2025 Toyota 4Runner: What’s It Like to Live With?
We’re going to spend a year with the Toyota 4Runner to see if it can capture our hearts and minds
What do you want to know about?
What We Got And Why
by Ryan Greger, Social Media Content Strategist
• Our test vehicle: 2025 Toyota 4Runner
Let’s be real: The outgoing Toyota 4Runner was very, very dated. The fifth-generation 4Runner went on sale in 2010, and it soldiered on with only minor updates for 15 years. For 2025, though, the sixth-generation 4Runner arrived, promising a host of updates aimed at making the rig both more refined on-road and more capable off-road. Was Toyota successful in that mission? We have the next year to find out.
We just bought this 2025 4Runner TRD Pro to add to the Edmunds One-Year Road Test fleet. Over the next year and many thousands of miles, we’ll be putting Toyota’s best off-roader through its paces — in fact, it’s already faced off against its more luxurious cousin, the Lexus GX, in an off-road comparison test.
Edmunds bought this vehicle for evaluation purposes.
2025 Toyota 4Runner: Real-World Fuel Economy
This is a big-ole trucky SUV. Merely so-so fuel economy would be a victory.
Average lifetime mpg: 18.5
EPA mpg rating: 23 combined (23 city/24 highway)
Best fill mpg: 21.0
Best range (miles): 297.7
Current odometer: 3,179
2025 Toyota 4Runner: Comfort
How comfortable is the all-new 4Runner?
All that performance comes at a cost
“There’s an obvious cool factor to the 4Runner TRD Pro: The lifted suspension and knobby tires come together with this generation’s aggressive styling to form a truly mean-looking rig. However, I imagine they also contribute to the harsh ride and rather unwieldy handling. This is not a vehicle I would ever consider daily driving, personally.” — Ryan Greger, social media content strategist
2025 Toyota 4Runner: Technology
How’s the 4Runner’s technology?
A small, but not insignificant annoyance
“This is a pretty minor qualm, but it gets annoying. On most vehicles I’ve been in that have surround-view cameras, the camera display stays on for a few moments after shifting the vehicle out of reverse and into drive. This can be super helpful when making three-point turns or when maneuvering in tighter spaces, which can require shifting back and forth between drive and reverse. However, the 4Runner immediately turns off the camera display upon being shifted into drive, requiring you to press a button on the center console should you want to activate it again. It may sound nitpicky, but I encountered this situation multiple times over the course of a weekend, and it starts to get frustrating quickly.” — Ryan Greger, social media content strategist
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Hyundai Ioniq 9 Cargo Test: How Much Fits Behind the Third Row?
And while we’re at it, how big is the frunk?
written by - The Hyundai Ioniq 9 electric SUV has 21.9 cubic feet of space behind the third row.
- That’s on the big side for a three-row crossover.
- Our real-world test shows how much luggage fits back there.
The Hyundai Ioniq 9 is now Edmunds’ top-rated electric SUV, scoring a whopping 8.4 out of 10 and surpassing its Kia EV9 corporate cousin on the leaderboard. Part of its overall excellence is its vast interior space and smart packaging, including a cargo area that measures 21.9 cubic feet behind the third row. That’s one of the largest volumes among three-row crossovers, surpassing the new Palisade (19.1 cubes) and the EV9 (20.2 cubes). Theoretically, that volume puts it between the two top vehicles on the Cargo Test Three-Row SUV Leaderboard, the Chevrolet Traverse (22.9) and Toyota Grand Highlander (20.6).
Of course, there’s a reason I do these cargo tests: Real-world luggage-carrying ability often does not align with a list of cargo volumes. Take the Kia Telluride, for instance. It has an official volume of 21 cubic feet, yet I found the Grand Highlander can hold more. In my experience, it’s the shape of the area that matters just as much as the overall volume. Let’s see how the interestingly shaped Ioniq 9 plays out.
This is a notably long space with a boxy rear end and a near vertical liftgate. Those elements are all typically good things whilst cargo testing.
This is the Kia EV9. The liftgate angle would seem to be the main difference between it and the Ioniq 9. It’ll be interesting to see how they compare in terms of bag count.
But before we start adding bags, I must first see if lifting up the floor will provide any help. In many cases, including the Telluride, Traverse and Honda Pilot, an underfloor storage area will allow a three-row SUV to hold more than its cargo volume would suggest.
As you can probably see, no, there will be no extra luggage-carrying space added here. There’s enough room for the big bag of charging adapters, which is nice. (I’ll be talking about that more later.) The EV9 looks virtually identical when you lift up its floor, by the way.
