Introduction
good day I’m Paul so this is one of the bestselling cars in Australia and since we first drove it in 2020 the Toyota Rav 4 has climbed almost $10,000 so is it still worth the money that’s what I want to find out today this is called the xse it’s the hybrid two wheel drive version it’s around midp speec in the Rav 4 range this competes with things like the Mazda CX5 the K Sportage uh Nissan xtrail it’s that size vehicle although some of those Vehicles offer seven seats whereas this is strictly a five seater this one here is priced now at just under $50,000 that’s too expensive the entire range kicks off at just under 40 Grand today we’re going to do a detailed review of this car so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review you can use the time codes that are on the screen or if you’re on YouTube you can scroll down and use the chapters below if you haven’t done so already subscribe to our Channel and press the Bell icon so you can find out every single time we drive a car that’s become significantly more expensive now let’s talk exterior design and look to be fair most cars in this segment have actually gone up in price it was just when I was flicking back between our notes on the 2020 Cruiser two wheel drive hybrid that we drove and then looked at the pricing today and realized that it’s gone up 10 grand I was like holy crap that is a lot of money over just three years time um now optional color 675 bucks on the design front I still think this looks Sensational it is just the right size for a vehicle in this segment uh and I think it really has that good split between style and just just a bit of substance as well I like this headlight upgrade they did as part of the facelift and you’ll see inside the cabin as well some of that Tech has become significantly better too and this is all stuff that we had complained about when we originally drove the car so full LED headlights you have Toyota logo here with the blue section to signify that it’s a hybrid and then some piano black as you tear yourself down the bottom there come around to the side here let’s have a at these wheels nice and chubby profile on these tires as well it’s an 18-in alloy wheel with piano black there and then what have we got there a 60 profile tire so it should mean that it rides nicely bit of piano black on the wheel archers a hybrid badge there no 360 camera here so just the indicator built into the wing mirror the camera would typically sit under here and that’s available on upper grades roof rails you have privacy glass little bit of crime around the top there and then come to the back with me now around the back here you’ve got partial LED tail lights that big price chop hasn’t given you full LED tail lights yet another hybrid badge there RAV four here as well and then blue highlights there on that Toyota logo so let me know in the comments section below do you think this is still a goodlooking car and what do you reckon about the price rise not just on this but across the segment do you think it’s out of control can for your feedback let me know in the comments section below
Interior and Features
so we are inside the Rav 4 start off with the key so you’ve got a lock button unlock boots they on the back there Toyota and Rav 4 proximity sents in key you can leave that in your pocket once you’re inside you have a push button start just over here now up dated Rav 4 um we actually haven’t driven one of these for a little while now and I like that they’ve taken our feedback on board with a lot of this interior and actually made it a whole lot nicer so big infotainment system up here this has grown since the last version of this that we drove I also still really like the fact that there are soft touch materials as you work your way down along with these rubber sections here for the cooling system and then a screen a full size screen ahead of the driver as well so it all looks uh pretty nice to me now what about your touch points so nice and softt there soft on the door as well how soft are they we’ve got our durometer we’ve tested the main surfaces in this cabin if you do want to see how this car compares to others that we’ve tested before have a look at the link in the description below now builds quality little bit wonky there but not too bad this what the door sounds like so infotainment and before I jump into that I just wanted to mention that uh this now comes with remote Services as well so you have a little uh ejector switch here with an SOS button if you do need to call Emergency Services you also have the ability to communicate with the car using your phone via an app which is cool so you do have those connected services that come standard and it’s free for a set period once you buy the car so you have an infame display here there a little that is a little under 11 in in size it’s all a color touchcreen with inbuilt satellite navigation nice and quick and sharp there it’s got Apple carplay and Android auto apple carplay is Wireless Android auto is wir I’ll show you what apple carplay looks like on the audio front you have AM FM and dab Digital radio and then in addition to that you also have the ability to have a look at your energy flow and a couple of other sort of bits and pieces here head of the driver is a 12.3in display so this gives you all of your critical functions nice and easy to use and you control that here using uh the buttons on the steering wheel
Safety and Technology
now what about your safety Tech so you’ve got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection and auto dimming rear Vision mirror you have radar cruise control uh you’ve got a lane tracing assistant blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror you have a junction assistant as well you’ve also got rear cross traffic alert front and rear parking sensors and then a reverse View Camera I’ll show you what that looks like lots of noises and beeps but the quality of that is fantastic that looks really nice and this is what the horn sounds like
Practicality and Comfort
now moving on to practicality you’ve got a usba a port down the front here with 12 volt Outlet you have a wireless phone charger in center console here you’ve got two USBC Outlets terms of storing your phone you can kind of just whack that anywhere down on the phone charger if you like what about your other stuff so your coffee cup how does that go fits into there nicely no deling your water bottle fits into there as well which is good let’s see if the big one fits in the door no it doesn’t a little bit disappointing um you’ve got another couple of storage bits so one up the top top here you’ve got a card holder a little beneath that big old center console there you’ve got glove box over here that’s reasonably sized a little ledge here to pop your bits and pieces and finally a sunglasses holder up the top so comfort you have dual zone automatic climate control heed seats here for the front row driver seat is electrically adjustable so you can go forwards backwards you can lift the front of the seat the back of the seat you can adjust your back rest you have Lumar adjustment too passenger seat is manually adjustable quite like these seats you got like a textured section down here and this faux leather stuff up the top uh Ste whe sits nicely in the hand and you have uh tilts and reach adjustment on our reach test all of this stuff is easy to reach while you’re driving
Rear Seat and Cargo Space
so back seat uh actually now before I talk about the back seat I really don’t like that this door only opens up to there look at that if you look at the Subaru Forester as an example that goes almost to 90° it means getting kids in and out is a little bit tricky so a bit of a design floor there I reckon to terms of room though there is stacks of space here so lots of knee room toe room is great head room is really good my seats reclined a bit CU you have two stages of Recine here map pocket on this side you’ve got air vents down here two USBC ports a center armrest here with two cup holders ISO fix points on your outboard seats and three top tether points as well and most importantly does the window go all the way down so it’s Auto up and down look at that so cargo space what does it look like you have a powered tailgate very slow one so you have up to 580 L of cargo space here available in two tiers beneath the cargo floor you have a space sa a spare tire and then you can move that cargo lid to secondary position there to give you slightly more room in addition to that you’ve got a 12vt outlet off to the side here plus some hooks as well show what it looks like with our bags in there so there’s our laptop bag there’s the suitcase it’s pretty big there’s actually a stack of room in here which is good then you can expand the space even further by dropping that second row out of the way we don’t have a figure for that so there you go it is just a much bigger space
Driving Experience
hi okay we’re on the road in the Rav 4 excess e toel drive hybrid like all of Toyota’s hybrid products it is silent when you set off and that’s the whole principle Behind These hybrid vehicles that Toyota runs what they try and do is have the vehicle set off on electric power then what it does is once you get to a point where the electric power is no longer useful it kicks the internal combustion engine on but it takes away that huge amount of energy required to get the car moving from a standing start so uh it does really well at that…
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Verdict
so the r four what do we reckon look um firstly I think this is the pick of the bunch the XS is right where it needs to be yes you do get a few more bells and whistles in the cruiser but I think this is right where it needs to be in terms of spec efficiency all that sort of stuff and the hybrid in front-wheel drive form is quite good I don’t think you really need to go down the path of all-wheel drive unless you want to do some light off-roading…
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