand nicely it works like it's supposed to it's just a a really good no-nonsense vehicle that is comfortable on the highway yet also extremely capable off-road you know handling's okay you know you don't buy this thing for the pavement handling but it's good enough and these Fox shocks really do help kind of keep the vehicle real relatively planted.

                                    If you really want to have better handling on pavement but also not sacrifice off-road articulation you could go with a TRD off-road trim with the optional kdss suspension we reviewed that on the Lexus GX which it is standard on and that thing it's such a good vehicle for on and off-road conditions so you can get that very similar suspension package on a forerunner with a TRD off-road which is kind of funny but beware if you want to do any future modifications to suspension the kdss can limit your options but if you want eight just awesome Factory setup that's a good one to consider of course the price for all this goodness isn't cheap you're looking at 55,380 US Dollars including destination and that's assuming you could buy one of these without an additional dealer markup which is kind of a thing hate to say it in addition to being known for being just a supremely reliable vehicle the Forerunner also retains its value I bought a 4Runner early in 2021 drove it for 20 000 miles even dented a quarter panel and basically sold it back to the dealer for the same price I bought it for you most Vehicles you cannot do that I mean I've already stated it this is a great highway driver but now let's hit some fun stuff yes this is a new off-road course that we've built and guess we still have the test Hill out on the other side of the mountains however that test Hill is at over 2 000 feet which means it's going to be covered in snow for six months of the year at least in fact the first snow just fell last week here we have one at sea level and this one is more technical where the other one is more about endurance and getting up steep climbs and all that kind of stuff this one really is going to show articulation in action as well as the ability for this Forerunner to shift power around the system so this course is designed to be driven in four low so I'm going to go ahead and switch that here it's very easy just put it into neutral pull down to H4 flick it over to 4 Low and we should be ready to go I go into drive and I get my trail cam now let's see what this baby can do so this whole course is set up with a series of little tests first we have a basic Slant with articulation.

                                                                                So this is going to dip a tire down it's kind of like you know getting used to how this vehicle is working now from here I can see on the side the trench which is nice I got lots of room there you can see my tire right there oh yeah that's a little bit better view these Graphics are really bad by the way on this display they are horribly low RADS you know this next ditch is even deeper and I'm going to have to really reach down with that left tire and I'm going to have to check ground clearance the left see if we're going to slide oh it's so close oh close now we're just going to move forward I'm going to add a little throttle and I think yeah we're not getting anything at this point four low and this is not going to get us there so what I'm going to do is I'm going to enable MTS now that's the multi-terrain select system and what this does is it allows individual Wheels to have brakes applied to prevent them from spinning and losing all the torque out of the system it kind of functions like a software-based hard Locker like a locking differential but instead what it does is it'll shift power left and right both in the front and in the back and we do have a locker in the back of this thing but I'm not going to engage it yet because let's see what MTS will do now we have different settings we have mud sand loose Rock Mogul and rock I'm going to go ahead and pick Mogul because that's going to have less wheel spin than some of the other settings so you hear that that is the brake booster kicking in and it is super loud and it's also doing an amazing job we're completely lifting that rear tire which normally would have all the power leaching out of it but instead nope we're good it's gonna D climb our way out of this ditch come on you got it yes see super easy.

                         So this next part of the course is a tilt and I've seen on All Seasons where we basically just slide to the right oh this is also a good opportunity to point out with the camera I can actually put my wheels right where I want them on this berm on the outside that's a lean it's showing that we're close to 30 degrees of lean hello that's a bit of a tilt and then we're going to go up here and now we have a ditch to get through I hope the nose doesn't hit gonna have to look outside okay we got our tires planted in the hole and now we're just gonna try to climb out of the hole come on you got this oh so easy okay and then up we go okay and then the final obstacle here I don't know if we can do this I built this next section for small crossovers I'm going to see if I can maneuver this through the cutout but because this thing's a big boy and I don't know if it can make it but let's give it a try I have driven my Ranger through here but I did it the other direction I've never gone this way and your angle of attack can really change what you can get through and it's barely wide enough to send something like this through so I'm going to ask Nick to come over and spot hey Nick can you come over and spot me please uh to try to get me through this without hitting the trees on the sides and without hitting the stumps that are in the way I'm definitely going to be using these cameras a lot.