OK, bag time. Here’s some nice boilerplate information about the bags I use and their dimensions. There are two bags you’d definitely have to check at the airport: Big Gray (26 inches long x 16.5 inches wide x 12 inches deep) and Big Blue (26 x 16.5 x 10). There are three roll-aboards that usually fit as carry-ons: Medium Tall (24 x 14 x 9), Medium Wide (23 x 15 x 9) and the smaller Green Bag (21 x 14 x 9.5). Finally, there’s everyone’s favorite Fancy Bag (21 x 12 x 11), a medium-size duffle.
These are the same bags that fit in the EV9, but the formation is different. The Kia’s cargo area was wide enough at the floor for my two biggest bags to fit together width-wise, which is a rare feat among three-row crossovers. The Ioniq 9 is just a tiny bit narrower at floor level, but it’s wider as you go up, allowing me to scramble the bags around and fit one of the bigger bags up top. I couldn’t have done that in the EV9.
Now, you might be saying, “There seems to be room up top. You couldn’t have fit another bag?”
Nope. Doing this squashed the bags below (meaning it wouldn’t have fit if they were all filled with clothes) and liftgate closure was iffy. Fancy Bag was a no-go, too. Moreover, rear visibility was unacceptable, and this Ioniq 9 lacked the rearview camera mirror that comes only on the top-dog Calligraphy trim.
Instead, this is the final tally: The four original bags plus the Edmunds Golf Classic Duffel (20 x 10.5 x 10.5). Another would’ve fit on the right side, but then I’d run into the visibility issue again.
OK, so where does this leave us? The Edmunds Duffel would not have been secure if stacked atop the same bags in the EV9 and there just wasn’t as much residual space, so the Ioniq 9 is indeed on top, confirming that cargo volume hierarchy.
However, this result does not put the Ioniq 9 in second place as its volume would’ve suggested. The Toyota Grand Highlander, Kia Telluride and Honda Pilot TrailSport could hold more — the latter two because underfloor storage expanded their cargo-carrying ability. The Chevrolet Traverse remains the runaway leader on paper and in practice.
Current Three-Row Crossover Cargo Test Leaderboard: Chevrolet Traverse … big gap … Toyota Grand Highlander, Kia Telluride and Honda Pilot TrailSport (tie), Hyundai Ioniq 9, Kia EV9, Volkswagen Atlas, Ford Explorer, Jeep Grand Cherokee L, Nissan Pathfinder and Subaru Ascent (tie), Toyota Highlander … big gap … Hyundai Santa Fe, Mazda CX-90, Kia Sorento and Mitsubishi Outlander. This list does not include luxury models.
OK, now moving onto the frunk.
This is the frunk, or rather, a collage of the frunk and what fits in the frunk. None of my bags will, but that’s OK, because the Ioniq 9 has a bunch of EV accoutrements that come along for the ride. That includes the charge cord (square case), the vehicle-to-load adapter that lets you plug various electronic devices into the car (small skinny case), the tire repair kit (big skinny case), and the big bag of charge adapters I relocated to under the cargo floor during my week with the Ioniq 9. It was more convenient to have it there since I repeatedly needed it — I have a CCS home charger and the Ioniq 9 has a Tesla-style NACS port.
It was originally in the frunk, though, and you can tell that Hyundai put thought into the size of each of these cases so they’d all neatly Tetris inside the frunk. Well done. And again, there’s still a spot under the cargo area perfect for the bag of adapters. So double well done.
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James Riswick has been testing cars and writing about them for more than 20 years. He was the senior reviews editor for Autoblog and previously served multiple editor roles here at Edmunds. He has also contributed to Autotrader, Car and Driver, Hagerty, AutoGuide, JD Power, Capital One Auto Navigator and Carguide Magazine. He has been interested in cars forever; his mom took him to the Toronto Auto Show when he was 18 months old and has attended at least one every year since (OK, except in 2020). He owns a babied 1998 BMW Z3 in James Bond blue, a 2013 Mercedes-Benz E 350 wagon for family adventures, and a 2025 Cadillac Optiq because his wife would prefer to drive something from this decade.
Steven Ewing has worked in the automotive industry since 2003. In that time, he’s written thousands of articles and tested just as many vehicles. Steven is Edmunds’ director of editorial content and has previously been on staff at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog, Motor1.com, CNET, and was the U.S. correspondent for Top Gear magazine. Steven has also contributed to Automobile magazine, Car and Driver, The Drive, Jalopnik, Porsche Panorama, and dozens of other publications. In his spare time, Steven loves to play the drums, cook, and drive his 2000 BMW M Roadster.
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