I Took the Toyota 4Runner Hybrid on a Road Trip for Thanksgiving. It Hurt.

Key Points

• Initially, the 2025 Toyota 4Runner gave mixed impressions, with easy wireless smartphone mirroring connectivity on one hand and excessive noise from its powertrain and other systems on the other.
• The 4Runner’s seats were uncomfortable for traveling long distances, increasing fatigue and resulting in more breaks than usual, as well as requiring the purchase of seat cushions.
• The hybrid powertrain may not be worth it for fuel economy, but it does take regular-grade fuel.

For most people, the holidays mean spending time with family and friends, and sometimes you have to venture out onto the country’s interstates to do just that. AAA predicted that nearly 73 million people would hit the road for Thanksgiving, and my husband and I were two of them. So, I grabbed Cars.com’s long-term 2025 Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road Premium for the road trip from the Louisville, Ky., area to outside Richmond, Va., which is about a 600-mile trek one way. Did the hybrid SUV prove to be an ideal vehicle for road tripping?

Related: Is the 2025 Toyota 4Runner Good for Families?

Initial Impressions

• Takeaway: Initial impressions of the 2025 Toyota 4Runner were mixed; phone connectivity was easy, but resetting the trip computer wasn’t intuitive, and the seats were uncomfortable.

Before the Thanksgiving trip, I had to fly up to Chicago to get the 4Runner from a co-worker. After picking the 4Runner up, it initially seemed to be a good vehicle. It was easy to connect my phone to wireless Apple CarPlay via the large touchscreen, and doing basic things like adjusting the mirrors and seats was easy. After grabbing a hot dog from Portillo’s for lunch, I decided to fill up the tank before heading back south.

One of the procedures with Cars.com’s long-term vehicles is fuel-economy tracking, which involves resetting the trip odometer and estimated fuel-efficiency readout on the instrument panel whenever you fill up the tank. In the 4Runner, this process didn’t seem intuitive to me at all at first; I’m used to simply pressing and holding a dedicated button on the dash. After spending a few minutes consulting the owner’s manual and watching a YouTube video, I was finally able to reset the readouts. It was ultimately a minor inconvenience, but I can only imagine how drivers who are less familiar with new cars and their screens feel when it’s time for a new vehicle.

It was then time to hit the road back down to Southern Indiana. A couple of hours into the drive, I started to realize my biggest gripe with the 4Runner: how hard its seats are. Now, perhaps it’s just because it’s the TRD Off-Road Premium trim, but these things provide zero cushion, and it was difficult finding a comfortable seat position even with the eight-way power adjustments on the driver’s seat. Needless to say, I was hurting. I have a 1979 Dodge pickup truck, and having once driven that on a seven-hour trip, I was starting to question why I wasn’t just driving that for Thanksgiving instead of the 4Runner; its bench seat is much more comfortable. There was no way my husband and I could survive the drive to Virginia without doing something about the 4Runner’s seats, so I later purchased a couple of gel seat cushions that somewhat improved the experience (we still needed more frequent breaks than we usually take, however).

Not-Really-Beautiful Noises

• Takeaway: During our road trip, we encountered several annoyances with the 4Runner, such as awkwardly positioned cupholders and excessive noise from the hybrid powertrain, wireless charger and windshield wiper motors.

When it came time to leave for Virginia, we loaded up the cargo area and hit the road with a full tank of gas. Shortly into the drive, we stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru to grab some breakfast. I needed caffeine, so I opted for a medium-size coffee; I then learned the cupholders aren’t really made to hold a regular to-go coffee cup. The coffee cup was difficult to pick up while driving as it just sank into the cupholder, and the center console’s lid doesn’t slide backward to make access easier, either. At least the cupholders are large enough to accommodate a sports drink bottle, though, which came in handy later in the trip.

Farther down Interstate 64, I encountered heavy rain, and that’s when I discovered just how noisy the 4Runner’s windshield wipers are. It’s not like the wiper blades were skittering across the windshield — they were smooth — but the wiper motors themselves have a loud electrical sound to them. It took raising the audio system’s volume up quite a bit to drown them out some. At one point while driving through the mountains in West Virginia, there was even some freezing rain; I’m grateful the defroster worked quickly, as the rain almost instantly made it difficult to see as it froze to the windshield.

