Thank you to the following sponsors for supporting this series: C4 Fabrications (bumpers, rails, skid plates) - c4fabrication.com/?rfsn=7433525.116e927 Sherpa Equipment (roof rack) - sherpaec.com/products/crestone Fox Factory (Fox Shocks) - www.ridefox.com/subhome.php?m... BDS (lift) - bds-suspension.com/ Warn Winch - www.warn.com/zeon-10s-winch-89611 AEV (Wheels) - www.aev-conversions.com/product-category/tacoma/ BFG Goodrich (KO2 Tires) - www.bfgoodrichtires.com/auto/tires/all-terrain-t-a-ko2 Perry Parts (bumpstops) - www.perryparts.com/ And a special thank you to RiderJustice, riderjustice.com/overlanding/ To learn about James Buff’s Rocky Mountain Toyota RoundUp, go to (www.rockymountaintoyotaroundup.com/)

4:17 Lifting your truck does not give you more travel. Travel on IFS Toyotas is limited by the upper and lower bump stomps, so when you just lift your Toyota, you are sacrificing droop for clearance. Tinkerer’s Adventure has been instrumental in dispelling so many of these often wrong talking points about Toyotas.

This is a example of having the right tires for the right terrain

James Off-Road Recovery “We won’t get ‘em out.”

You guys are saying it's the tires. But I think all it needed was a cargo ladder and a Toyota racing stripe decal.

This will be a great series. Look forward to that stock 4Runner's evolution.

Why is he not inside the vehicle holding the brake whilst winching and then drives closer getting into more trouble to try winch the second time round?🤔😂

Did you notice how the Ram didn't drive down to the stuck vehicles and winched from firm ground? What did the modified 4Runner do?

I went off-road with my bone stock SR5 4runner, I have no problem. I can go wherever they go, 3" raised isn't much different, it's all about your driving skills.

A bone stock with better tires would have made a huge difference

haha this was great. Glad you guys had fun on this. Absolutely love this course

„Lifting the truck gives you extra down travel“ - that sounds a little backwards 😅

Watching tommy offroad makes my head hurt, he seems to forget theres this thing called momentum and if you stop in the middle of an obstacle or go 2MPH then you’re done for mate..

$11,000 in upgrades and still running the factory spare.

Love this content. Love seeing base 4Runner stuff. Would love to see you guys try it with the same base model but better tires and maybe a front level kit

An expert that needs more experience .

Great review Tommy! 👍 2 Great vehicles, but the biggest difference seems to be in the tire choice and amount of ground clearance.

I don't think this guy has ever used a winch

Side note for 4Runner owners, use extreme caution when using those OEM front tie down points for recoveries. They're not ment to be a recovery point.

Hi everybody! James here from the video. The day I've been dreading -- the posting of this first episode -- has finally arrived 🙂 First off, a big thanks to the TFL crew for including me in this series. We hang out and do cars / wheeling stuff on the weekends, so when they told me about this project I was excited to be involved. Second, to Eric (my recovery trainer friend who is the expert I defer to): I DO have gloves, they were in the recovery bag rather than on my hands where your voice in my head was telling me that they should be. Sorry sir, I'll do better next time. Two timestamps explain the reasoning behind my poor choice in recovery vehicle placement here: 13:44 and 15:31. What you see at 13:44 is my winch line having a straight shot to his factory recovery point. I was trying to not damage the bottom of his front bumper by doing a recovery from a lower angle, and the spot I put my truck was the only place I could do that low angle pull. 15:31 shows the winch line rubbing on the bumper from the higher angle of my second choice of recovery location -- where I put the Ram to recover us both -- which I should have used initially. Because the irony of the whole thing is that the bumper I was worried about damaging is being upgraded in the next episode 🙂 Not shown in the video: the part after I also got stuck where we all realized that this video was going from "built 4Runner recovers stock 4Runner" to "built Ram recovers two stuck Toyotas" and had a big laugh about it. When I got home I jacked the front of my 4Runner up, took off the wheels and washed the mud out of every crack and crevice in my fill plate and skidplates and front suspension. The lessons to take away from this video: mud sucks. Street tires aren't great in mud. Wear your gloves. And most of all, have fun. I hope everyone here enjoys the series 🙂we had a great time making it.

