20 years of jeep ownership comes to an end...

We finally took the plunge. She Who must be Obeyed and I needed a vehicle to carry pilots, equipment, and gear up poorly-maintained forest service trails on paragliding trips, and the latest Jeep -- a Compass Trailhawk, which otherwise was quite excellent -- was too small to carry all we needed, so as of 12 hours ago, we are proud owners of one (1) red 2021 4Runner SR5 Premium. We thought about the TRD Off-Road, but in 37 years of hang gliding and paragliding trips, often to places the were no roads, I have never needed a locking differential, and this SR5 was... red!

We're still thinking of a name...

 

Welcome

 

Welcome from Arizona!

 

Wait until you find out, unlike the Chrysler (Stellantis) group, that Toyota can make a reliable truck.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

I can't imagine why you didn't want to drop 100k+ on a new "Jeep" Grand whatever it is called! LOL.

Nice move!

 

I mean…. Macintosh.

but yeah can’t help but agree, that price is rather buy a cayenne… it’ll last longer too

 

Welcome

 

Welcome from Arkansas!
GO HOGS!!

 

Welcome FROM the Dark Side!

 

Welcome from the center of the bourbon universe.

 

Welcome & congrats!!!

 

Welcome from Wisconsin!

 

The Story So Far

We'd had good luck with the Ancient And Venerable Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was still going strong at 195,000 miles. It's only significant failure was a burned out ignition coil at 130,000 miles, which is the sort of thing one can fix using tools one probably has lying around the house. But it was getting Ancient. And Venerable. And several decades of fierce California sun had taken a very remarkable toll on its interior. We replaced it with a Compass Trailhawk, which may be one of the best small AWD SUVs around, but it soon became clear that 1) this was too small to carry all our gear on a serious paragliding trip and 2) even good AWD wasn't going to cut it on the kind of steep heavily rutted loose gravel roads we had to deal with. As mattandkelly noted, the new Grand Cherokees were a bit too 'boutique' for our purposes. A Wrangler might have done the job, but the impressive number of complaints filed with the NHSTA suggested there was at least 1 chance in 50 the associated repair bills might also do a job on our wallet. Meanwhile, half a million or so miles of trips to distant desert and mountain flying sites in dozens of friends' Toyota 4WD pickups and 4Runners of every flavor, color, and generation over the last 37 years were a tribute to the reliability of Toyota's small 4WD truck platform. Even so, I might have gone with a 2019 Wrangler Unlimited Sahara I'd had my eye on, because every American male, deep in his heart of hearts, has secretly wanted a Jeep Wrangler since they were 5 years old...

...but...

...this 4Runner was red!

Not black (a Very Bad Color for trips to the high desert!), not green, not purple, not mauve, not vermillion, but red!

I mean... like... what better testimony can there possibly be to a vehicle's superior worth than redness! That and the 'half a million or so miles of trips to distant desert and mountain flying sites in dozens of Toyota 4WD pickups and 4Runners of every flavor, color, and generation without a single failure' bit. And the fact that She Who Must Be Obeyed had suggested, in no uncertain words, that the Wrangler might be too barbaric for her taste, and she does half the driving

We celebrated our second 12-hours of 4Runner ownership with a short trip to a local paragliding site to see how it handled the road up one of the lower hills, which had a couple of spots that were challenging on the Compass. A good time was had by all. Now we'll see how the next 200,000 miles go...

 

Good choice, I’ve had several red vehicles! Welcome to the forum!

 

Because its a statement piece more than anything else: "Look at me, I am rich!"
@DesertPilot welcome to the forum.

 

It will outlive you.

 

Welcome to the family! Post some pictures of this Red beauty!

My son is a big Jeep fan, we like to poke fun sometimes.

 

Here it is, after 48 hours of ownership! Tah dah! It will never be this clean again!


Here it is in infrared. Interesting how the tire still retains some heat after the hood has cooled off from sitting in the shade.


And on an entirely different note, Toyotas and Jeeps may both appear in this picture That's the Ancient And Venerable Grand Cherokee at the left when it was 11 years less ancient, and Mike's billion-year old Land Cruiser -- testimony to the durabliity of Toyota products -- was still going strong somewhere behind me. Wranglers are conspicuous by their absence. Great though they may be for serious rock-crawling, they do not seem to have been a success for our application. The black roofs (rooves?) may have been part of the deal. Getting a ride back up the hill, hot, sweaty, and covered with dust after 3-4 hours in the air and an hour or two of driving, then climbing into a 130 car degree interior is not for the faint of heart. Also, the beer cooler doesn't stay cool...

 

Welcome to the forum! I hope the 4Runner serves you well!