It's Taco Tuesday at My House!

[R.A.N.M.J.]

My truck arrived at the dealership yesterday afternoon and we brought it home last night. Said goodbye to my 4Runner, traded it in with 1,270 miles on the odo.

First morning pulling it out of the garage.

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[TacoJay]

My dealer called yesterday and advised that my 24 TRD Sport 4x4 is finally ready for ground transport to them! Anxiously awaiting "the call"!

 

[Miqie]

Nice truck. May I ask what changed your mind on the 4Runner?

 

[R.A.N.M.J.]

Nice truck. May I ask what changed your mind on the 4Runner?

Well, two things, really:

1. It was 2wd.
2. I was blind.

That's the TL;DR, here's the long story:

So, back in 2021, I got hurt pretty badly and broke my leg in seven places. Requiring multiple surgeries to recover.

My wife bought me the 4Runner because I had said that I wanted one while I was in recovery. She got it for me right before I recovered. Then, after I recovered I had a few weeks of being able to drive it. It was fine, beautiful to look at, nice to drive, comfy. But it was 2wd and that was a flaw I had a hard time overlooking.

But because it was a gift, I wasn't about to complain or not drive it.

Then a few weeks later while I was driving it, I went blind. That was scary.

I couldn't see to drive, so the 4Runner sat in the garage. It took about nine months or so until I could be prepped and have surgery to fix my vision. While I was waiting to have surgery we caught news of the Tacoma redesign and that the new 4Runner was coming out in 2025 (ish).

A few nights before my surgery we were talking about my 2021 Bronco and how disappointed I have been with it's reliability and all the problems in quality it had.

I mean, parts fell off of it because I closed the tailgate too hard or drove it on too bumpy of a trail. I carried around spare tie-rods because those would bend like a straw at the mere sight of grade 2 trail. I had a sinking feeling it was going to blow the engine all the time because my VIN was number 5,001 of the 10,000 that were blowing the 2.7ltr engines left and right. It felt cheap to the touch and it was supposedly a "Lux" package. I couldn't mount a front winch because of all the tech.... And the roof leaked. It was more of a headache than I signed up for.

Also, there was the looming possibility that I would remain blind post surgery. It was not 100% guaranteed I would get my vision back. So we talked about selling my vehicles and tools, guns, hunting and fishing gear and what-not on the off-chance I don't recover.

During that process, we visited a dealership near my house to appraise my vehicles and they had a 2024 Tacoma on the lot. My wife loved it, and I got to "look" at it. (Really, I couldn't see it, but I got the gist of what they were describing.)

On the way home, my wife says to me, "You're going to get your vision back. And when you do, I'm buying you that truck. You're getting a new Tacoma!" I think that was her way injecting a positive goal into our future. Who am I to argue with that?

So, had my surgery and three days later I was on the dealership lot shopping for a Tacoma. I test drove eight different trucks total at four different lots, all with different trims and packages and we settled on the TRD Off-Road because it reminded my wife of the truck I had when we met first met.

I got rid of the Bronco and the 4Runner and I bought my wife got a new Ford Maverick Lariat, which oddly enough feels better built than my Bronco Badlands Sasquatch with Lux package.

Plus the Maverick gets 58.9 MPG. It's crazy.

I traded the 4Runner at Family Toyota of Arlington, they gave me a really juicy trade offer on it, but it was basically brand new with 1,270 miles on the odometer. Plus, the salesman that helped me after hearing my story and seeing some of my scares (I wear shorts a lot) went the extra mile and got my truck stripped of Distribution Addons, except for what I wanted and brought the price on my truck down by over $2,700.

As I was driving home in the new Tacoma my wife was like, "Yeah! THIS truck suits you!" I admit I was cheesing the whole way home. We have a plan for the truck, a lot of upgrades and addons are in the future for it. I couldn't be happier with the purchase.

All that being said, I am still a 4Runner guy, and we're going to buy one of the new ones whenever we get around to it, but two new vehicles within a 3 week span has cured me of car shopping for the time being.

I still find it hard to believe that six weeks ago I was completely blind and now my vision is better now than it's been my entire life. 20/20.


That's why I got rid of the 4Runner.

 

[Miqie]

WOW! What a story! So glad you recovered esp. your eyesight. BTW, never realized 4Runners could be only 2WD. Never really paid that much attention to them. I have a 2024 Bronze oxide, TRD Sport, myself.

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