Super excited for this series

Even a new set of BFG AT’s on the stock suspension would make a huge difference. Street tires are simply not Off Road worthy!

Everyone tune in! Slick all seasons preform terribly in deep wet mud! Who knew!

Its all the tires. Rubber makes a huge difference

You want to be careful lifting these ifs vehicle, to much lift and you run into issues with control arms and cv angles. Not to mention you won’t get more down travel as this person said as you’ve increased spring rate to lift the vehicle.

Amazing!!!! So happy to be part of this series.

I don't know the first thing about off-roading or winching, but I feel like if I was winching someone I wouldn't want to be on a muddy slope. Why did he have to be down there and then get closer? Short winch? Shouldn't he have been in his car to help pull too at the same time? I think I would have done better

Very cool video! Looking forward to the series!

TFL coming in with another cool series? I'm all in!

😂😂Welp, as a 2022 sr5 4 runner owner sometimes things don't go as planned. Love mine but i know how far to go before getting in over my head. 🥃🥃🥃Great work guys buy that guy a beer for the fun video!!

My 4Runner is 95% stock. The only thing I changed is the tires and brakes and I guarantee I can clear this course. A good set of tires make all the difference!

Awesome. Glad you are back.

The obstacles make it nice to see the ability of vehicles you test, and also the recoveries that are required are also informative.

I'm looking forward to this series, make that 4runner a beast!

so $11k doesn't really make that much difference, the sr5 is really, really good offroad, just get tires. got it.

Currently driving a 1987 4runner turbo sr5 through bobcat trail in gary MN while watching!

I have to agree with most of the comments here. Replacing the stock Dunlops helped me a lot with regard to traction. They can’t help much with the obstacles, but you can often overcome that limitation by choosing a good line. That said, looking forward to the series and seeing all the stuff I can’t afford to do to my 4Runner 😂

Thank you guys, nice video and I liked a lot the background music, good choice, I love country! 🥰

I have a Jeep Wrangler JLU Sport. It came with street tires. The first thing I did was have the dealer add rock sliders. The second thing was to drive it to Discount Tire and have 4 Goodyear Wrangler UltraTerrain tires put on. They were the same size so no additional clearance but really good traction off road. Then I learned it capabilities while driving it for a couple of years and then added a lift and larger tires. While it is not a Rubicon it goes off road where I feel comfortable driving alone. I am not a rock crawler or an overlander but enjoy driving easy to moderate trails in the desert and in the mountains.

This dude bought it new and then dropped another $11,000 in three days?! Man, teachers don’t get paid enough. It hurt me to spend $1200 on my BFG ATs for my 150k mile 2015 4Runner Trail.

initial winch rescue showed greenhorn level.😅 thanks for sharing. enjoyed!

Good vid. It’s a good truck. I guess it just matters what you’re going to do with it. Thank you.

This will be an interesting series. I have a 2014 Trail (basically TRD Off road). I did take it out with only Stock size General Grabber AT tires. It worked amazingly well. I am now 3" lifted with a winch and 33" Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT tires. I don't have aftermarket bumpers so my approach/departure angles aren't quite as good. It now is very capable and I often end up as the recovery vehicle for others. That was a sloppy mess and the front end was buried. Working against gravity on a slippery slope was a difficult spot. It's easy to second guess. Tying off the pulling vehicle or being up higher on dryer ground would have helped. May have still needed a heavier vehicle anyway. Physics is tough, was a good learning moment for everyone to see...

The stock '24 Runner SR5 with Nitto Terra Grapplers would have no problem especially in A-Trac.

This is gonna be a dangerous series for me, I just got my 4Runner Off Road Premium in Fort Colins CO yesterday.

