The first, third, and fifth-generation 4Runners are among my all-time favorite vehicles. They have a few key elements in common: Mechanical simplicity, clean and enduring designs, and trick roll-down rear hatch windows. The new sixth-generation 2025 Toyota 4Runner has one of those things.
Today’s redesigned T4R is certainly not bad. I enjoyed the heck out of bombing around backwoods Ulster County with it, and Bramble the dog delighted in sticking her snout out the back on some warm spring days. I’ve now also driven this vehicle on Hell’s Revenge in Moab, Utah, and re-confirmed its capability beyond pavement. It still has some of the jauntiness that makes every ride feel a little adventurous, which is the real reason most people buy an off-road SUV in the first place.
Most significantly, the 2025 model is the first 4Runner in 15 years to get a new powertrain. It has two new powertrains, three if you count the rear-drive base models Toyota builds to advertise a low starting price. (But who the heck wants a two-wheel drive 4Runner?) The thirsty but stalwart V6 is gone; now you can have a turbo four or a turbo four that’s also a gas-electric hybrid.
I love that Toyota finally got the 4Runner’s mpgs out of the teens. But the ugly side of modernization is annoyingly apparent here, too. Big chunks of pointless plastic adorn the body and interior; screens span the driver’s view; the hood’s high enough to make you want a periscope. The sixth-gen T4R got a tiny bit bigger and more powerful than the outgoing model. The back seat still isn’t particularly spacious, but the new truck is a lot closer to “quick” than the outgoing model.
This isn’t a negative review, I like the truck … I just wanted to love it.
The Toyota 4Runner now sits on the same TNGA-F platform as the Land Cruiser, Tacoma, Tundra, and Sequoia along with the Lexus GX and LX. That doesn’t make all those vehicles exactly the same, but there is more overlap than ever in capability and capacities. The Tacoma and 4Runner are most closely related—sit in the front seat or stare straight at the grille, and it’s tough to tell the pickup from the SUV.
Consolidating the design of two of the brand’s most iconic vehicles seems nuts to me. But hey, at least it makes them each cheaper to build. As of this writing, the 4Runner is still built in Japan while Tacomas are made in Mexico. What the rapidly shifting sands of U.S. import regs will do to its pricing long-term remains to be seen, but 4Runners have had insanely high resale value for as long as I’ve been driving, and I wouldn’t count on that changing soon.
The main bullet points describing the old 4Runner still apply to the new one: It’s a boxy ladder-frame SUV with five seats (plus a third row in some trims), low-range gearing for crawling, and soft suspension suited for rough-country adventuring.
The 4Runner trim levels pretty much carry over, too. SR5 is the base, then there are some base-plus options, then there’s the most on-road-friendly Limited and the high-capability TRD Pro. Trailhunter is new, but we’ll talk about that one another time.
Less visually obvious but important changes from the outgoing T4R to this one include a slightly bigger body, slightly longer wheelbase, and considerably smaller fuel tank. Base models weigh about the same, but the new hybrid TRD Pros are much heavier than the old V6 models. Approach and departure angles and ground clearance are essentially unchanged.
Moving from an ancient five-speed auto (which was actually a four-speed auto with an overdrive setup) to an eight-speed is also a big deal and surely has a big hand in the sixth-gen T4R’s fuel economy figures.
The new 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder base engine makes a smidge more horsepower than the old 4.0-liter V6, and the i-Force Max hybrid powertrain has much more oomph. The hybrid system in this application is to add power, not increase efficiency. But it also adds quite a bit to the list price. I drove the non-hybrid so we’ll keep this review focused on the lower-end 2025 4Runners.
Here’s a look at how the non-hybrid I4 base trucks compare to the outgoing V6-powered SR5 base model:
The new T4R’s fuel economy and low-end torque increase are the vehicle’s biggest improvements on paper. The reduced fuel tank size and cut in carrying weight capacity are where the new model lost some ground, though under favorable and equal conditions, the 2.4-liter turbo four should yield a better cruising range than the old V6, even with a few fewer gallons of gasoline on board.
We didn’t drive the TRD Pro for this review, but I also want to compare how the top off-road 4Runner’s specs evolved from fifth (2024) to sixth gen (2025). The power increase is substantial, but look how low the payload capacity is. Keep in mind that passengers will eat into that figure, so if you put four 150-pound humans in a 2025 TRD Pro, you’ve only got 450 pounds of headroom for gear and cargo.
The breadth of 4Runner trim levels is confusing, and we haven’t even talked about the model I drove yet: The TRD Sport. TRD Sport is the second-lowest model you can now order. A four-wheel drive SR5 base is about $45,000, and the four-wheel drive TRD Sport is around $51,000.
This is the variant I bet most people looking to leave the Toyota lot with the “affordable option” will get upsold to, because you need it if you want even modest comforts like heated seats. It also comes with cooler wheels than the base car and a plastic hood bulge that looks neat in pictures and dorky in real life.
Sitting behind the steering wheel feels like being in a baby’s high chair made to look like a car. Lots of big, chunky plastic pieces molded to look like more impressive metals, intensely saturated colors, and a dazzling array of blinking lights to entertain you. Above the dashboard, you’ll see the piano black plastic hood garnish.
Eventually, your eyes make their way to the tank-slit sized view of the road and horizon above the expansive hood and below the scowling roofline.
One piece of the new 4Runner’s cockpit that I genuinely enjoyed was the shifter. No knob, no weird button or twist action, just a huge scepter-stick stick to ram through a good ol’ fashion PRNDL gate as you back out of your driveway and boogie to the boondocks.
The lower-spec 4Runners like this TRD Sport have a much smaller central infotainment screen than the high-feature trims. To me, this is a huge plus. The base screen is reasonably sized—it’s not a postage stamp, just not comparable to a TV at Buffalo Wild Wings like the screen you get in a TRD Pro.
I had no issues at all with the non-hybrid turbo four’s acceleration. The truck rides really nicely on roads and ripped-up country lanes. Steering feels fine, modern. In daily driving scenarios, the TRD Sport is definitely truckish, but it’s not wallowy or janky-feeling.
To me, the suspension and tire combination is well-suited to the task at hand: “I want to feel like I’m in a classic 4×4 but without the misery” is pretty much why you’d buy a low-trim 4Runner, right? That imperative is well satisfied by this truck. It runs a dirt-bias road tire that’s going to give you enough traction to occasionally get through gravel and gunk without hurting fuel economy too much.
The sixth-generation 4Runner meaningfully advances the platform by improving fuel economy and power delivery. The design is pretty bland but inoffensive. But the fully digital gauge cluster feels cheap, and so do a lot of the materials you’ll find around the cockpit.
Objectively speaking, Toyota successfully updated the platform without straying too far from its enthusiast appeal. As an enthusiast myself, I’m just not that excited about it. Especially when the new Land Cruiser feels a lot more luxe for not too much more money—but that’s a blog for another day.
I think the TRD Off-Road, which starts at about $50,000, is the best value of the 2025 4Runner range. That won’t get you the hybrid powertrain, but it does give you a good combo of novelty features like Multi-Terrain Select with Crawl Control and some Bilstein shocks for rough terrain, plus comforts like heated seats.
Got a tip? Or a different take on the new Toyota 4Runner? Send us a note at tips@thedrive.com.
The sixth-gen 4Runner meaningfully advances the platform on fuel economy and power delivery, but it’s lost a little charm.
Automotive journalist since 2013, Andrew primarily coordinates features, sponsored content, and multi-departmental initiatives at The Drive.
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