I’m back home in Detroit for a wedding, and instead of getting a press vehicle, I did what I usually do: I borrowed a car from my friend Jamie. This time, instead of his 2004 330,000 mile Mazda MPV minivan or his 2006 350,000 mile Pontiac Vibe, I have his fourth-gen Toyota 4Runner, and though it has 280,000 miles on the clock, it reminds me a lot of the 265,000 mile Lexus LX470 I once owned. Why? Because it drives like a dream in a way that very, very few 250K+ mile cars can; it’s really remarkable. What’s also remarkable is how the impressive way the car looks and drives contrasts with what lurks below its shiny body.
I don’t like to stereotype, but I will say that many of the best high-mileage cars I’ve ever driven happen to have been Japanese (the three I mentioned in the last paragraph, for example), and I’d say the very best of the best have been 4.7-liter V8 Toyotas. Though I think timing belts are garbage, the timing belt-equipped 2UZ-FE engine found in my old Land Cruiser was absolutely sensational for something that had 265,000 miles on it; it sounded like a brand new engine. That motor, combined with an Aisin automatic transmission, decent overall build quality, and nice exterior paint, yielded a vehicle that felt to me almost like it was new. Think about that for a second: A 265,000 mile car that feels similar to a new car!
I have driven more reliable cars than that Land Cruiser or the Toyota 4Runner that is the subject of this article. Any of my Jeeps equipped with the unkillable and truly reliable 4.0-liter straight six bolted up to an Aisin AX-15 manual will run and drive longer than these Toyotas and with less maintenance, but boy, they sure as hell won’t look as good doing it. And maybe that has to do with how Toyota owners tend to maintain their cars vs. how Jeep owners do, and it could also have to do with the residual value of a Toyota vs. that of a Jeep.
I won’t pretend to know all the factors in play, but what I will tell you is that there are undoubtedly more good-looking, ridiculously high-mileage Toyotas than there are decent-looking, ridiculously high-mileage Jeeps. I don’t think anyone will argue against me, there.
That brings me back to my friend Jamie’s 4Runner. This thing is an absolute cherry. The black paint looks great even after over 20 years, the interior — whose seats I assume have been freshened up, though I bet most of the rest is untouched — looks gorgeous. The body looks completely rust free.
And then you get behind the wheel. The 4.7-liter 2UZ-FE just sings. There’s a tiny exhaust leak that I can hear when the engine is cold, but once the vehicle has been running for a few minutes, the driving experience makes it seem like the vehicle just came off the showroom floor. The engine is silky smooth, and will accelerate the 4Runner faster than I expected; the five-speed Aisin A750E shifts perfectly, with no weird crashing or stuttering; the seats are cushy; the steering is tight. Yes, much of this has to do with how well Jamie maintains his cars, but some of this is just classic Toyota 4Runner/Land Cruiser.
If you pay the money to maintain them, the things just drive and drive and drive, and they do so in a way that has swagger. Their ability to not look like shit despite having gone through 260,000 miles of salty, slushy, icy Michigan Wintry Hell is unparalleled.
The result is that few vehicles ever made hide their danger like a Toyota 4Runner can.
Again, look at how nice this machine looks. It’s so shiny, its suspension stands perfectly level, the interior is awesome. My partner who’s with me on this Detroit thinks it’s a surprisingly nice machine, and she’s right! Except, she hasn’t looked underneath:
It looks like the Titanic down there! The frame is completely rotted out, especially the bottoms of the box-sections and the body mounts.
Look at how much rust Jamie pulled out of his frame!:
This, by the way, is not atypical for a body-on-frame Toyota. It wasn’t that long ago that Toyota agreed to spend over $3 billion recalling 2005–2010 Tacomas, 2007–2008 Tundras, and 2005–2008 Sequoias do to frames that were prone to severe corrosion. Toyota actually replaced the frames of these vehicles in what has to be one of the most absurd recall of all time (I mean, you’d think the company might as well just give the owners new trucks, but somehow frame replacement made sense). A few years ago there was news of a Class Action suit against Toyota due to 2003-2009 (fourth gen) 4Runners rusting out prematurely, and looking at Jamie’s vehicle, I understand why.
