4WD Dilution Theory: Why all off road vehicles inevitably lose capability

This is a phenomenon I've noticed for a very long time, but I've finally put everything together and found a way to illustrate it. The diagram I created explains itself pretty well, but I'll add a little to it. If you read this all, it'll be like getting new eyes, you'll see it everywhere.

This is not meant to be specific to the 4runner, but all 4wd vehicle sold within the US to non-commercial buyers. The first 3 generations of 4runner improved in some ways, often this process doesn't have to be linear or absolute.

The Catalyst
We start with 2 vehicles, they have a laser focus on their purpose, so using one to do the job of the other would be unpleasant. But a catalyst will change that. This catalyst can be more families buying it to use as a family vehicle, or a social media trend, or a personal preference to how a vehicle looks, or movie appearance.


The Erosion
Whatever the catalyst, the buyer base is diluted with people who still want their vehicle to suit their needs but didn't buy the best vehicle for themself for whatever reason. So reviews and feedback will be more from these people and less from the people who actually bought it to use for that purpose.

The more this goes on the faster it happens. If a generation becomes more palatable to a larger audience, then the next generation will have an even larger percentage of customer feed back from people who bought the vehicle even though it didn't suit them.

The Hard Limit
This continues until the "Hard Limit" is met. The designers realize that they could keep down the path, but they would be making a mass appeal vehicle instead of a 4wd. Where this point happens is different for every model.

For example, the Jeep Wrangler's limit is 74 inches wide. After a steady increase in width for 3 generations someone at Jeep when designing the JL said "74 inches is as wide as we can make it before it becomes too wide for the trails we show outdoorsy people driving down in our ads."

Nissan had a different limit for the Pathfinder, whatever it was it wasn't before it destroyed the allure that nameplate had. And that's the risk, you need a few people to actually use the vehicle so the nameplate maintains an allure. If you make it suck, those few people stop buying it and the vehicle stops being associated with the thing that sold it.

The 4runner has yet to reach this limit. The 6th gen is less capable than the 5th gen as a consequence of increasing the size. It probably lost the metal skid plates on all but the off road trims, in contrast even 2wd 5th gen 4runners came with metal skid plates.

The Mitigation
An option many companies do when they face a hard limit is to try to mitigate the dilution with technology. Land Rover/Range Rover is the best example of this.

The Defender until recently was rather close to a Wrangler, solid axles, spartan interior, boxy shape to help off road, and high aspect tires. But the new Defender is round, has a rather luxurious interior, and low clearance. The small windows make it harder to judge where you are on a trail or fording a river. So rather than do the conventional thing, they gave it a ton of cameras to help you see, and a sensor to let you know how deep the water is. They added complicated air suspension to raise the ride height (which helped comfort at a cost).

The affect of all this technology is a high tech vehicle that cost a ton of money. It also means you rely on a lot of complex systems that can break and be impossible to fix on trail. On the 4runner, the mitigation measures are reserved for high trim models to keep the base price down, while being able to point to these trims when they say "the 4runner hasn't gone soft, look at what it does (*optioned shown is the very expensive trim you need to buy to do this)".

So What?
The newest 4runner has a really high price, we don't know it yet, but we can assume. If you want to get a 4wd standard model we can guess it will be in the mid-40s range. It will be more technologically complex by a large margin because that was what it required to move the vehicle and still fit everything the modern buyer wants.

What you lose is a lot more money, we have yet to see how reliable this new generation will be. There is no way to fight this affect, because once it starts it rarely reverses or slows down. The Wrangler is rather inspirational because it is still attainable and hasn't sacrificed too much. You can sell more school buses if you make them into SUVs, but it's up to companies to realize that making every vehicle like a best seller defeats the purpose.

 

Well written and well said. The affordability issue comes loud and clear in this dilemma.

 

Very nice write up. Thanks. I’m not a Porsche guy myself, but I once witnessed a discussion between a bunch of Porsche guys that went along a similar vein. They were discussing the 911, and that it peaked in 1988. Before then, each year it had improved in performance. In 1988 the scale tipped and the 911’s core mission had begun to be sacrificed in the name of comfort and luxury. (This discussion took place many years ago.. I don’t know how things stand with the 911 nowadays.)