I don’t think Roman has a problem buying Grant a new back bumper of choice. 😂

About to get a 4runner so this is a great series. In our area its really had to find non premium models so the difference in price between SR5 and OffRoad is relatively small so getting the rear locker was an easy choice though ive seen enough videos to know that a-trac can do a heck of a lot to make it so you dont need a locker. I dont have a locker on my truck and the aftermarket options are almost zero so i wish i would have got it from the beginning.

Everybody loves to shout, it's the tires, bro! But it really is so much more than that. Just putting the same size mud tires on the SR5 without addressing the approach angle issue and perhaps the underbelly clearance issue would have resulted in the same situation. It was just plowing too much to get any momentum. The red 4Runner carried momentum in and out. If he had approached it slowly or stopped it's unlikely he would have made it out either. There are a lot of factors at play in these situations. Unfortunately, even guys into the scene don't always understand why things work the way they do. Instead, they understand what works but not why. For instance, the supposedly knowledgeable guy in the red 4Runner said lift increases travel but that's generally not true. In fact, in combination with larger tires and stiffer springs or greater preload rates lift can actually decrease travel and usually does in almost all of the inexpensive lift kits out there. But whether anointed by others or self professed, so called experts dispense all sorts of myths, rules of thumb that haven't applied in fifty years or just plain false information. Not because they are malicious but because they don't know any better. I still see journalists claiming to be truck guys who don't know what payload capacity means. Or they say adding heavier springs increases you vehicles GVWR. Legally it doesn't and given there are other components in the load path that matter, functionally it may not either. There's a lot of bad information out there spread by otherwise well meaning but misinformed people. Be careful.

Nice demo guys! I'm excited to see what James does with that SR5. I have a 2016 SR5 that I bought used, and am very, (very!) slowly building to be a better off-roader. Tires and wheels were my first upgrade along with better brake pads and rotors. Trying to figure out what I want to do with that low-hanging front bumper, so I can pull the trigger on the right lift.

I wheeled my little samurai with jeeps and full size trucks for many years, so I learned very early that the rear of your rig needs to be tethered to a tree or something before you winch someone out. If you just do it every time, you won't have to worry about calling for help. I felt bad for that poor samurai being subjected to medieval style torture, pulling some of those big fat heavy vehicles out.

Ah this is that day from over 2 weeks ago I have been waiting for! SWEET! I would say you did not have to do this for me, but you obviously are. 🤣 SR5, same color as my rig. Tires on the SR5, same as on mine. However, I discovered watching your contestants going through Tommy's demise, there was no way my 4R TRD stock on those Dunlops would have made it. I believe I said as much in the comments section, in at least 1 video. So, you really did not have to prove it would not do it on my account. 🤣 I already acknowledged that limitation. But still, it was kind of you to illustrate it. lol And it was nice you(Tommy)gave those tires a little credit out there. I know they won't deal with the slop, never said they would. But they will take people further OR than given credit for. The modified TRD OR with KO2's did better than I would have thought. And that is saying something, as I know how capable it is in stock form.(on the Dunlops)

Oh Tommy, looks like you got a battle wound on the passenger side rear bumper by the end of the video. Time for aftermarket :)

I thought about going over there with my stock 4Runner, I guess I'll stick to dirt roads for now. 🤣🤣

I’ve got a 2022 sr5 4Runner after coming from a Tacoma trd off road and tires alone without lift you’ll be just fine. Only thing I’d do to make it even better is maybe a shock and springs upgrade something more cushy

My stock SR5 did black bear pass no problems, well I did have KO2’s

I’ll be interested in how you build out the SR5.

You guys need some winch training. Someone could have gotten seriously injured and I'm the kind of guy that says safety should be at least number 3. Also using ship hooks is a no no for something that's stuck. Becomes a projectile. Lastly throw a blanket over winch rope incase it does snap. Also lifting 4r does not give it more down travel. Going to midtravel setup may yield an extra inch of downtravel.

