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I'm not sure if there was such an ask from the customers.

Recently, there was construction at the roads near my house and the roads were all dug up. Now, we have a 4x2 fortuner, one morning, I was going to pick my driver from his house to go to Lucknow, and it had rained the night before, hence the road was full of slushes. I am a really inexperienced driver and have barely driven for 6 months, but the fact that our car struggled to drive on those roads was diabolical to be honest.

Similarly, in June of 2018, we went to Sangam, that area is full of sand and stuff. Our car was barely 3 months old and my father's friend car was 6 months old, who went there with us. After spending an hour there, we realised both the cars were stuck. But his being a 4x4 crawled out easily and ours got stuck and it had to be left overnight so that a tractor can haul it out in the morning. That day, my father's friend had said to him that he should have bought a 4x4 instead of saving Rs. 1.5 lakh for getting stuck in sand. :)

Moral: if you are buying a fortuner, please buy a 4x4, as the 4x2 is literally a jacked up Innova Crysta with a bigger engine.

Spot on! An SUV without a 4wd is not an SUV :)

If you experience difficult driving terrain for just a couple of instances in a year, then there is no point in a 4x4. All you need to do is improve on your driving skills and you can manage some difficult road surface conditions. Even with a 4x2.

There must be hundreds of other vehicles that go down that road that are simple 2 wheel drive and they may clear it.

Don't regret your purchase. A little driving technique change can help in such situations. If not all.

There is just one thing which I would like to point out.

Most vehicles reach the destination, it’s about how they reach. I stay very close to the hills, so, I frequent places which are hard to reach and I spot Altos, WagonR’s and Innovas there. Few years back, I was trying to reach a home stay and the vehicle refused to climb in 1st gear, I mean, no progress, nothing. Slotted in 4L and easily managed, whereas, a Sumo Victa was honking like mad to make way as it had made momentum and it could not afford to slow, come bad roads or whatever.

I gave way and resumed my climb and reached the place effortlessly. It was one of those climbs where only sky was visible for more than 2 kilometres from the driver seat. Sure, all vehicles will go, but the anxiety, abuse can be taken care of and believe me, no skill can take care of those roads / places. Anxiety, clutch slippage, burning of clutch and maintaining momentum over extremely bad roads & tossing the passengers around is the thing you should be prepared to trade off.

Most places where I go on holidays, are like that and I invariably end up using 4L to climb there and if it rains, you need 4H on plain roads (read slush) too. Depends entirely on use case plus, your skill and risk taking appetite.

Needless to say, I have 2 SUV’s, both have the low range GB.

I think labelling only 4X4 as true SUV is being constricted. Most of the 2WD like Thar (RWD), Creta, Brezza, GV, Scorpio (4X2), Fortuner (4X2) are being sold as SUV, by manufacturers. Most of the Alto’s and Wagon R’s perform superbly in hills. Yes I agree on extremely difficult terrain it is a boon to have 4WD.But to label it is an attempt to set a deep norm that “ Yes if it’s SUV it’s 4WD (Cue: Macho man twirls is moustache, Hayward 10000 :uncontrol). By this norm it it’s a sports sedan it’s a Ferrari ( and all those Verna owners would roll, may be Skoda one too rl:).

A petrol Fortuner is bought with a practical approach to 10 Year NGT ban on diesel vehicles, and a deep understanding of one’s annual mileage consumption. Any one who can afford a 4X2 Petrol Fortuner (fuel consumption wise too!) could have easily bought a 4WD diesel, still choose to apply his mind over his heart (his/her).

My two cents.

Regards

Problem with heavy body on frame cars is that if you are stuck recovery is quite a task. Unsprung weight at the back and RWD makes it actually more difficult than say a lightweight FWD car.

If you are mostly driving on 4 lane highway/city 4x2 is just fine, if you are exploring places, like to go down less explored path, 4x4 gear in a bulky SUV is a must .

For locals even a 4x2 does the job primarily because, they travel everyday and know the road inch by inch. Momentum, gradient, surface, track is something that they know already and in worst case if the car is stuck, you probably leave it behind get it recovered after a day or two and sort out things. For an outsider, its a pain the moment you are stuck.

Rural and small town customers demand manual transmission. They may want the topmost variant with manual tranny.

It could also be a case of Toyota clearing every stock for some facelift version globally. Remember when the 1st gen Fortuner got the 2.5l VnT diesel during its last year? :uncontrol

Seeing the way 2WD Fortuners (1st gen) struggle (Innovas too), I believe they have open differentials leading to embarassing situations where they spin their rear tyres like some unloaded Eeco or Ace. Have seen Innova Crystas struggle, but haven't seen 2nd gen Fortuners struggle.

I completely agree, which is why I switched to a 4X4 in 2021 after using a 4X2 for nearly 7 years.

Any idea how to reduce or turn off air blowing from last cup holder.?The noise due to air coming out is really annoying , when the seats are down.

The air flow on rear auxiliary box can be controlled only by rear AC control panel mounted on roof.
If you switch off rear AC fan then only air flow will stop in the rear auxiliary box.

Thanks for the response. I think Toyota should provide some clean way to shut this explicitly and separately. Noise of this particular section(3rd row auxiliary cup holder) is way over then overhead vents and hence annoying , specially when sitting in second row.

Are you sure it's a vent?
Fortuner has a separate cooling coil for the rear AC and this seems to be the inlet.

The unit under discussion is the Auxiliary box (Type F) from which air is thrown out. The flow & temperature of the air is as per the setting on rear A/C control panel.

There’s no temp control on the rear ac in my car. Not sure any generation got it.

Try putting a paper near it. I’m sure it’s the inlet. Never found air being throw out.
But if that’s the vent Where's the inlet?