Im not sure what the 4Runner’s core mission was originally supposed to be. Toyota replaced the solid front axle with independent front suspension in the midst of the 1st generation. And that, right from the get-go, is a compromise in off-road ability in favor of on-road comfort. Maybe its mission never was to compete with Jeeps. Maybe its mission was always to be a station wagon that was comfortable on fire roads. Perhaps what we see as deterioration in ability is, in Toyota’s eyes, a continual evolution towards fulfilling its primary purpose.

I have a lot to say about Land Rover. I had a NAS Defender. It was a beast that would go anywhere without breaking a sweat. The Defender had a reputation for being unreliable, but my experience was it was a well designed vehicle, but indifferently assembled. Thus, it could be made reliable after a “wringing out” period. I bought mine second hand, and fortunately the first owner had taken on that expense. The first generation Discovery was basically a more comfortable Defender. But each subsequent iteration the platform became more bloated and ponderous. Over the years my wife had a Discovery 2 and an LR4. The LR4 was a pig. But it had the height adjustable air suspension. Yes, it added complication and was an additional potential failure point. But it wasn’t a luxury addition. It added capability. The air suspension is a hugely attractive feature. Like full time 4WD. But in spite of that feature, clearly Land Rover lost its way. How did they go from “Defender” to “Evoque”?

 

That's why I said it wasn't always a linear process. The 1st gen might have had solid axles (for a time), but it had less ground clearance than a modern Subaru Outback (it could be a leaf spring hanger so it might be unfair).

What woke me up was the realization that none of the BOF SUVs Toyota makes have better off road geometry than what they were making in the late 90's early 2000s. The Sequoia TRD is blown away by a basic 1st gen 4wd Sequoia. The 3rd gen 4r had the best angles of any generation, the 4th gen was a huge downgrade, the 5th gen regained some but not all that was lost, and the 6th gen repeats the 4th gen. You might say the tradeoffs each generation made were worth it.

I feel like technology should be a last resort, but it's not used that way. The new 4runner had to be more fuel efficient, instead of keeping the size the same Toyota is like "we'll make it bigger, add a turbo, dual injection, 2 cooling systems, and we'll get a small improvement in fuel efficiency". If they hadn't made it bigger imagine how much better the fuel economy would be. Why are they trying to swim up a waterfall.

 

I blame the automotive press at large and the lemmins that read the dreg these morons pump out. They have for decades been dictated by idiots who diss anything that's not a Sienna like family mover.

If a Jimny like thing was miraculously made today, all the automotive "journalists" will endlessly compared it to a Sienna and complain about the difference.

 

It’s inflation even if you could still make a 1st gen 2nd or 3rd gen 4Runner or any other old car brand new today it would still cost a lot more because not only are obviously parts more expensive but there’s a lot of behind the scenes costs (marketing sales etc)

 

In the 90s a new gas Camry LE costed about 20-25k, inflation adjusted it's more like 50k today.

Up to 2024 a new gas Camry LE with many many more features can be had for well under 30k.

4Runners were more expensive relatively simply because new 4Runners buyers were willing to pay the prices to look rugged on their commute. Same as today.

 

3rd gen 4Runners brand new costed over 50k in today’s dollars so they’re actually cheaper now if you want to go that route

the msrp of a 1997 4Runner limited was 34,158 in todays dollars that’s over 67k

 

So what makes you think a new production 3rd gen will cost more with a lot less electronics and gizmos than 5th gens? The R&D is already paid for and 4Runners require virtually zero marketing.

 

I’ve seen something like this in video game development where the (usually) executive push to “broaden appeal” plus other development meddling resulting in a product that both alienates the original audience and isn’t executed well enough to draw whatever “broader audience” was being targeted. (why would they play X-ified Y when they could just play X to begin with?)

It’s not necessarily an inherently flawed strategy since I think it worked for the RAV4, but that game analogue is just what your post reminded me of.

 

I think it’s more that only a tiny percentage of buyers actually take their vehicles off road. The rest just want something that looks tough but is as comfortable as a luxury sedan while commuting and dropping the kids off at soccer.
If you are really serious about off-roading then just buy a wrangler or a side x side. Why destroy an overly complicated mom mobile on the trails and go through all the expensive and trouble to make it more capable?