This is a car I’m considering getting new. Any thoughts? Thanks!
It’s a car designed to appeal to women, and if you’re a woman, you’ll probably like it. Cute styling, short wheelbase, lots of luggage space, high seating position, stone-like Toyota reliability.
That said, my sister, who pulls a little camping trailer, bought a left-over previous model, because she could get the V-6 engine, which is pretty much a “must” for towing. The V-6 wasn’t available on the newer model.
I don’t have a 2014 Toyota RAV4, but I do have a 2013 RAV4 XLE standard, and I used to have a 2002 RAV4 L.
Pluses for my 2013:
Good gas mileage (a good 26 mpg on average; I drive about 9.5 miles each way to work every day). Very much as advertised
Reliability (No breakdowns or issues since I purchased it in June 2013)
For a 4-cylinder, this has decent acceleration, and definitely better than my old 2002 model
Dual control on the heat / AC is good
Fairly roomy behind 2nd seat; can easily fit several standard size suitcases
Not difficult to fold down rear seats to accommodate more bulky items
Minuses for my 2013:
Seats are very uncomfortable for long drives. No lumbar support; headrest forces your head forward and down, no matter what adjustments you try to make to it. You can imagine what all that’s like driving for anything longer than 2 hours. My 2002 model was WAY superior to this in seating comfort for short or long drives. Deluxe model has seats with built-in lumbar support, I’ve heard - if you know you want this for family vacations, it might be worth the extra money, or you might want to rent a different vehicle to take on vacation
Rear seat is definitely cramped for adult passengers - you can say 3 adults fit, but barely, and this is even if one of them is very petite. Very uncomfortable to seat 3 for any length of time, although 2 is not as much of a problem. We’re not in the car-seat phase any longer but I don’t think there’s any way you could fit 2 car-seats plus a booster, and with 2 car-seats, I don’t think you could also include a kid who didn’t need a booster.
Not easy to get in or adjust seats if you’re very petite. I’m 4’10" and this is a constant issue for me. The car is slightly too high up for me, and if I have the seat adjusted as I need for driving, it’s not easy to hoist myself in and get behind the wheel without pinching my legs with the seat (I am not overweight) or whacking my head against the doorframe. Seat adjustment feels very cheap and is done not automatically but manually by pumping a handle
Rear tailgate, which lifts up, feels less ‘heavy’ and more weight-compensated than the old side-to-side model, and I like that the spare is no longer on the back but under the floor of the rear hatchway. I note that the 2014 deluxe model has a height-adjustable power liftgate. This would be well worth the money if you’ve got a petite driver who will be using it. MY 2013 does NOT have this feature, so every time I get groceries, I have to go up on tiptoe to open and close the $%^& liftgate in my standard. Bad for my back, dangerous in winter, all-around not good
Audio system has trouble with my Iphone. Wirelessly the car loses it frequently and has to reconnect, sometimes jumps around in my digital audiobooks, and insists on playing the music IT wants rather than what I want to queue, especially when it’s connected to the charger. Controls are a little confusing. Sound quality is decent but not outstanding
Overall, I’ll take the mpg and reliability over the seating & tailgate comfort, but I’d still prefer to rent a vehicle for family vacations. This one really sucks for the long drive. On the commute to work, it’s fine.
Yep. Get a Mazda CX-5.
Some of the headrests can be removed (pulled out) and inserted backwards to prevent this.
It gets a rating of “poor” in the IIHS small frontal overlap crash test. Competitors like the Mazda CX-5, Subaru Forester and Nissan Rogue all receive ratings of “good”, as does the Chevy Equinox/GMC Terrain, which is a slightly larger vehicle but similar enough that you can cross shop them.
Since the RAV4 doesn’t do anything else particularly better than those competitor vehicles, I see no reason to choose it over those other vehicles with better crash safety ratings. Toyota as a company however has been shown to be pretty keen about keeping up with the competition - they rushed out a design update for the Camry that brought its score up from Poor to Acceptable just 1 year into the launch I think, so it might be that next year they may have fixed this issue.