Hey guys, as some of you know I currently have a 2002 4Runner with some goodies on it and have been looking for a new Tacoma or 4Runner lately.

Well after much research I decided the perfect fit would be a Sport Edition with the V8 and 4WD. It seemed as if there were NONE available in Florida and the only ones I could get were in North Carolina. So today I went to my local dealership to just look around. They had four 4Runners on the lot, three 2008 2wd v6's and one 2007 4WD V8 Sport Edition.

Sticker was 37,800 so I start talking to the guy and long story short... I sign on the dotted line at 1000 below invoice!!!

So here she is, I take delivery on Wednesday, so expect more pictures then!!

 

So guys and girls, what should I upgrade first?

Right now I am thinking I should wait until 15k miles to replace the air filter with a true flow and whenever I can recover a little bit of money to go ahead and put HID's in it. Other than that I plan on putting leather in it whenever I can afford to and changing out the head unit to an Eclipse AVN 6620 when they come down in price a bit.

Any other suggestions?

And I have heard that many of you are not happy with the Dunlops, can I have them changed out before I take delivery at no charge and if I can... what tire do I go to. This truck will be used ONLY for highway and city driving for the first set of tires, I have an 02 that is for the trails.

Thanks in advance!

 

Must be nice to dish out some money. haha. I wouldnt do anything to that thing until its broken in.

 

I was looking at buying a tacoma in palm beach gardens and the Toyota dealership there would give you free tires for as long as you own the vehicle as long as you do all maintenance there. I thought that was a pretty good deal. My buddy bought a tundra with 20's on it and they replaced his $250 a piece tires everytime he wore them out. I thought it was impressive.

 

shhhhheeeeeeeiiiiittttttt...... Its cool, but the top dont come off like mine.. we should trade, youd be happier with an 88....

 

yeah, keep it stock. enjoy it for a while man!! you just bought it and your thinking of lights, stereo, and filters!!!

if you wanted to do all that, you should have bought an oldie!

enjoy what it has now, maybe take off runningboards.
i would say around 30k miles do a synthetic swap from regular oil. break it in with normal and then switch to synthetic (i have read its safer to do it that way).

 

More power to you! Make it a "Chaos Edition" like that one guy has around here. I wanted to get a 03 runner before I got my truck. Then I woke and realized I'm 19. Haha

 

haha thanks guys!

im not trying to upgrade it per say, just spruce it up a little bit.

the air filter is a better use of money, as i wont have to replace it ever, but i do plan on using the stock paper filter until its time to replace it.

the lights, well come on everyone knows that HID's are just freaking awesome!!

and the new head unit, i just need navi man, i hate having to print out directions whenever i go anywhere, but rest assured, this prob. wont happen till the truck has atleast 20k maybe 30k on the odo. ive got navi in my 02 and have become entirely too dependent on it, so i might as well cave to my weakness and put one in the new runner.

haha, the running boards are staying on ( my girlfriend is 5'3" ) and this truck wont see any serious offroad mods until ATLEAST 100k miles. so... any more opinions guys?

i do plan on breaking it in with whatever toyota filled it up with, but by the time 5000 miles rolls around the engine should be good and broken in ( am i wrong here?)

 

oh, and i already ordered the vent visors for it... this is not going to be good for my wallet!!

 

It's a sound strategy to run the oil that it came with until the first recommended oil change, then you can switch to synthetic. Amsoil typically recommends an engine flush before switching, but that does not apply to a new-clean engine...just older higher mileage vehicles with a mechanically sound engine.
Congrats on the new rig! I prefer the Sport Edition also, however I dont think they come with the 3rd row seat option. So I'll be looking at a Limited V8 in the next few years...

 

First thing I did was to replace the chrome grille with a color keyed one. It was like $150 or so.

Then yep, HID's from xenondepot.com. Very good kit, plug-in-play. *Def need to re-aim the projectors they are far to high for HID's.

I'm going to swap out the stereo at some point as well too, but its going to be interesting. There is no space for any accesories like the 3rd gen behind the dash. I had to put the xm radio stuff above the steering collumn because that is the only available space I've found. Why does this matter? Well aftermarket radios with GPS stuff have all sorts of external units that need to be stashed within a few feet of the radio, and I have not found any good spots yet.

Anyone else know?

 

while your at it, when your rubber wears down, you should get some nice beefy tires and maybe rims?

 

Im not sure I want to go that route with this 4Runner yet, I am keeping my '02 (since its not worth anything according to the dealership, atleast not enough for me to want to trade it in) so I will have a trail truck and a street queen. Dont get me wrong, I am sure I will take the '07 out on WIDE and DRY trails, nothing too technical or crazy as its brand new and I dont want it to develop rattles and vibrations before it needs to.

I have the '02 for those muddy nasty tight trails, so I will keep the '07 mostly on the street with maybe 3 or 4 mild offroad trips a year.

Here is a pic of the '02 for those of you that dont know me from my previous posts.

 

and now im not sure about adding HID's to it, seems like the projectors are made for halogen lamps and not HID's, supposedly you can mod the "squirrel finders" (WTF?) so you dont have glare but no matter what you will still have hot spots so perhaps i need to start looking into HIR bulbs instead...

 

they sure do put alot of plastic on trucks these days d@mn soccer moms had to start drivin suvs and ruined it for all of us

 

Well as for the HID's, the projectors were designed for halogens, but they do very well with HID's in them too, modding the squirel finders is as simple as pulling a metal tab an inch over.

I have HID's there is very little glare, no one, including police, know that the HID's were not stock & they are pretty good judges of glare. With correct aiming and moving the metal tabs (squirrel finders), you have yourself a nice bright set of headlights.

I know and dislike instalations of HID's in reflector housings, this is very far from those.

 

If I was you, I would hold off on the HID's until your warranty expires. If you have any electrical problems, you're going to have a hard time having a dealership warranty it with all that aftermarket stuff on it.

 

I would leave it stock for now, wait a while before modding it.

I would also convert the 02 into a street-legal trail rig.

Just my 2 cents

 

i do plan on keeping it stock for now, no lift or different tires for awhile, as i said earlier i am going to hold off on HIDs and i was thinking about putting in the HIR bulbs but after driving it at night, the headlights are plenty bright on her so im going to hold off on that also. so the only thing i am going to for the next 20k miles is put in a true flow when the stock filter needs replacing and switch to mobil 1 after i break in the motor with the stock oil

and of course throw some tint on it ( florida vehicles NEED tint!!) but other than that, it wont be touched. at least not for quite a few miles. i like the stock speakers, they sound really nice i might however go to the eclipse or stock navigation sooner rather than later, i cant stand having navi in my 02 and not in my 07!!

rowdy, my 02 is a street legal trail rig right? what needs to be done to it to make it "more street legal"? however i still drive the 02 as i really want to break 200k with it, and i drive A LOT of miles a year (20-30k a year) my 02 has close to 140k on it now so thats about 23k a year, some years less, some more.

over all i LOVE the new one, its so quite and has so much more power than im used to, plus the way she handles on the road!! i promised pics of both 4runners together, but ive been EXTREMELY busy and will be for the rest of the week and most of next week so here are the only pictures i have of both 4runners together. it was the night i took delivery, and it was rainy and already dark, but you will get the idea.

picked it up with 60 miles on it, but had to drive it around town for awhile just for fun!

 

good god that's a nice looking rig. I just started to look for V6 limited with X-REAS. I'm gonna testdrive one probably tomorrow.