The vehicle looks so damn good, and it drive so well. But hot damn is it a rustbucket! Some of this is just a product of this vehicle having been driven in ridiculously adverse, salty, wintry conditions in Michigan and Illinois (seriously, even the brake lines rusted out), so I’m not going to go so far as to say “Toyota frames are rusty garbage,” but I will say that nobody can maximize the contrast between how badly rusted a car is and how beautiful it looks and drives like Toyota can with a 4Runner.
I mean damn, I could not believe my eyes when I stepped out of that smooth-running 4×4 and slid underneath. Luckily, Jamie has completely replaced all the brake lines, and fixed some of the rust:
But still: Yikes!
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The hottest of takes: “Any of my Jeeps equipped with the unkillable and truly reliable 4.0-liter straight six bolted up to an Aisin AX-15 manual will run and drive longer than these Toyotas and with less maintenance”
I think that personally is far fetched. A 2UZ FE, A 6.0L L96, A 5.7 SBC, 4.0L I6 all have something in common with each other.
I live in Pennsylvania where liquid calcium in sprayed on roads before expected snow/ice and my neighbor had a 2004 1/2 ton Ram truck that no longer had rocker panels when he traded it in 2014. That stuff acts like concrete when it sticks to the bottom of vehicles and it you don’t wash it off with high pressure you will no longer have rocker panels like my neighbor. He showed me the damage but we never looked under the truck which I’m sure looked looked like the Toyota only in 10 years
Once again I am thankful I live in the Pacific Northwest. Your car may have a miniature ecosystem in the rain gutters and algae on the hood but the rocker panels will be solid.
I left Michigan for the PNW 18 years ago and I’ll never live in a rust state again.
My 1999 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight was that way. The lower plastic body panels covering everything hid all that was lurking. 17 Erie, PA winters caused everything underneath to rust. The last straw was the front subframe attachment to the unibody broke. You’d have never known it, the car drove like it did with 42k mile on it when I got it, it had 165k when I sold it. It continues to get someone to work today, just in a state that doesn’t care about rust like PA.
In any case, these Oldsmobiles probably will run even when rusted….if the engine has been well maintained….that is.
And it depends on the model ALSO- a 5.7 Diesel that is rusted…junkyard ONLY.
LOL at the dustpan full of rust right below the “Pure Michigan” license plate.
DT should have held it up to block the license plate. “Dustpan filled with rusty chunks” could replace the thumb-censoring favored by so many I know what I got guys.
C3 Corvettes hide their rust quite well because of the fiberglass body, especially since almost all of them have been repainted by this point. The frame underneath rots pretty bad but you’d never know unless you went poking around.
Ah yes the C3. When GM first started using Chinese steel.
Yikes. I actually had a high mileage (not as high as this 4Runner) WJ Grand Cherokee like this. It was my parent’s car for years and lived in Pennsylvania and up state New York where they salted the hell out of the roads. The outside and interior were in great shape, but the underside was frightening. I brought it out to Colorado and drove it for a few years before it became outright dangerous. A mechanic here (they aren’t used to that level of corrosion) thought it was a flood car and didn’t believe me when I told him my family owned it since new, no floods.
Thanks for the reminder to break out the Fluid Film and spray my cars.
My neighbor Maria just traded her significantly rusty FJ Cruiser, M/T on a 2023 4Runner. Same scenario. Up top it looked like there was nothing wrong with truck, underneath, the finest Swiss cheese. The dealer could not wait to take it off her hands, its all they told her about for a year before she finally pulled the trigger on the 4Runner. I’m sure some shop dude there snatched it up to fix the rust and make it a toy.
Would be eye-opening to crash test a couple typical examples, then compare the results to the testing done when new.
Body on frame SUVs still use the body for absorbing impact in crash tests. The frame is mainly there to hold the engine and suspension.
David and rusty vehicle is like my Beagle dog when she found a rabbit and it hid in the bushes. “I know it’s here somewhere. Where? Show it to me!”
I can’t think of a better example of planned obsolescence. The factory could’ve galvanized the frame and coated it with their own version of POR15 or any durable paint, but that would’ve added $54.37 to the production costs.
If Toyotas had a reputation of being impervious to rust I’d guess that would increase their sales, but what do I know?
Getting 20 years and 300K miles out of a vehicle seems like pretty poor planned obsolenscence to me.
