CAUTION: New Tailgate Raises Higher Than Older One

Day 1 parked beside the 2023 raised the tailgate and it touched the metal garage door upper frame. Put a very small cut in paint.

The appropriate 3 years the 2023 has been in both sides and pulled way in as well as just inside and never a problem.

This happened with the new one just pulled in. Found if pulled way in it had just a hair clearance.

 

Must be higher lift struts. Cuz parked next too each other, the 6th gen seems to be shorter and wider than the 5th gen. I have ceiling mounted shelves above my 5th gen with no issues at all.

 

so glad it’s not just me. All the spec’s show new one a few inches larger everywhere. Don’t understand that picture

 

The liftgate can be adjusted to the height you want it to open. Believe it comes set to max opening.

https://support.toyota.com/s/article/How-do-I-set-the-heig-7757?language=en_US

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Thank you

 

Why would they make the tail gate raise higher on the 6th gen? This will cause problems for a lot of owners. They will be banging their raised tailgates against their raised garage doors inside their garage! I just went out and shot this pic of my 2022 SR5 Premium 4WD, in our garage. I opened the tail gate, and raised our garage door. It's a standard height residential garage door, what does that make the height opening, 7' I think?

With my tail gate raised, and the garage door open, the "4Runner" chrome letter badging on the tail gate clears that horizontal rail on one of garage door panels by only 3/4". And I'm on the standard 265/70 R17 tires with no rear lift.

The tail gate on my '22 raises up out of the way plenty high enough. What's the sense of making it raise higher on the 6th gen?

 

I see. You posted while I was formulating my post. Well, still, I bet a lot of folks are going to be banging their tailgates on their raised garage doors if they don't realize they can adjust their lift height.

But I still don't see the sense of why the new ones would have to raise any higher than the 5th gens already do.

 

Your reply makes 100% sense. But i have a cut on my tailgate. I watched it happen. Again if i pull way forward it didn’t hit as just getting in garage where it hit. Will change the height about an inch and all will be good.

 

A decent salesman will tell you the lift height can be adjusted and to take caution if parking in a garage.

 

What can i say. I hired him 11 years ago before i retired as GM. He is a good salesman. But going from a 2023 to this 2025 is like going from a rowboat to the space shuttle. The only easy part was setting the garage doors (that was super easy). Hell, he might have because i was lost at delivery with all the change. I did hand him my phone and tell him to make it so i didn’t need to carry a key anymore. Oh, I’m 77 and get my granddaughter to turn on my iPad.
No i can’t blame the salesman.

 

Maybe this post and info to and how adjustable tailgate works will help

 

Yeah, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when going over a new car delivery.

But some salesmen only care about their commission, while others show more concern about their customers and making lasting relationships.

 

Good to know OP.

Tailgate height actually was something I learned to note the hard way when shopping before I bought my 4Runner.

I kept bumping my head on the hatch of the Passport I was looking at and saw it could not open any higher without running into the body. The 5th gen though has just enough clearance for me to not worry when approaching

 

There's a lot to hate on the 6th gen but this is not one of them. Like said above, 6th gen with auto opening hatch can have the height adjusted (like 90% of the cars with the auto hatch opening) unlike the 5th gen.

My 5th gen always hits my garage door frame, wish I could set the opening height without mcgyvering something with a bungee cord

 

When I drove my new 2021 home from the dealer, I had to drive 80 miles, half of it through a wicked snowstorm…on stock tires. When I got home, I parked it the garage and popped the hatch to check things out.

You guessed it. It survived the drive home unscathed, only for me to immediately put a nick in the tailgate paint.

I will say, however, I much prefer my mcgyvered bungee limit-strap, instead of waiting for a slow-ass auto-opening gate to finish opening. Our 18 highlander has it, and it drives me nuts just standing there twiddling my thumbs until the stupid thing is open.

 

Seems like the sensible thing would be to set the default opening height lower from the factory and let owners choose if they want it higher. The vast majority of sales staff wouldn't go over this with owners.

"The tailgate doesn't open high enough" is not something I recall being a complaint from gen 1-5 owners.

 

isnt factory height the total height available (i.e. 100% opening) then you just chose the percentage you want (i.e. 80%)

 

I think the dealers would get sued. We had our highlander set up to open slightly less than stock, and you wouldn’t believe how easy it is to nail your head against the corners. The angle changes and those corners can be much lower than you’re expecting if you happen to be busy loading the back, or walk around the corner of the car to the back and unexpectedly slam your forehead against it.

And before anybody says it…yes,I’m blind.

 

The garage door doesn't care what your definition of "total height" is.

 

When people hit their head on the rear door they are hitting the lower part of it i.e. the inside part. If the doors got too thick to make this happen, that's on the manufacturer not taking it into consideration.

At the end of the day it seems the 6th gen rear hatch opens higher than the 5th gen, as to why, only Toyota knows.

 

you think all garage doors are the same height? Am I not understanding how crazy high the rear hatch opens on the 6th gen or are we just comparing it to the 5th gen which seems to be lower than the 5th gen?

 

Looks like a Limited, those that have the auto lift gate are adjustable on their height. You can read the manual on it and learn how to adjust how high it will open. They have a selectable and adjustable lift height. There is a way to program how high it lifts.

 

BINGO

 

What's the biggest tire the 6th gen can run with a stock ceiling?

 

I'm not quite following what you are trying to get at, but since OP said his 5th gen had no issues so I guess we can connect some dots here but there are like only two dots to connect.

 

What I meant was that Toyota is just going to have the max height by default regardless of the height of garages. It's the owners responsibility to check if the hatch fits in their garage (unless the hatch opens unreasonably high at a near vertical angle). In other words, it's not because the 5th gen fits fine that we can assume the 6th gen does (or at least Toyota is not to blame here) since there was a major redesign