RWD in snow?

I'm looking at buying a 2008-2012 in either rwd or 4wd. I'm also looking to move to a city in New Mexico where they get anywhere from 12-36 inches of snow a year. Supposedly the amount of snow is noticeably less than even the early 2000s. I've been told that it usually doesn't snow more than 3-6 inches at a time and that the snow usually melts within 2 or 3 days at the most. Also ice usually isn't a big problem - they don't even use road salt mostly just those tiny volcanic rocks to add traction.

I will be driving on paved roads prob 95% of the time. I'm not going to do any serious offroading, but might occasionally go on gravel roads or flattish hard packed dirt roads, mostly when its sunny and dry.

The 4wd's are few and far between where I live (TX) but there's plenty of used rwd's for sale and usually a little cheaper.

My question is do I need the 4wd or am I okay with the rwd with limited slip diff? Also are maintenance and repair costs and reliability significantly different between the 4wd and rwd?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

If you ever tow a boat. 4wd is a plus. Sometimes I loose traction on the ramp with 2wd...

 

2wd is a waste

 

Not sure on the difference between the models you are looking at comparatively, but we had a massive snow year here in south central Alaska and I was SHOCKED at how well my 2020 Pro did in 2wd. Only put in 4wd on a couple seriously icy instances and situations where there was over a foot of fresh snow.

Tire choice will make a HUGE factor. The Cooper AT3 4S or AT3 XLT are amazing tires. BFG KO2’s do well on my work Tahoe, but are extremely noisy compared to the XLT’s I have on my Tundra, and no where near as smooth.

Guess I also should give a shout out to the stock Nittos on my 4R Pro too.

 

^^^^THIS!

I had a Tacoma before this 4runner, and had put 3 peak snow rated AT's on it. I can't recall a situation where I really needed 4WD in the snow.

I bought the 4runner last January, and had a few situations where I lost traction in 2WD. Once I swapped out the tires, I had no issues.

If you think you would have situations where you would be really buried in snow, then I would recommend 4WD. Otherwise, you should be OK with good tires.

 

Why piss in his cheerios.

 

This is my old 3rd gen. i drove it for over 15 yrs. on and off road, never had any problems. Oh yeah, it’s 2wd. Now if your doing alot of mud, or rock crawlin, then thats another story, just sayin.

 

Great looking 4runner!

 

because he didnt buy it yet and i dont think he should