---
title: 'Toyota 4Runner vs Land Cruiser - Which 4WD System Is Best?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=oErPa0aA37c'
video_id: 'oErPa0aA37c'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 989
---

# Toyota 4Runner vs Land Cruiser - Which 4WD System Is Best?

> Source: [Toyota 4Runner vs Land Cruiser - Which 4WD System Is Best?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=oErPa0aA37c)

## Summary

This video provides a detailed technical comparison between the full-time four-wheel drive system of the Toyota Land Cruiser and the part-time system found in most 4Runners (and Tacomas). It explains the mechanics of the transfer case, planetary gear sets, and Torsen center differential, culminating in an assessment of which system offers superior overall capability.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to 4WD Systems** [00:02] — Both vehicles use a 2.4L inline-4 turbo engine (Land Cruiser hybrid adds electric motor for more power) and 8-speed automatic. The Land Cruiser has full-time 4WD; 4Runner has part-time (though some trims offer full-time).
- **Full-Time vs Part-Time Transfer Case** [01:14] — Land Cruiser's full-time system has a center differential allowing all-wheel drive on pavement. 4Runner's part-time system lacks a center diff, meaning front and rear are locked together, prohibiting pavement use to avoid binding.
- **Torque Split** [01:44] — Land Cruiser has a nominal 40% front / 60% rear torque split, which can vary dynamically via the Torsen center differential.
- **Low Range Selection via Planetary Gear Set** [04:01] — High range uses a 1:1 ratio (direct drive); low range engages the planetary gear set for a 2.57:1 reduction, improving low-speed control.
- **Torsen Center Differential Operation** [07:02] — The Torsen diff uses spiral gears that create axial force when speed differences occur, pressing friction plates to limit slip and transfer torque from faster to slower axle.
- **Torque Split Variations** [10:10] — With Torsen, front faster can send up to 71% torque to rear; rear faster can send up to 53% to front. Under deceleration, these figures differ.
- **Part-Time 4WD Engagement** [11:16] — A collar slides to connect the rear output to the chain drive for front wheels, locking front and rear together. No differential, so only for off-road use.
- **On-Road vs Off-Road Capability** [12:56] — Full-time is more capable on-road (rain, snow, dry) while matching part-time off-road when center diff is locked. Part-time offers 2WD mode for efficiency but limits traction on pavement.
- **Durability Considerations** [15:42] — Toyota's full-time system uses a spline collar for locking, not a clutch, so it is robust and avoids slip issues. Full-time system also allows low range with open center diff, a new feature.

### Conclusion

The full-time 4WD system in the Land Cruiser is superior overall because it provides better on-road traction while maintaining identical off-road capability to the part-time system in the 4Runner. However, the part-time system offers slight advantages in efficiency, cost, weight, and the option for 2WD.