A 3” lift and some new tires make a world of difference. I love this new series ❤

Great video! One thing that always surprises me is when people upgrade tires but only 4 of them. Always buy 5! I’m curious why the owner of the red 4Runner only bought 4 and is running the street tire as a spare.

If you approach things on a bit of an angle instead of driving directly into it you can go alot more places without bottoming out. If you actually drive a stock 4runner and have decent tires on it you will be amazed at were it can go. You dont need crawl control and the other fancy stuff, lockers are a huge help though.

Experts on KZfaq Experts in the comments Idk wtf to believe

Bringing the built closer was a mistake, as mentioned. What about using the traction boards to help cross the mud? Maybe help keep momentum across the mud for the steep climb?

What psi would you air down to on the stock tires?

I just don't understand why you kept moving the red 4R down that slippery hill to winch up the stock 4R? Chock block the red one if it's slipping or move it even higher up the hill, not toward the slippage! 😂

Line of Approach/Exit & Momentum.

And RAM saves the day!

Are you sure James is a professional?

I’m sure no one in the comments has ever made a mistake before, especially on camera.

If he is a hardcore offroader why does he still have the OEM spare tire/wheel ? I run Duratracs on OEM wheels in the winter and 255/80-17 Ridge Grapplers on the Trd wheels for Summer on my Trd Off-road.

Would it make sense on a track like that to put chains on? I would think it would be super helpful during the muddy spots, but would it be bad to drive with chains on during the non-muddy spots?

Could have probably winched him out easily the first try if he just kept the winch going. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Also doesn’t help to come closer. Winch is stronger when spooled out.

Would a kinetic rope pull have worked? Will probably need 2 30’ ropes.

The 4Runner is such a great old school vehicle…..need to get one

What kind of bumper did you put on?

What were the tire upgrades? To what tires?

Should have called Matt! But seriously dropping $11k to build a true off road 4R you need to install a front locker like the Eaton E-locker Model 14219-1 or ARB air locker ARB-RD111 or ARB-RD121.

You didn’t need a rescue if you swapped your All Season Crap Dunlop Tires with the BFG KO2 or Falken Wildpeaks

90% vehicle 10% tire

wasn't that bad an what do you think on a standard car it's obvious that you do need to upgrade an car to take it off roading if your a hard-core off roader

Was excited to watch this until 0:50 when I saw you're running street tires. What is the point?

I bought AT tires for my SR5 right away. Cost me $1k for new tires but worth every penny. At least I didnt spend $11k like the red 4 runner owner did! That would wipe out my bank account and put the 4 runner in TRD PRO price range. Thats expensive territory imo.

Does the 4Runner have tow hooks on both sides in the front? I known Tacoma doesn’t. It has a tie down on one side. Shouldn’t pull on a tie down.

Any vehicle can do any trail… once.

you need to cut the stump at dirty deeds

You need to mod the 4Runner TRD Off Road because they still only come with crap all season highway tires

Looks like a big dinger in passenger rear quarter

All you need is A/T tires on a stock 4Runner

James did a nice job on his Toyota, I especially like his tire choice. In my opinion, Goodyear is a far more superior tire than the BF-GOODRICH

Warn could use this as a “how not to recover” training video.

Nice gouge in the rear bumper of grey 4 Runner. The Dunlop Grandtrek tires are absolute garbage. Even Wrangler Adventures with Kevlar would be a huge upgrade but Duratracs are among the very best. I have them on my Tundra and my brother in law has them on his Tacoma.

It would have been nice to see the difference if you just added a good set of tires to the stock one.

Mine is a 2wd. Just a daily driver and grocery getter.

That guy should start a KZfaq channel called "the virgin wheeler".... but might have a heart attack.....

You should have got a fj40

Toyota owners punching the air rn

MOPAR to the rescue as usual.

Is that Nathan's twin?😂

thats why you got to have a pair of boots in the back of your truck

Mote of these stock vs modified videos.

15:01 I wouldn’t be standing there while cable is under tension. I wouldn’t be sticking my head out the window either.