I’d be willing to bet that rust started to take its toll around the 10-year mark and we’re just looking at years of continued decay. I recently stuck my head under my wife’s 12-year-old Scion and its front subframe looks like it could have been removed from this 4Runner. No perforations yet, but I have no doubt it’s not getting through this winter without developing a hole unless I fluid film it first.
Still, I guess even 10 years of service before major rust is pretty darn good. German cars start falling apart immediately after the warranty ends!
Mechanically, even European cars fall apart. I have heard about rust issues EVEN on Range Rovers….
Sorry that my original reply lacked that nuance, but you know what I mean. Yes, Toyota generally makes a stout vehicle, but it’s odd that they don’t go the extra mile on rust-proofing, that would be a great selling point in the salt states.
Porsche on the other hand:
In 1973, Porsche started hot-dip galvanizing some parts of the body that were particularly exposed to rust, like the undercarriage and sills.
In1975, Porsche expanded galvanization to most of the body, except for the roof.
In1976, Porsche began fully galvanizing the entire 911 body. This was the first year where all body panels were galvanized.
This was a big deal back in the day, and still is.
There’s very few places that rust like the American Midwest because most people weigh the cost of more expensive deicing solutions vs the damage salt does to vehicles and infrastructure and make the choice that’s actually *more* reasonable than smoking toenail clippings; so from an accounting perspective it can very easily seem like ignoring the needs of the 10% of customers that live in salt zones or commute across the Dead Sea makes sense.
These problematic frames were supplied by Dana (yeah, the axle co) so it’s hard to pin this on Toyota. They already spent $3 billion on recalls to do the owners right by replacing the frame and not the entire vehicle, so it’s hard to see this as “planned obsolescence” when Toyota spend so much money keeping older cars on the road for something that was a suppliers fault.
Dana builds what Toyota specs, unless they changed the coatings and didn’t tell them. It’s still all on Toyota how long it’s taken them to sort out their frame issues. I mean even Jeep (eventually) got it right with the JK Wrangler!
In case you did not know, there was A LAWSUIT for the frame also…..
You have to remember POR15 works when it’s added after the fact. But even if it was added at the factory after 15 years it would have broken down. That stuff doesn’t last forever. That said toyota still is notorious for poor rust proofing. They put all their reliability dollars into the drivetrain.
That’s truly impressive, BMW E9-level hidden rust. But unlike the 4Runner, an E9 (CS coupe, 1968-1976) can look as pretty as can be and have a body ready to break in half, and it’s all completely hidden.
David, immediately upon arrival in Michigan: “I know you’ve got some rust, I can smell it from here. There it is under that 4Runner! You’ve got to get me some of that. Here use my rock hammer, I always carry one in Michigan for occasions like these.”
Like fiend looking for that hit.
Pure Michigan, indeed.
Engines – at least well-designed ones – haven’t typically been the limiting factor to vehicle mortality for at least a couple of decades now. So, a late 1990s Jeep 4.0L should hold up fairly well, because the bar was already set pretty high for engine longevity expectations at that time.
Thinking of the bad engines question that was posted recently, each had some design/manufacturing flaw that consigned them to an early grave. I do not think the 4.0L particularly stands out from the pack of modern engines from the era, except perhaps under conditions of indifferent maintenance. Any engine without egregious fault probably would have a similar lifespan to the ‘legendary’ 4.0L. Even the ‘legendary reliable’ Slant Six of the past would not compare well to a modern engine, so I suspect some element of rose-coloured glasses taints the view of the past.
A Toyota V8 might push the bounds of surviving at the extreme end due to its robust design, but that’s not going to be the limiting factor for most users. In a sense, a waste due to over-engineering.
I’d still wager that the major causes of vehicle mortality today are collisions and corrosion. The third might be transmission failure, if I had to guess. Simply because it is the component that wears the most under use and servicing a transmission is a thing of the past.
OK so after scanning all the comments, apparently I am the only one who noticed the license plates on the subject vehicle. Questions for David:
What is with the Chinese characters on the plates?Why does the front plate on picture #4 (the one with Dollar General in background) show different numbers than the other pictures?Was this article written by AI??
Those are Japanese characters and replica license plates from the anime Initial D. 13-954 is from Takumi’s AE86 although 63-80 doesn’t ring a bell. Not written by AI.