## Transcript

4Runner are both highly capable off-road vehicles but which one has the better four-wheel drive system well all Land Cruisers come with full-time four-wheel drive whereas most 4Runners come with part-time four-wheel drive so in this
video we're going to explain exactly how both systems work what the advantages are of each and ultimately discuss which system is superior worth mentioning the Toyota Tacoma has the same four-wheel drive system as the 4Runner so basically
anything in this video that applies to the 4Runner also applies to the Tacoma the specifications differ for each vehicle so both vehicles are going to be using a 2.4 L inline 4- cylinder turbocharged engine that will be sending
power through an 8-speed automatic transmission however you'll notice the Land Cruiser has more power and more torque as a result of using an electric motor sandwiched between the engine and the transmission so more torque there
with the Land Cruiser as it is a hybrid system but using the same 2.4 L turbo now as we move past that 8-speed transmission we get to the transfer case and here's where things differ so the Land Cruiser has a full-time four-wheel
drive system versus the 4Runner uses a part-time four-wheel drive transfer case Cruiser you're always powering all four wheels you're either in four high or you're in four low for the 4Runner you can be in two high meaning driving just
the rear wheels you can be in four high or you can be in four low so low gear with all four wheels driven now the big difference between these two transfer cases is that the Land Cruisers transfer case has a center differential which
allows for it to drive on pavement with all four wheels being driven versus the 4Runner with a part-time four-wheel drive transfer case there is no Center differential meaning the front speed and the rear speed are locked and thus you
cannot drive it on pavement or you'll have bind being within that system so the Land Cruiser has a nominal 40 60 torque split 40% to the front 60% of the torque to the rear this can vary depending on that Center differential
and there are no exceptions when it comes to This Land Cruiser they all come with the Hybrid engine with more power and they all come with full-time four-wheel drive versus there are plenty of exceptions with the 4Runner so you
can get the hybrid and get the additional power and efficiency that comes along with a hybrid system you also have different Drive configurations so you could purchase a forerunner with just rear wheeel drive you can purchase
it with part-time four-wheel drive and in certain trims uh for example the limited with the hybrid as well as the Platinum you actually can get it with the full-time four-wheel drive system meaning exactly the same as far as the
four-wheel drive system but the majority of the 4Runner options are going to come with that part-time four-wheel drive system and one tiny exception for the Tacoma I mentioned an 8-speed automatic that is what the Tacoma has however
there also is the option for a six-speed manual with the Tacoma not the 4Runner between the Land Cruiser and the Forerunner is happening within the transfer case so we need to understand how this works so the transfer case is
your input here coming from your transmission into the transfer case you then have your low range planetary gear set that is then sending power through the Torsen differential in the case of the Land Cruiser then we are traveling
to the chain assembly which is powering your front tires and you also have your output going to your rear tires so you can see that transfer case there sending that power to a rear e-locker so you have a locking differential in the back
where you have an open differential the differentials are the same for both vehicles so now that we have an overview of the transfer case we need to answer four major questions first how does the low range gear selection work second how
does the full-time system create a 4060 torque split third how does the Torsen Center differential work and finally how does the part-time system select four-wheel drive okay so how do we select between high and low gear well it
all starts with a planetary gear set so a planetary gear set has a sun gear which rotates in the center it has planets which rotate around that Sun Gear and then it has a ring gear which rotates around the planets and then
connecting all of those planets is a planet carrier okay so here we're just looking at a side view of a planetary gear set so in blue we have the Sun Gear in red we have the planets which are connected to the planet carrier and then
we have the ring gear in Black which is fixed now most of the time you'll be driving in the high gear so the planetary gear set isn't really doing anything so when you're driving in high gear you can pretty much ignore this
planetary gear set you've got your power coming in from the transmission passing through that sun gear which we're not changing the gear ratio so a simple 1:1 gear ratio and then that travels where you have this collar which splines to
the output of The Sun Gear and so the Sun Gear is rotating this collar which is splined to the output of your high and low range so that is either traveling to the center differential in the case of the full-time four-wheel
drive system or it is traveling to the rear wheels in the case of the part-time four-wheel drive system okay so what about when you want to go into four low improve your low speed control well now
planetary gear set so instead of the Gear to this collar and then to your output now we're going to use this collar and slide it over so it's no longer splin to The Sun Gear and instead
it is splined to the planet carrier so here we have what that looks like in four high and here we have what that looks like in four low and as you can different so now it's going to be forced to travel through the planets and then
to your output increasing that gear ratio okay so let's see how this works with a real example so you see that I've got a pink dot here on the ring gear I've got a pink dot there in the center of the planet and then I have this black
screw which is on our Sun Gear so this is our input so if I give this one full rotation you can see our planet only moved a little bit so a second full moved a little bit so a second full rotation third
rotation third fourth fifth and then about 5 1/2 so this has about a 5 1/2 gear reduction now in the case of Toyota they're using now in the case of Toyota they're using a 2.57 to1 gear reduction so it's
traveling from that Sun Gear through the planet carrier to either the center differential for your full-time system or to the rear wheels for your part-time system all right so let's move on to the Land Cruisers Torsen Center differential
how does it create that 4060 torque split okay so for our torson Center differential once again we're using a planetary gear set so the output of our high low range gear selector were these two planets here which are the input for
our Center differential so the planets there in Black are the input for this and the outputs are both the ring gear which is sending power to the rear wheel wheels and The Sun Gear in blue in the center here which is sending power to
the front wheels now if your front wheels and your rear wheels are words you're traveling in a straight line and none of your tires are slipping well that means you have no relative motion between your gears so the front
wheels are traveling at the same speed as the rear wheels so this entire thing is rotating as one unit with no relative motion well now we can figure out why we get our torque split because torque is force time radius so our Sun Gear has a
smaller radius at which the force is applied versus the ring gear which has a larger radius where that force is applied so if that ratio of the radius of the Sun Gear is 4 to 6 well then you have a 40 60 torque split because you
