Video: Buying a 2025 Toyota 4Runner Hybrid Wasn’t That Hard

So we want to go through the steps of what we did to buy one and hopefully some of that can be helpful while you're trying to find your own 4Runner hybrid. And we bought this because we wanted to add it to our long-term test fleet. This is a really highly anticipated new vehicle and a drastic change from what the 4Runner used to be. So we're gonna test fuel economy, performance, daily drivability, towing, off-road ability, you name it. Stay tuned for more coverage, but right now let's kind of go through the process of what it took to get this in our hands. (upbeat music) So we were on the hunt for a very specific trim level. We wanted the TRD offroad. Now, it's the mid offroad trim level and we wanted the premium because we felt it was a really good balance between off-road capability and features, creature comfort and cost. This one was $61,000 with a couple extra options. Now, how did we get it? You can't order a 4Runner. You get on a list, you specify your trim level, color, features, et cetera. And then when that car arrives at the dealership, they give you a call, you have your opportunity to buy it. That's not how we bought ours though. I was looking for cars like this like it was my job because for a little while it was my job. And what I found was by saving an inventory search on cars.com, I was alerted that this car was available before it was even built. I found it on February 7th and the car was scheduled to be built on February 8th. So I called the dealer. It had not been reserved, it was not on anyone's list. All they required was a $2,500 deposit. That's a lot. Normally we pay about $1000 to hold, but that amount is always either refundable or taken off the price of the vehicle. So we had the deposit down, it was February 8th, and then we waited eight weeks for our vehicle to arrive and that's when it got interesting. We buy our cars off the street just like any ordinary consumer, and sometimes the deal goes as expected and you pay a price that you expect. And then other times there are surprises. And in this case there were some surprises. When we sat down to talk pricing, well, we got hammered on our trade-in first of all. $29,000 was the first offer for a 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk four by eight, which was $71,000 two years ago. And then there were also three packages that we didn't ask for, including an appearance protection package, a VIN etching package called theft deterrent package. And then there was a window tint. We didn't want any of those things. We always warn consumers, look into those, some of them have questionable value, determine if it's something that you really want. This is actually something you're probably gonna see when you're car shopping. But the dealership said, "Well, these go on every car. We've already installed them. You know, there's nothing you can do." But read the fine print because the fine print on that quote said all of those items were optional. And we went back and forth and we got two out of those three packages removed, and we also got a couple extra thousand dollars for our Jeep Grand Cherokee. And at that point we felt good enough to make the deal. Because we wanted to make the deal, sometimes there are just concessions you're gonna have to make to get that car, and we knew it was gonna be hard to find another one like this, especially in our area. We also didn't wanna wait because we knew that tariffs were coming. The Trump administration's tariffs on imported vehicles and imported parts could really affect the price of the 4Runner down the road because it's assembled in Japan and made from 95% parts that also come from Japan. So there was no shadiness with fake tariff price increases on this car, which was great. There also wasn't dealer markup on this trim level, although they did have dealer markup on top trim levels. So that's the business end of this deal. We made the deal, we got a little bit more for our trade in and our final out the door price was $33,354. So we felt good about that. Now let's take a look at what we actually bought. So our TRD off-road premium came with a couple of optional features. Now, we didn't get a chance to option them. That's just how the vehicle arrived. And that included a power sunroof, all weather floor mats, gloss black crossbars for the roof rack, and that increased the total price with destination to $61,219. So we've got our 4Runner hybrid and we're excited to put a lot of miles on this and really test to see if it's as capable and versatile as it claims to be. And you can see more of that by tuning into cars.com/news. (upbeat music)