Car review: Toyota Rav 4

For the most part this is a good-looking and well equipped vehicle, says Mike Stone

Toyota

5 February 2019

Toyota has always described its RAV4 as an urban SUV – in other words it was a bit puny when the going got muddy.

The new fifth generation car has gone some way to remedy this, using a lightweight electric motor to power the back wheels. It makes no claims to rival, say, a Toyota Land Cruiser in off-road ability but it coped well enough on a slithery and muddy course at the car’s launch in Spain.

For the most part this is a good-looking and well equipped vehicle – lower, longer and wider than before but with better ground clearance. Its styling is quite car-like for an SUV, with all the folds, creases and interesting angles we have come to expect from Toyota and Lexus’s recent design architecture.

Visibility from inside the smart and rattle-free cabin has been improved and the load capacity in its deeper boot has grown by 79 litres to 580 litres. On the road it feels quite big. We were tempted to breathe in when we inched through narrow Spanish road toll booths, but it felt nimble and peppy through mountainous roads during the launch.

The large seats are supportive and comfortable and there is a pleasingly tactile quality to the chunky heating controls and soft-touch surfaces.

The RAV4 has the same drivetrain as the new ES and RC models, using a 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and Toyota’s Hybrid drive system, together cranking out 215bhp in the 2WD version - a useful 20bhp up on the last model – and 219bhp on the AWD variant.

Sadly it shares the same CVT gearbox as the other cars, too, which makes the engine sound pretty raucous under full power.

Our test cars came with rear-view cameras instead of simple rear-view mirrors. These cause dreadful reflections and are in no way an improvement, so will not be included in UK cars, at least for the time being.

One real problem was the sat-nav, which consistently failed to find destinations, directed us into no-entries and off motorways, only to immediately redirect us back on. It frequently told us to do a U-turn when we had not missed any directions and several times the screen in front of the driver said turn left, while the main screen in the centre console said turn right. This was a problem on several of the test cars and it needs Toyota’s attention before the RAV4 arrives in Britain in April.

Another thing the company is still working on is the lack of full Apple Car Play and Android Auto capability. You can play your music through your mobile phone but the systems’ other features are not yet available and Toyota is not saying when they will be.

However, RAV4’s standard equipment is still pretty good. All versions get adaptive cruise control, night time pedestrian protection, LED headlamps, rear parking sensors, seven-inch colour touch screens, auto-dimming rear view mirror and power adjustable heated door mirrors with auto-folding function.

Available in Icon, Design, Excel and Dynamic trim levels the RAV4 range with FWD or AWD costs from £29,635 to £36,640.

Details: Toyota RAV4 Excel FWD

Top speed: 112mph

Combined mpg: 49.22 to 51.21

CO2: 102 – 105g/km

Price: £33,610

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Car review: Toyota Rav 4

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