After several years and almost 10,000 miles of towing my 13QBB (mostly up mountains, it seems), I decided to give my trusty 1997 Toyota 4Runner V6 5-speed a break as it nears its 20th birthday, and bought a "new to me" 2007 4Runner V8 SR-5 Sport Edition.
The V8 should definitely handle the hills better...although to it's credit the '97 did pretty well and returned about 12mpg towing. Just felt like I was pushing it pretty hard for a 20 year old truck. And the manual transmission in stop-and-go traffic could give my left leg more exercise then it really needed!
Old
(https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7290/28053494156_c366de01d4_h.jpg)
(https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7687/27985133332_92cc850e72_h.jpg)-Graham
Very nice! Congrats on your new tow vehicle! Last year, when we were looking for a TV, we looked at the new 4-Runner's, but found out that they don't offer them with a V-8 engine anymore. Like you, we really wanted a V-8, especially since our 21BHS is probably around 4,500 lbs when fully loaded and we have plans of going over the Rockies some day soon. So we ended up with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which turned out to be just fine (we love it and the V-8 Hemi is an absolute beast)! But we have always liked Toyota's and were sorry to see that they don't offer a V-8 in the 4-Runner anymore. We also test-drove the Sequoia (with V-8) but that felt too big and sort of lumbered around through the turns and was very sluggish on acceleration. Liked the 4-Runner much better than the Sequoia and might have bought the 4-Runner if they still offered the V-8. Enjoy the one you found!
Thanks, and I agree it's too bad Toyota doesn't offer the V8 in the 4Runner any longer. I would have liked to have bought a new (or even just newer) one but hoping to still get plenty of miles out of this one.
Graham
Congrats
I'm a huge fan of the 4.7 L V8 in '07 4Runner. There are many instances of that engine going over a third of a million miles with nothing but routine maintenance. So smooth and torquey (if that's a word). You have a great setup for camping!
Took the 4Runner V8 on it's first trip this weekend, a 500 mi. round-trip to Watkins Glen NY for the Finger Lakes Wine Festival. It was definitely a more relaxing drive then with the '96 4Runner, and it handled the 13QBB with absolutely no problems at all. I only got 10.5 MPG compared to 12 MPG I got with the older V6 4Runner on the same drive, but I guess that's to be expected with the larger engine and slightly higher speeds. I also highly recommend a visit to the [a href="http://www.flwinefest.com/"]Finger Lakes Wine Festival[/a] for a good combination of "camping" and wine drinking. They get an attendance of about 40,000 people over the 2-day festival, and it seemed like about 1/2 of them were camped there!
-Graham
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Nice pic! You could pull our 21BHS with that 4-Runner!
Very nice, love that hood scoop and the way they match!
Thanks for the compliments on the T4R. And yes, it could certainly pull more the the 13QBB...my wife is actually a little worried that a new camper will soon follow the "new" TV purchase. I don't think she has anything to worry about, although years ago when I replaced my Bronco II with a Suburban to better pull my 16' boat, I somehow soon thereafter ended up with a 25' boat!
-Graham