Had the first real snow today. I havent had the 4runner for the winter yet. I was kinda surprised at how poorly it did over all. It did awesome compared to most vehicles, but I honestly exspected much more. having the rear unlocked stinks. I almost forgot how much open diffs feel to drive.

ON THE OTHER HAND. in 4 wheel drive, it far exceeded my exspectations. Exspecially considering how average it was in 2wheel rear.

 

rear wheel drive is gonna suck in snow, period. front wheel drive cars will out perform a 2wd 4Runner in the snow. 4 wheel drive will own everything. Why does this come as a surprise?

 

Ive owned and drive many cars and trucks. I am speaking comparativly. I have driven a range of them in Alaska and Colorado winters.

What is surprising is how bad it torques the rear end out. I didnt think it was powerfull enough to have that problem
I did better than my 350hp camaro, but not quite as well as the 300hp blazer. ( yes i wrote that to simply brag. )

ON the other hand, I rolled a 4 wheel drive honda passport three times goinng 45. worst 4 wheel drive ever ( not just because we totaled it )

once my buddy and i took his 68 (69?) GTO over wolf creek pass ( in colorado ) in a blizard, and that damn car did awesome while everyone else had to spend the night.

ahh good times good times.

back to the main point.... My exspectations of the 4runners winter preformance was just too high. I posted just to see some other peoples exsperiances.

 

And I could not go through ~7" of wet stuff even in 4low on Wrangler RT/S's a week ago. 11" ground clearance my ass

 

We have only had a few inches around in Denver but Im so glad I have my 4runner. Its the first 4x4 Ive had but my girlfriends and my bestfriends jeeps both suck in the snow. Thats what they get for buyin jeeps though. But I love my 4runner!

 

Its most likely your tires... Ive only gotten stuck in the snow once and it was completely driver "error" I was just messing around trying to get up a bank that ended up being a little too deep.

Seeing as 300hp (i know you were just bragging) is completely useless in the snow, there has to be something else that made your balzer so good in the snow.

 

It's going to start snowing again here on Sunday night. Our first storm (last week) dumped about 12" of snow and it was nice to drive in the white stuff again.

 

In slick conditions nothing beats AWD;if I had an Runner with an automatic I'd really want the multi mode version in the '99-'00s.

 

phorunninduke,

I'm with you with the snow performance of the 4Runner. I was just mess'n around this morning in the snow driving in 2wd mode and boy does it suck big time. I got stuck trying to go over a speed bump. I don't know how people with 2wd 4runners even manage. Without 4wd it's probably the worst rear wheel drive vehicle i've ever driven in the snow. Heck my old Datsun 210 does way better.

 

Just get some REVO's

 

Tires and weight dstribution. For those complaining about running in 2wd do you have any weight in the back? Remember these are pickup trucks with a fulltime cap! So no weight = no traction, but like previously stated most 2wd (rwd) vehicles suck in the snow. Your tires can make a big difference as well my old 80 cutlass supreme would just walk around folks stuck in the snow, but I had a set of old Mohawk snow tires on the rear, and a little weight in the trunk. Co-workes at the shop called the tires my road warriors because they were real snow tires not all seasons. Just my $.02.

 

I'm curious as to what kind of tires you guys are using that are complaining so much. The 4Runner is as good as anything in the snow in 4wd. That being said, i do much prefer my old AWD talon over the 4runner in the ice, the lower center of gravity sure does help.

 

I had my runner up in the blues yesterday to get a christmas tree and it did great in snow plus I had on my brand new wild country 31-10.50 TXR's I ran in 2wd for awhile but put it in 4wd for the extra traction and saftey reasons. I dont know about you other people having trouble but I did very well with snow pretty deep in most places I went, plus the roads were even worse on the way out because while I was up it snowed another 2-4 inches on top of the already bad roads I know I had no problems at all

 

i think its the tires and the air pressure in them, PLUS the way you drive it, ive had NO problems at all with mine in the snow, i air down to about 30 PSI in the snow IN 2wd works great for me,
oh i have the Bridgestone Dueler MTs

 

Yeah the blazer was locked, had 35x12.5s aird down to 20psi.

The 4runner has bridgstone duelers that are near new.

i have all my tools and figured that top was pretty heavy so I dunno about the wieght issue. The problem isnt tracktion, its when it dose break loose the rear end wants to get out from under you. Some of my favoret winter trails up by silverton colorado, that would be a problem as there is no room to get sideways.

Also for the record, I didnt say that the 4runner sucked overall, it just didnt meet my exspectations of what I thought it would be, which was awesome.

 

Yeah I forgot about this issue. I have bridgestone duelers HL on my 99LTD and had my rear end come around on me twice (driving very carefully on both occasions). I guess a set of Revos would fix that problem. My other problem is the ABS brakes. They are way too sensitive on icy roads. I had a near heart attack coming down my icy driveway going very slowly only to have my ABS work against me. I just could not stop. I though the ABS systems only works above a certain speed threshhold?

 

I'm probably gonna sound stupid, but, what is the difference between AWD and 4WD? Hey everybody has to learn somehow...

 

as far as I understand it, AWD has a "transfer case" of sorts but it simply transfers torque to the front axle, and isn't "true" 4WD because there is no extra gearing in there for low range.

My wife has a RAV4, that's an AWD vehicle. It has a pushbutton to engage the front diff. My runner on the other hand has a lever to engage the 4WD and select either high or low range.

 

Oh cool, makes sense. Thanks.

 

With good tires and weight in the rear it should handle decent in the snow, but 4wd is to much fun