I can kinda answer Questions 1 and 2. I’m not American, so I’m not sure whether Michigan is one of those states where you must have a front plate or not, but if it isn’t one of those states then I think you’re able to use fake/replica front plates instead of the actual one. Those ‘Chinese’ plates are actually replica Japanese ones, probably put on for fun because the car is technically Japanese. For Q2 specifically I can’t tell you why a different plate is on, but the numbers in that particular plate are one’s from the main character’s Toyota AE86 in the Japanese racing anime Initial D. As for Question 3, I don’t know, but I’d guess not.
Very interesting EVD and Joshua!
Would never have guessed these odd-to-my-eyes plates were cosplay/tribute.
Was kidding about question #3, should have added a ‘/s’
Ah, fairs on Q3 haha. It’s amusing to see those replica plates here in the UK because we have mandatory front and rear plates here. So the actual plate often has to be placed somewhere above or besides the replica (or sometimes mounted in the windshield, although I don’t know about the legality of that). It can be quite a goofy effect!
It’s not just technically Japanese. Literally all 4Runners sold in North America were built in Japan.
Interesting! I somehow thought they were built in America!
That’s a replica Japanese front license plate on a Japanese branded vehicle that was built in Japan.
I used to see stacks of those new Toyota truck frames out behind the Toyota service dept when I would take my Tundra in for service…..what a huge job that would be for the mechanics to do! And the chances of that car ever driving like it did when it came out of the factory had to be very low……
Traded in a 1999 Grand Cherokee (199000 miles) in 2017 for a 2005 MDX (now 178000 miles). I’m now looking at offloading the MDX. Biggest issue on each is the rust (western PA). Maintenance has been overall a wash, Jeep needed a partial transmission rebuild, MDX timing belt and related, plus a radiator and AC compressor. The Jeep had more intermittent annoyances and small problems always needing fixed, but was overall bulletproof aside from the trans (4.0 I6). The Acura has had less annoyances but ironically more major failures in the time I’ve owned it. I’ve made more major repairs to it than I did the Jeep, yet somehow I’m more satisfied overall.
Western PA here. It’ll kill cars
I just posted a similar story about a 99 WJ, V8 though. It was mostly a PA and NY car and looked great, but the underside was turning to dust.
I don’t know how MN winters compare to MI but my 2005 Grand Cherokee looks significantly better than that underneath and I basically haven’t washed it for 15 years.
Granted I only have 177000 miles on it but it lives outside in the winter in the rust belt and doesn’t really get washed during the winter months.
That much frame rust is crazy – I can see why they had recalls.
I’m picturing David driving Elise around, showing his roots. They stop at the U pull it yard and he points, “I was born from this pile of rust.”
“This pile of rust fell on top of me and when I miraculously climbed out, naked and unharmed, I had three baby Jeeps sitting on my shoulders. I named all three Holy Grail.”
I thought he was born in a barn or junkyard
So this 4Runner is a Holey Grail?
Tracy. Michigan. Rust. All is right in the world.
Yep. Last year I was in the market for a used first gen Sequoia and the advice I read universally everywhere when shopping for a Toyota body-on-frame truck was to check the frame very carefully for rust. Even bust out a hammer and start tapping on frame rails.
I was able to find a clean native San Diego 2004 Sequoia relatively cheap which had a clean frame, but literally just one drive to Death Valley over New Years where I drove it through some puddles on some dirt roads in an area near salt flats caused some significant surface rust underneath. Unfortunately I didn’t notice that until like 3 weeks after that trip so now I’m pissed with myself that I basically caused a clean frame to become rusty just because I didn’t bother to wash it right when I got back home 🙁
I think, if it’s just surface rust, dirt and sand and dust will eventually kill off that rust.
It is just surface rust and given that the rig has 260K miles and will likely live the rest of its life in San Diego means I’m not that worried. But still, it was super clean before one trip to Death Valley, ironically after rain that they don’t often receive.
Congrats on the clean Sequoia!
I just want to add that while Toyota has recalled some trucks for frame rust, many others just got an extended perforation warranty that expired back in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
This is notable because you’d think aha, you could buy a rusty ‘Yota for cheap, get it a new frame, and make out like a fat cat. But you’ll find that the vast majority of these trucks and SUVs are now outside of the warranty window (15 years after manufacture) with the last ones falling off next year. Oof.
A company like Toyota MUST HONOR its commitment even OUT of warranty and outside year dates….