[[My wife had a very bad freeway experience with her 4Runner and hydroplaning ending in sideswiping the median barrier.]]
That is m ore the fault of the tires- not the vehicle
No argument, those stock tires (whatever they were) sucked bad in wet weather. We got away with it in SoCal. Good point, but my wife was the one with the phobia, and it is indeed true that AWD is inherently more stable about hydroplaning of the type that she experienced with a RWD SUV.
I needed to get her over the absolute fear of driving in the rain and having the car suddenly go berserk on her. I was in the car, and it indeed did suddenly start pirouetting around at 60mph.
She rarely goes over 50mph now, but we do get flash floods across the road that scare her, so confidence on car stability is crucial.