TRD Offroad - the bad and the worse

[tustmeimlying]

I've had my 2025 TRD Offroad for exactly a week now and have just over 300 miles on the odometer. This thing has seriously failed to impress me in every possible way, and its purchase is easily my biggest regret and financial mistake of the last decade. Full disclosure, I dislike it so much I have gotten quotes from other dealerships to trade this is and get rid of it, the highest being 47k so far. I'm 50/50 on keeping it or cutting my loss and getting literally anything else. Your experience may vary, and you may love the thing. These are just my opinions.

1. The TSS 3.0 System:
   • Lane Trace Assist - The lane assist keeps forcing me onto the center line when I'm driving on two lane roads instead of keeping me centered so it feels incredibly unsafe and like I'm going to get into a head on collision
   • Inability to function in inclement weather - I drove 4.3 miles, 7 minutes, in a very light snow flurry and they sensors quit working. I drove my old 2016 Subaru Crosstrek through Colorado blizzards in whiteout conditions and never had an issue with my radar sensors failing to work. Do I need radar sensors or collision warnings? No, not really. But I'd rather have none of them than constant warnings on my dash that reappear every 10 seconds after dismissing them. The warnings that flash and switch screens are very distracting. The design and placement of the radar sensor turn it into a scoop that collects snow rather than shedding it, so if you live in any area where it snows you've been warned.
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2. The gas mileage - I'm averaging 17.2mpg with a mix of city/highway using strictly eco mode over the last 300 miles. My 2023 Tacoma on 33"s with a 2" lift averaged 16mpg. In my experience, the turbo 4 isn't giving me much better gas mileage at 5000ft elevation where I live.
3. The headlights - specifically the brights. They have a very obnoxious beam pattern that lights up a small vertical column in front of you. If you turn them on on a foggy day or when its raining at night, you can see how the left and right headlight intersect in the middle of the driver ratehr than each pointing straight forward. This means they produce substantially less light in your field of view than the non-brights do and having them on at night on a curvy or windy road means almost no light is cast to the sides, so you turn into pitch black corners.
4. TRD Offroad Specific - It seems they forgot to put the nut inserts inside the frame, preventing an easy bolt on of the OEM rock sliders. Yes, I know some of you will say "WhY DoNt YoU JuSt WeLd ThEm On?!", I don't want to void my factory warranty by modifying the frame of my vehicle 7 days into ownership. I just got back from the dealership, and they took photos of the issue, sent it to Toyota, and Toyota told them they could install them in the same way we had to install on previous gens, by fishing the bolts inside the frame and pulling them out the holes and putting the nuts on the outside. It took the dealership 2.5 hours to accomplish this, despite this being a "30-minute job" in their computer system. Unsure how this will affect the load capacity and sheer force of the rock sliders. Photos below of initial config with steps and now with the Trail Hunter rock sliders installed.
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But hey, at least the things got twelve cup holders including 4 in the cargo area for the optional 3rd row seating I don't have. Very useful and well thought out design.

 

[dirtwheeler]

You can probably do better than $47K with just 300 miles on it by advertising it on these forums!

I think I know what you mean about the lane trace assist. I've been experimenting with it a little. If you allow it to gently nudge you the way it wants to go in some situations it can be a little unnerving, but I'm getting used to it and have a pretty good feel of how to work with it now. I know some people have disabled this system, but I'm going to leave it enabled for now (might change my mind later).

I live in Colorado too, but we haven't had much snow where I live since I got the 4Runner. I'm very curious about how all the fancy radar stuff is going to work in heavy snow. I think you can disable the radar stuff as well. So if it turns out to be a problem for me I might disable it (maybe just in the winter). It might also be one of those things they can improve later with software updates (using the sensor/camera system to better identify heavy snow conditions and decrease radar sensitivity).

For the gas mileage, I've been doing a little better than what you report (18.9 mpg), but haven't got it onto an interstate yet (very little mileage at high speeds, but I should be going on some longer trips soon). I have heard the gas mileage should get better after the engine breaks in, but I have no idea what to expect yet. I just know that I'm getting better mileage driving around town than my old truck got on the highway, so I'm happy there.

On the headlights, I learned from reading the manual that I had the tilt set wrong. You might want to play with the tilt settings and see if that helps you at all. FWIW, I thought the lights were pretty good (after getting them adjusted right). In my old truck, I'd get people flashing their headlights at me thinking my brights were on. They were angled correctly but just very bright lights. I haven't noticed that issue with the 4Runner yet.

You've got me curious how the rock rails attach now. I removed the running boards that mine came with, which were attached to the body, not the frame. I replaced the bolts after removing the running boards, but I assume the rock rails attach to the frame somehow. I might end up getting aftermarket rock rails in any case.

In any case, the info is appreciated (helps to know what issues other people are having in order to know what else to look out for). It sucks when you have to deal with a bunch of issues right off the bat. I'm not sure what your out-the-door cost was versus the 47K, but I assume you would be losing a few thousand minimum selling it now. That would be a tough pill for me to swallow. On the other hand, with only 300 miles on the odometer and such high demand for these things right now, if you really want to get rid of it you might try selling privately. Hell, I wouldn't be surprise if you get some PMs from folks here making offers!

