In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the 4Runner are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Explorer doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The 4Runner has standard Active Headrests, which use a specially designed headrest to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Active Headrests system moves the headrests forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The Explorer doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
Both the 4Runner and the Explorer have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras, driver alert monitors, available four-wheel drive, blind spot warning systems, around view monitors and rear cross-path warning.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a flat barrier at 38.5 MPH, results indicate that the Toyota 4Runner is safer than the Ford Explorer:
|
4Runner |
Explorer |
|
Front Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
HIC |
41 |
65 |
|
Rear Seat |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Spine Acceleration |
36 G’s |
38 G’s |
Hip Force |
381 lbs. |
604 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.