have that radius of four time the force versus that radius of 6 * the force so 40 60 split now again that's only true if the front and rear axles are rotating at the same speed so what happens when you go around a corner or one of the
axles starts to slip well now we need to understand how that Torsen differential works so here's where we get into the magic of Torsen differentials once you front and the rear as you can see you're
going to start to rotate these planets now in the case of this torson differential your planets have spiral gear teeth so once they start rotating they create an axial load so it starts pushing this pinion gear forward and it
starts pushing that Sun Gear backwards now on this diagram you can see these sections I've drawn in red these are friction plates so that axial Force created within this planet is going to push it Forward into a friction plate
which is going to try and match its speed with the rear wheel speed now at the same time the sun gear which is connected of course to your front wheels is also being pressed up against the friction plate with this planet and so
squeezing up against friction plates in order to match the speeds of both the front and the rear you're creating this breaking force this lock up within the differential now it's not actually going to lock up it's going to allow for slip
brakes to everything is that it's taking Torque from whatever is spinning faster and it's sending it to whatever is spinning slower so if the rear axle is spinning faster it slows it down and sends torque to the front if the front
axle is spinning faster it slows it down and sends torque to the rear all right so what sort of torque splits does this translate into so as we already mentioned if the front axle and the rear axle are rotating at the same speed well
you simply have that 40 60 split if the front axle is rotating faster than the rear axle well you can send as much as 71% of the torque to the rear and if the front axle is rotating slower than the rear axle perhaps you have some rear
rear axle perhaps you have some rear slip well you can send as much as 53% of the torque to the front under Accel acceleration these numbers differ if you torque would be coming from the wheels instead of from the engine now with
Toyota's full-time four-wheel drive system you can also completely lock that Center differential so how this works is very simple you have a collar which very simple you have a collar which simply slides over splining your planets
to your ring gear meaning locking them together and in a differential if you lock any two of the three it forces everything to rotate together so now your torque split assuming everything has equal grip 50/50 and then in theory
if the front axle or the rear axle has more available grip you can send up to 100% of the torque to the front or up to 100% of the torque to the rear again in theory it's depending on how strong that system is and what those levels of grip
understand the full-time four-wheel drive system so how does the 4Runner part-time system select between two wheel drive and four-wheel drive so this is also quite simple so we have our output from our high low range gear
selection and that output simply sends that power to the rear wheels unless you use this collar here which is splined to the chain assembly which is powering those front tires you slide that collar over thus connecting the front wheels to
the rear output and so then you are in four-wheel drive as you can see here with that collar slid over and spline to both the front and the rear now there is no differential here both are forced to rotate at the the same speed which means
you should only do this when you are not driving on pavement now this leads us to our final question which system is better all right so let's start with discussing the full-time four-wheel drive system again this means all four
wheels are always driven now your front tires when you're going around a turn are going to have a larger radius than the rear tires behind them that means the front axle is going to be rotating at a faster speed than your rear axle so
that speed differential has to be taken up by a Center differential that's why you're allowed to drive a full-time four-wheel drive system on the road and system because these are forced to rotate at the same speed on a part-time
and thus you'd have binding within that four-wheel drive system so you can use a four-wheel drive full-time system in the rain in the snow when it's dry there's four-wheel drive and you can use it off-road and so it is more capable
onroad while matching equally the off-road capability of a part-time system because once you lock it and you lock that rear well that's exactly the part-time system it's locked in the center it's locked in the rear so they
have the exact same strategy as far as putting the power down they're going to behave the exact same way off-road when they're both in that mode there's another slight advantage to the full-time four-wheel drive system on the
new Land Cruiser though they have changed it versus previous versions so now it is completely independent control of whether you're higher low and whether you're with the center open or with the center locked so that means you can be
in low range gear without that Center locked that previously was not allowed on the old Land Cruisers or The Limited 4Runner with the full-time four-wheel drive system now as far as the part-time four-wheel drive system it does enable
you to select two- wheel drive that is not an option with full-time so kind of cool that you have the option to be rear wheel drive however that means if you're driving on the road in the rain well you're limited to two wheel drive so
it's a traction disadvantage because on pavement whether it's you know light going up a Mountain Road and it keeps switching between pavement and Snow Well so you don't have that binding occur within the system there are also slight
benefits when it comes to efficiency cost and weight now I do mean slight you can look at some examples of 4Runners with two wheel drive four-wheel drive full-time and four-wheel drive part-time and look all get the exact same EPA num
running two wheel drive you're not rotating as many components but modern four-wheel drive systems getting pretty efficient and so the penalty there is not huge of course off-road super capable to have a part-time system just
does come up is people like to talk about durability reliability is part-time actually better off-road compared to some full-time systems and I think part of this comes to what what is the system we're comparing against
because some full-time systems will actually use a clutch based system in order to allow for slip between the front and rear axle and so you could find a limitation of that clutch pack where you might have a situation where
that clutch is actually slipping and so in that case of course that would not be ideal but I don't think that really applies to Toyota here because they're using a splin collar which is simply connecting your front output with your
planets and so in that scenario you know you're talking about a spline there's no any speed differential between the front and the rear so it's not something you have to worry about as far as clutch slip so realistically capability very
equal off-road and then the full-time has that mode where you would not have on the part-time of being in low and not having that Center differential locked so giving an answer to that final question which system is better well
there may be some reasons why you might want to select a part-time system but if you're answering the question of which has more capability which has the wider breadth of capability because the full-time system is more capable onroad
and equally capable off-road that is the better four-wheel drive system as far as total capability a huge thank you to Toyota's Engineers who really helped me information thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or
watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below