Trade the 4runner for a RAV4 prime

Yup, a fun second vehicle would be good. I have an '18 Forester that I'm trading in for an Outback with the 2.4 turbo. The trade in values for a Forester is great right now and will get almost what I paid for. My nephew just got his Outback Wilderness and there was one on the lot I could have bought but the EPA rating for the Wilderness is 4MPG worse than the regular turbo model due to the lower gearing, AT tires, and worse aerodynamics. 30 MPG vs 26 MPG on the highway. Plus all that cladding looks cartoonish to me and I already have a 4R so don't need another off road car. I actually wanted the Legacy sedan which is more aero than the Outback and rated at 32 MPG highway but since I have miles of dirt roads to get to my place, the low ground clearance ruled that out.

 

I had a wilderness and that tranny and infotainment is so horrible. So glad I’m out of that thing.

 

Outlast? I beg to differ…..my 32yr old 1990 w/260k miles has never had the head off and runs perfect.

 

We’ll need more real world experience to be sure, but in principle an electric motor should outlast an ICE motor, while also being cheaper and easier to replace. Plus, there can be redundancy in two motor setups for AWD. The batteries are of course a different matter, since they certainly degrade over time. But there are Teslas out there with a ton of miles, so it’s not an insurmountable problem. Also, battery packs can be replaced.

The Prime is in a different category since it has both an EV motor and an ICE motor. In principle you’d expect that to be less reliable than either EV or ICE alone, but there are a lot of Prius out there with 200k miles. Not nearly as many as the 4Runner, but a lot more than your average ICE.

 

I bet most Prius’s haven’t been buried to the frame in mud either.

 

Different vehicle, that’s like comparing a touring motorcycle to a dirt bike.

 

I think the important point is that there are a lot of high mileage 4Runners out there despite the fact that they tend to be put to hard use and subject to a lot of mods, which suggests that their inherent durability might be even higher than what we see in real world experience. Only the Land Cruiser and Sequoia put on significantly higher miles on average, but the former is so damn expensive it's less likely to have seen a lot of off road use, and the latter isn't really intended for or targeted to off roaders. So my take is those aren't dramatically more reliable, just tend to be used more gently.