Out of curiosity, what would you replace it with? I assume a lot of people attracted to the Off-Road trims probably cross-shopped the Wranglers and Broncos, especially living in Colorado (I know I did). My use case is long road trips with some off-roading (I also own an old Wrangler setup for local rock crawling that would suck on long road trips). If I didn't like the 4Runner, I would have got a Bronco (would be better for road trips than the Wrangler, but not as good as the 4Runner IMO). I might still get a new Wrangler to replace my old Wrangler, but I gotta pace myself. If you do sell/trade the 4Runner, definitely check out the Bronco Badlands trim with Sasquatch package. I'm not sure what cross-shops well with the Toyota 4Runner price point for off-roading (assuming you're also avoiding Land Cruiser and Lexus). 4Runner was not my first choice for off-road capability alone, but it's pretty sweet in other ways.

 

[Gail]

You can probably do better than $47K with just 300 miles on it by advertising it on these forums!

I think I know what you mean about the lane trace assist. I've been experimenting with it a little. If you allow it to gently nudge you the way it wants to go in some situations it can be a little unnerving, but I'm getting used to it and have a pretty good feel of how to work with it now. I know some people have disabled this system, but I'm going to leave it enabled for now (might change my mind later).

I live in Colorado too, but we haven't had much snow where I live since I got the 4Runner. I'm very curious about how all the fancy radar stuff is going to work in heavy snow. I think you can disable the radar stuff as well. So if it turns out to be a problem for me I might disable it (maybe just in the winter). It might also be one of those things they can improve later with software updates (using the sensor/camera system to better identify heavy snow conditions and decrease radar sensitivity).

For the gas mileage, I've been doing a little better than what you report (18.9 mpg), but haven't got it onto an interstate yet (very little mileage at high speeds, but I should be going on some longer trips soon). I have heard the gas mileage should get better after the engine breaks in, but I have no idea what to expect yet. I just know that I'm getting better mileage driving around town than my old truck got on the highway, so I'm happy there.

On the headlights, I learned from reading the manual that I had the tilt set wrong. You might want to play with the tilt settings and see if that helps you at all. FWIW, I thought the lights were pretty good (after getting them adjusted right). In my old truck, I'd get people flashing their headlights at me thinking my brights were on. They were angled correctly but just very bright lights. I haven't noticed that issue with the 4Runner yet.

You've got me curious how the rock rails attach now. I removed the running boards that mine came with, which were attached to the body, not the frame. I replaced the bolts after removing the running boards, but I assume the rock rails attach to the frame somehow. I might end up getting aftermarket rock rails in any case.

In any case, the info is appreciated (helps to know what issues other people are having in order to know what else to look out for). It sucks when you have to deal with a bunch of issues right off the bat. I'm not sure what your out-the-door cost was versus the 47K, but I assume you would be losing a few thousand minimum selling it now. That would be a tough pill for me to swallow. On the other hand, with only 300 miles on the odometer and such high demand for these things right now, if you really want to get rid of it you might try selling privately. Hell, I wouldn't be surprise if you get some PMs from folks here making offers!

Out of curiosity, what would you replace it with? I assume a lot of people attracted to the Off-Road trims probably cross-shopped the Wranglers and Broncos, especially living in Colorado (I know I did). My use case is long road trips with some off-roading (I also own an old Wrangler setup for local rock crawling that would suck on long road trips). If I didn't like the 4Runner, I would have got a Bronco (would be better for road trips than the Wrangler, but not as good as the 4Runner IMO). I might still get a new Wrangler to replace my old Wrangler, but I gotta pace myself. If you do sell/trade the 4Runner, definitely check out the Bronco Badlands trim with Sasquatch package. I'm not sure what cross-shops well with the Toyota 4Runner price point for off-roading (assuming you're also avoiding Land Cruiser and Lexus). 4Runner was not my first choice for off-road capability alone, but it's pretty sweet in other ways.

Surely there is an easy way to turn off the lane assist? I have it in my current vehicle and my husband turns it off immediately when he gets in the driver’s seat!

 

[dirtwheeler]

Surely there is an easy way to turn off the lane assist? I have it in my current vehicle and my husband turns it off immediately when he gets in the driver’s seat!

Edit: Pay special attention to the difference between LDA and LTA (I suspect the OP was more concerned with LDA rather than LTA as referenced, but I'm not certain).

I've seen others show how to turn LDA off in YouTube videos posted on this forum (controlled via the display behind the steering wheel, using the buttons on the steering wheel). I haven't tried turning it off yet myself because I haven't found it to be problematic for me so far. That might change. It seems like a lot of people don't like it.

 

[dirtwheeler]

@Gail On page 270 of the owner manual: "If the dynamic radar cruise control is not operating, the [LTA] function will not operate"

 

[dirtwheeler]

On page 273: "The LTA will change between ON/OFF each time the LTA switch is pressed". So, LTA is pretty easy to turn off and on.

 

[dirtwheeler]

Lane Tracing Assist (LTA) is also different than the Lane Departure Alert (LDA) system. Page 647 indicates LDA can only be disabled via the "multi-information display" (the screen behind the steering wheel that is controlled by buttons on the steering wheel). This is what I saw some folks showing YouTube videos on (but I haven't tried yet myself). The relationship between LTA and LDA seems easy to mix up. In any case, LTA can be turned on and off on-the-fly (button on steering wheel), but LDA takes a little more effort going through menus. I'm guessing it's actually the LDA system that a lot of people find annoying, not LTA.