Do you ‘Exercise’ every setting?

Totally if I see traffic in front of me I dump it into 4 lo and weave directly into the forest

 

Totally agree. As much as I want the 4runner to last forever, everything is temporary….even if I take extra steps to maintain and conserve it. The trick becomes about “timing” so that don’t use it all up before you’re done enjoying it.

My problem is that I like driving this so much, that its hard to keep the miles off. It seems the only thing that helps me “pace” myself, is that I like to do as much maintenance as possible myself. If I find myself tired of another oil change, tire rotation, brake work, hosing mud out of frame, etc…then I try to slow down lol.

But…there’s also a time and a place to slow down. If the Bat Signal goes up, and @Thatbassguy , @Stoney Ranger , or any of my local group says it’s time saddle up….well, then it’s time to go!!!

@Chozen , hear me now and hate me later…. Find yourself a group in your area that takes trips. I had no idea there were trails within a half-day’s drive of where I live…I just never imagined it. Now I’m taking three or 4 trips a year and camping out on the woods. Your bank account will not thank me for that advice though if you end up liking crawling up rocky hillsides, or rooting through tight forest trails. Neither will your paint lol.

As an aside…I totally get that money, other committments, and general demands of life will dictate what kind of fun we can have, and when we can have it. Also, people can get taken by the facebutt or instagram version of what “fun” should be and then think they can’t have “real”’fun. There are a million ways to have fun with things…I have fun driving it to nowhere in particular, waxing it, laying under it to look at the mechanical bits, brushing on more woolwax here and there, and camping/wheeling when I can. But regardless, the time to enjoy your 4runner (or anything) is always now. As they say, enjoy responsibly.

 

My random off topic tip: Regarding e-locker - If you’re experiencing slippage, engage the locker and use left foot braking and slowly add throttle while coming off the brakes. In my experience this get the locker engaged quickly.

Now back to the exercises!

 

Drove up to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument and exercised 4h on the loop road (didn't need 4wd but did need to exercise it). Also put it in 4l and locked the rear end twice, just because.

Then on the way out we took the road the NPS doesn't recommend (and has signed for high clearance vehicles). It was nothing much really....I expected it to be worse.

Pic from loop road...

 

Yeah that’s beyond what I would do, however I would still prefer doing that and getting scratches from that, then being exposed to road salt (playing in snow without salt is great of course). I fall somewhere in between what you’re talking about and someone who just drives to the store. I want to reach car camping areas with nice scenery, then chill and hang out there taking it in…but I won’t be tackling extreme trails to get there, I’ll be a mild to moderate trail guy lol. Basically I’ll probably never go anywhere that a Subaru can’t also go to, but I liked 4Runners better, to me they’re cooler than driving a Corvette! And if there’s ever multiple off road ways to get to a cool place, I’ll choose the easier path. I’ll never get a lift, stock will always be enough for me. Having said all that, I’m sure that I shouldn’t be called a “Mall Crawler”…but there’s still probably a wimpy term that suits me accurately among the 4Runner community lol

 

You’ll hear no wimpy terms from me! The 4runner is set up exactly for what you are describing. Any mod you do will
come with it’s own set of compromises. If you’re not sure you need a mod, or won’t make use of it, it’s best to leave it as is.

 

@Chozen , it’s good to know what you expect out of your 4Runner. You need only upgrade to a good set of ATs and you’re off to the races.

I bought a 99LE new back in the day, all we did to it was upgrade the tires and add rock sliders (we lived near the desert). We just sold it with almost 400k on the odometer. I can imagine you’ll have plenty more adventures lined up with what you’ve got.

Cheers
Mike

 

Oh ok. But for future reference it’s cool if people rip on me lol, I suppose just because I went with the Off Road trim. I do hang on to
a VERY SLIGHT possibility that I’ll maybe someday dive into a lifestyle that would actually require rear lockers, so at least that possibility isn’t zero ha.

The bad ass manual tranfer case alone was also a reason that I wanted the Off Road! It’s funny though, today a knob is becoming “Old School” and is just cooler than touch screen operation, but a manual stick is just that much more cooler and old school.

 

Ran to the local gun club which has a mile of hilly gravel road and exercised 4HI. While there I put in 4Lo and 4Lo light wouldn't come on and of course locker won't come on. I did some searches here and one person said to shift from 4Hi to 4Lo 30 times. Well I did it about 20 times and 4Lo light finally came on and locker engaged. Everything working fine now. This thread is a great reminder to throw it in 4Hi and 4Lo every so often.

 

You and I are in the same camp as far as use. Funny that you mention the manual TC shifter - that was also a huge factor in my opting for an OR vs the other trims.

The only difference with mine is there is no rust issue in NM. I can happily drive mine year round without concern about road chemicals/salts. No frame treatment needed in the desert SW.

 

+1 to that. And what will happen is that even if you meticulously fluid film the frame every 3 months and keep it spotless..... if you hold on to the truck for 20,30 years something else will break eventually and sooner or later you will run into a situation where you need a part they no longer make. As much as I love these trucks this isnt like the Ford Model T club where everything is so simple a cottage industry starts up of guys making parts by hand in a small machine shop. Sure you will be able to retrofit things like air lockers if they ever stop making replacement OEM e-lockers... but imagine you have something like a VVTi actuator or the ABS valve body go bad in 2040... do you think you will still be able to get a replacement ?

Use it. Enjoy it.

 

I can still get valve timing actuators and abs modules for cars that went out of production 30 years ago. Why wouldn't you be able to get those for a car produced today in 15 years?

 

Hmmm… now I want a model T. Lol

 

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I'm sure Toyota is going to support the 5th gen for quite some time. Honda made my generation of Civic for only two years and I can still get many OEM parts 25 years later.

 

No idea specifically... just think out loud that at some point something is going to get hard to find. One of my dream cars is the Honda S2000 and those are already hitting the point at 25 years old that some replacement parts are not made anymore by Honda... Could just be that Honda is not as good with long term part support as Toyota. ?

This will sound crazy but I actually do want one. They are so freaking unique and I once Hagerty's rebuild on an almost as old Model A engine, including making babbit bearings,etc. Fascinating gearhead stuff.

I'm weird enough I would park the Model T next to the S2000 and work on both. ANd keep the 4R tucked away in the back. Probably next to a Jeep.

 

That's a shame that the S2000 is not being supported by Honda anymore. It is such a beautiful car.

 

This is interesting, can anyone explain it? Seems the only actuator involved is the ADD and that engages with 4HI. Then 4LO is a manual operation with the shifter that triggers a sensor. So if you were moving the shifter to the correct 4LO position, why would the light not come on? What component of this sequence needs to be "exercised" for the light to come on?

 

That almost sounds like the sensor switch isn’t working. Based on what car care nut has described i think a lot of the switches in the 4wd system are not fancy, nor even electronic. Just simple electrical contact switches, which by themselves might be susceptible to surface corrosion.

 

I regularly engage all of my off road options on dirt roads. It's particularly humorous if I do this with a passenger who is unfamiliar with the 4R. I will engage Crawl Control and look at their reaction when the loud racket starts, and they think the truck is self destructing