[Update: First Delivery Reported!] 6th gen 4Runners arriving at dealerships now (photos)

I’m 69. Been driving a car or truck of my own since 17. I’ve never had a flat (or blow out) while out driving anywhere. Over the years, I’ve had two flats on two different vehicles right at home, as in coming out to the vehicle in the garage and discovering a tire had gone flat at home over night. (A nail in one tire, a screw in the other.)

Back when I bought my 2006 Tundra new, some SOB stole the spare tire in the first year. Cranked it down and stole it. I never replaced it. When I sold the Tundra privately last year, the buyer noticed the spare was missing and questioned me about it. I told him someone stole it back in 2007 and I never bothered to replace it.

I guess I’ve just been pretty lucky when it comes to tires.

 

You are lucky. I remember drivers training at age 15 at Sears. My first time in the car with the instructor we got a flat as I was driving. He had me pull into a gas station and said today is your lucky day and walked me through how to change a tire.

 

Then a few years later I remember around 18 towing my now boat home from the dealer (my Grandfather) had purchased it. We were in the interstate with a Ford Econoline van pulling the boat and boom tire pops on brand new boat trailer.

So I got my experience at changing tires early on. Stopping a trailer with a flat was no easy chore thankfully not much traffic that day

 

I gave my spare tire away once. It was about 7yrs ago. At the time I owned a Hyundai Sonata. Someone on the side of the road was sitting there with a flat. I thought I would do a good deed and offer to help them change their tire. Turns out, they had a spare tire on their car already and got ANOTHER flat.

I didn't want to give up my spare tire, but I thought that was God's way of telling me something. Whatever... I did it. I changed their flat by giving them my spare tire. It wasn't a full sized tire, it was the donut. But I never used it during the entire time that I owned the car. When I sold it I admitted to the dealership when I traded it in that it didn't have the spare. The sales guy asked me why and I told him. He was shocked, but in a good way.

 

toyota does that on purpose. when a new gen comes out they de-content it from the previous gen. its so they can add all the little things back each year so the average consumer can see new stuff added each year.

saw it on my 2004 4R and my 2014 4R and seeing now on the 6G 4R

 

this feature is for the benefit of cafe/carb rules. it has no benefit for the end consumer. same goes for the air dam on any recent bof vehicle. .1 mpg across a oem fleet cage avg does wonders for the oem, it does jack shit for a the consumer.

 

FYI it seems like there’s a solution to disable the ASS system already available.

That’s good to keep in mind. So maybe the OR will eventually get power seats. Maybe even the SR5 instrument LED screen will get a software reflash to show a picture of a two-gauge instrument cluster instead of a picture of a 1990s base tercel instrument cluster. Hopefully they don’t get ideas and offer it as a subscription service.

Unfortunately, Toyota doesn’t mess around when they de-content transfer case options. The “budget” version of the Limited trim doesn’t get a center locker any more. Judging from the transfer case de-contenting from 4th to 5th generation, it’s never coming back to the poor man’s limited trim.


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With flats, they hardly ever happen, unless they do. And it seems that when it rains it pours. The last time it happened to me, it was on my trusty 1999 Accord. I had to change two flats within a month. Changed one in a parking lot, and another at home. Both times, they couldn’t be patched, so the spare got me to the tire store immediately without having to rely on a tow or anybody else. That by itself is worth it.

This last summer on my trip to Colorado, I went solo camping. Dispersed camping half way up some mountain near Ridgeway. It was about 1/2 an hour down a gravel road to the nearest campers, and about 1.5 hours to the nearest town with services. The distance wasn’t far, but they tend to make gravel roads out there with football sized jagged rocks. So it’s slow going.

After settling in to camp, another 4runner comes up the road with a couple of young whippersnappers. A rear tire looked low as they came in (he had K02 load C tires). Driver got to work and put the factory spare on right away.

The next morning I get up and start packing to head out, and the kid walks over to my site all sheepish, asking if I had cell service. Nope. Told him the last time I noticed a cell signal was at least an hour’s drive away. He says he’s got another flat. Yikes! Mind you, this was on K02s load C, same as I was running.

Thankfully, I had a compressor and was able to inflate his spare. We watched it for half an hour or so and the leak seemed pretty slow, so I left him to it. About an hour after I left camp, I felt like an idiot when I realized I totally forgot about my tire patch kit! With a bit more work we could have found the leak and fixed it for good. Ah well, they were nearly on their way out of camp, so hopefully it held air long enough to at least get down to the next group of campers down the road.