                            It looks a little tough right I'm going to swing right really okay yeah see this is the tricky part how's that tree behind me I can't tell in this video game of a display okay so that was a lot of fun but we're not done yet you see it was so much fun I thought to myself why not build an even bigger course and thankfully we still have the Toyota 4Runner to test what we have are multiple courses with different levels of difficulty everything from a crossover with a cross cut to a forerunner on a rock climb now uh you might notice there's no rocks here yet those are coming they're actually on a dump truck heading this way but we're going to run out of light and that vehicle needs to go back tomorrow how fast do things move at driving sports TV well as soon as I finished saying that the Rocks were going to arrive the rocks have arrived but we are almost out of sunlight so I'm gonna hop into that TRD Pro and we're going to see what it does with the course we got I really threw this course together but I think it's really shaping up I am super stoked about how this is coming and it is a tight course this is kind of like a lot of the forest courses in Washington state and that you have to weave through trees it's just a reality so this particular course will be covered with 4x8 Rock which is the standard for logging roads here in the Pacific Northwest but we just got the Rocks delivered we are cutting it close with the sun setting here at 3 20 in the afternoon welcome to the Pacific Northwest winter time so ah I should set up the vehicle here right now we're in rear wheel drive and we're already spinning and I haven't even started to climb yet.

                               So I'm going to go ahead and stop I'm going to put it into neutral I'm going to shift it into four low and the reason is I want to get my full camera system I also want to have the availability to turn on MTS as necessary and we're just going to see how this course works now we do have some issues here these rocks are very large they're designed to have other rocks around them and we have some small little buildup of rocks around the edges but it's not a lot so we actually are going to have some potential clearance issues listen for grinding and what else we're going to have I need to make sure I don't scratch the rims because this is a brand new truck it has 546 miles on it so let's not cause any significant damage if we can avoid it uh so I do not have MTS on I have to watch like that I can reach out and grab that tree right now it's so close I can use the camera here and align where my tire is on the Rock I'm going to put my left tire straight up on the Rock I'm just going to climb over here I'm just going to ease in I'm going to actually two foot this and try to ease myself down I'm gonna listen for any grinding no grinding we're good but now we're going to lock that back wheel in and this is usually where we have some issue because we have a ditch on the front driver side and then this back side is also going to start having to climb a slick Rock and it's going to have problems so this is a great opportunity to see what MTS can do for us so I'm going to go ahead and turn that on I'm going to turn it to rock which is the most aggressive wheel breaking technique in that it should allow for the least amount of spin before it throws those brakes on the individual Wheels to shift power left and right.

                           I want to make sure I don't shimmy to my right too much flooring it in oh into the ditch oh I love this course okay and up we go ha that was fun I hope you enjoyed this taste of our brand new course I look forward to of course more testing in the future uh I'm gonna have a blast with this but now let's let's wrap this up talking about this TRD Pro 4Runner where does it sit in today's world well it's an anomaly it still is old school nothing is really that modern about it but it's still just an amazing machine it's the right size it has the right technology for the right buyer and it's the right buyer that is key you're not going to be shopping this in a Telluride I don't see why you would the Telluride is modern it has an all-wheel drive system it cannot do that I guarantee it um but you know it's comfortable long distance trips this also is comfortable it can just do so much more but you do compromise it by having a truck ride as well as of course having out of date everything else but for the right buyer.

             This is still the best for driving sports TV I'm Syed Faizan thanks for Reading be sure to like subscribe share videos we make them for you and I do hope you enjoy. #4runner #Toyotalover #Roughmachine