There were other noises, too. For instance, while the hybrid powertrain offers plenty of acceleration, which is great for merging onto the highway, it’s super noisy at startup. Even while coming to a stop at a red light, the powertrain sounds like emergency vehicle sirens off in the distance, which prompted me to be on alert until I realized what that sound was. The wireless device charger was just as noisy while activating, and I also had to move my phone off the charger several times, as it would overheat.

When stopping at a rest area or, well, anywhere, the SUV’s beeping was spectacular. The parking sensors would beep even when I was feet away from an obstacle in front of me, such as another car or a curb, and when I would just jump into the vehicle to move it a very short distance, perhaps just 20 feet, the seat belt warning would incessantly beep if I wasn’t buckled in; combine those and it was almost like having a built-in electronic orchestra. It was also a guessing game as to how many times the 4Runner would beep when locking its doors via the proximity key’s touchpoint on the door handle. Sometimes, it would beep a reasonable one time; other times, it would beep up to 10 times, with no windows or doors open and the key fob in my pocket (in retrospect, it may have been due to the 4Runner’s rear-seat reminder).

There Were Some Positive Things, Though

• Takeaway: The 4Runner offers a spacious cargo area and easy-to-use physical controls, and it requires only regular-grade gas.

Did the 4Runner excel in any areas? Sure. One of the highlights was the abundance of physical controls for the audio and climate-control systems, as well as for things like the heated steering wheel and seats, which made it easy to change settings while driving through all the inclement weather we encountered. There’s also plenty of cargo space in the back. We loaded up a large suitcase, a box full of kitchen tools for cooking Thanksgiving dinner, a tray of homemade baklava, a couple of pillows, extra coats and a tote bag full of road-trip snacks, and we still had tons of space remaining. The 4Runner also offers a decent amount of space for four adults, which I learned on a trip to eat yet more food at a barbecue restaurant that Friday.

The 4Runner’s steering-wheel controls make it easy to switch between regular and adaptive cruise control; you simply push the Mode button to toggle between, well, modes. I also appreciated the infotainment system’s “braking ahead” notifications. There were times when I was approaching stopped traffic but couldn’t really see how bad it was due to a curve, so the announcements came in handy and helped me prepare. They weren’t really intrusive, either.

Maneuverability is very impressive for an SUV this size. The 19.7-foot turning radius made the 4Runner feel nimble in parking lots, and the 360-degree camera system helped me make sure I wasn’t hitting the curb the one time I had to parallel park. Visibility out of the windows was decent, as well.

It’s nice that the 4Runner takes regular-grade fuel instead of premium, but the hybrid powertrain isn’t really worth the upgrade if fuel economy is one of your priorities; it’s only EPA-rated at 23 mpg combined — just 2 mpg better than the gas-only version of this trim. I saw fuel economy as high as about 22 mpg in regular highway and city driving during my trip; at worst, instant readings showed around 13 mpg through the mountains. But filling up the tank with just regular gas definitely helped ease the burden on my wallet.

Read More About Cars.com’s Long-Term Toyota 4Runner:

• How Much Cargo Space Does the 2025 Toyota 4Runner Have?
• Removing Scratches in Our Long-Term Toyota 4Runner’s Paint
• What’s It Like Off-Roading in a 2025 Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road?
• Leaky Moonroof, Broken Front Air Dam Send Our Long-Term 2025 Toyota 4Runner in for Service
• Long-Term 2025 Toyota 4Runner Update: How Efficient Is the Hybrid After 5,000 Miles?

Would I Use the 4Runner for Future Road Trips?

It’s probably obvious what the answer is for this, and that is no. Personally, I feel as though the 4Runner is good for short around-town drives, but not for long trips. While I could perhaps get used to the hybrid powertrain’s noises (and all the other sounds) and watching the hood flex more than my old Dodge truck’s when traveling at highway speeds, the 4Runner’s comfort level just isn’t there for me. Perhaps a Land Cruiser would be a better option.

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