I pulled the trigger and bought a new 4WD SUV and sold my 4Runner. This is the first time in 50 years of car ownership that I have not bought a Toyota. Why would I make such a radical move, you may ask? I'm a field geologist. I work out of an RV because of the room, comfort (after 60 years of sleeping on rough ground, I figured I had nothing left to prove, especially to my aging hips, shoulders, and knees), and ability to charge my computer, not to mention to be able to gather with my colleagues for discussion out of the weather. In the past, I have relied on my colleagues for rides in the field, but there have been times I've wanted to go into the field myself, and the only way I could do that was have my husband drive the RV while I drive my 4Runner (= my field vehicle). Then he has to hang around the RV all day by himself while I'm in the field, something he did for about 5 days once and declared he would never do again.
The problem is I go into places where an RV towing a car hauler would be impractical, if not impossible. And the 4Runner can't be flat towed. Also, it was old enough (2005) that it lacked features I've come to appreciate in my Camry, e.g., hands-free calling and Sirius XM. Even though I LOVED my 4Runner (and it had some sentimental value, having been my late husband's last car), I realized I had to have a field vehicle that could be flat-towed behind the RV. So I bought a (new) 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now one thing I was very concerned about was comfort, because one of the reasons I've always had Toyotas is that it's like the seats are built specifically for me, something that is important on long drives. No other manufacturer even came close, but the JGC is very comfortable. And it can be flat-towed.
Now the part you all might have more than a passing interest in: Do not trade in your used vehicle. It's always been true that you can get more by selling a vehicle yourself than trading it in, but the differential right now is amazing. When we listed the 4Runner, we asked > 60% more than the dealer would take it in trade and 40% more than KBB. This was based on news stories that used cars are going for 36% more than they were a year ago. We did not ask enough. Unfortunately, we didn't figure this out until we'd already committed to sell it to someone for the asking price. We could have gotten twice what the dealer offered, maybe even more. If you list a used car, set a minimum price and take bids. Granted, 4Runners are particularly desirable, so this might not work for every used car, but the used-car market is extremely hot right now.
We started getting calls within 5 minutes of listing it on Craigslist. The buyer flew up from California with our asking price in cash (a large bundle of 100s) even though it was a holiday (yes, we checked the bills to make sure they weren't counterfeit!). We had other calls from California, central Oregon, and southern Idaho (5.5 hours away), northern Washington (4 hours away), and some people didn't say where they were calling from. It was pretty amazing.
The Genesis looks like a great car, just very little dealer support still, and quite a bit low on performance compared to the Q50 Red Sport and CTS V-Sport.
