The latest Toyota RAV4 represents a welcome step forwards over the old model when it comes to styling, comfort and practicality – and it's still very well-built and likely to be solidly reliable. However, it lags behind key rivals in the infotainment stakes and the lack of a diesel engine may put off many. It drives neatly and rides very well, but many cheaper rivals offer a similar breadth of ability.
As a pure hybrid mid-sized SUV though, the RAV4 is pretty much in a class of one – and that makes price comparison tricky. On the face of it, an SUV of this size with a starting figure just shy of £30,000 looks pretty expensive compared with the likes of the Skoda Kodiaq.
If you're on the lookout for a well-built, economical, practical and comfortable SUV that's likely to major on reliability, the Toyota RAV4 is a strong choice.
The interior quality is hard to fault - the RAV4 feels well built enough to last beyond the natural three-year PCP cycle without any rattles or squeeks. But, as is often the case for Toyota, the finish is functional more than luxurious. There’s a smattering of double-stitching and soft-touch materials in the places that matter, at least.
The layout is broadly functional, too, albeit with a few extra buttons low down between the steering wheel and the door that are hard to find without taking your eyes off the road. We like the chunky, heating controls, however, with their rubberised finish that makes them easy to grip with cold hands.
Our car had a panoramic rear-view mirror, which takes a feed from a camera just inside the rear hatch glass and shows it on a digital screen integrated into the usual mirror housing. It takes some getting used to, but ultimately shows a wider-angle image so we could see its benefits, in time.
Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment
It’s certainly more helpful than the eight-inch infotainment system, which is probably the single weakest point of the vehicle. In hardware terms the screen looks slightly lower-resolution than what you can get in a VW or even a Kuga. And the interface is classic Toyota, with a clunky approach.
Worst of all, the smartphone integration is lamentable in this day and age, with not even the option to add Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, so you can’t bypass the in-car system in the same way that you can with, say, a Honda CR-V. Toyota sources say engineers are “working on it” but this functionality - standard on most of the RAV4’s rivals and at least optional on pretty much all of them - will not be available at launch.
On the road, the RAV4 is a curious mix. This generation’s body is 57 percent more rigid than the outgoing model’s, and this - coupled with the TNGA underpinnings - makes it a surprisingly capable performer on twisty roads. It shirks the worst body roll excesses that you find with SUVs, and the front end turns in crisply, with steering that’s direct and nicely weighted. Barring the worst hooliganism, it doesn’t suffer much from understeer, and it is admirably amenable to sudden changes of direction.
These traits promise to reward the driver more than you might expect in such a tall vehicle, but Toyota’s hybrid powertrain isn’t quite willing to play its part in that. It’s not that it’s unrefined or inherently unsorted; it’s more that the Hybrid Drive principle of having an engine speed not entirely related to how fast you’re travelling, is a just an insurmountable obstacle to driver involvement.
You can use steering wheel-mounted paddles to play with the ‘stepped’ ratios in the system, particularly under braking, but it’s always going to ignore you and do what it thinks is best once you’re back on the throttle.
Engines, 0-60 acceleration and top speed
Recognise this fact and adopt a smooth, relaxed approach and you’ll find the 2.5-litre set-up fast enough for most situations, including around town. And there’s no doubt that the larger capacity and increased torque mean that when the CVT revs do go skywards – and yes, they still do, from time to time – they tend to be shorter blasts than you might experience in, say, an older Toyota Auris or Prius.
The front-wheel-drive model takes 8.4 seconds to reach 62mph while the AWD edition, which has an extra motor on the back axle, trims three-tenths of a second off that figure.
When you’re cruising on the flat at motorway speeds, you’re unlikely to hear much engine noise at all – although this is as much down to a fair bit of wind rush from the side mirrors as it is the refinement of the latest powertrain.
Most of our meaningful mileage was in a front-drive Dynamic but we also tried a four-wheel-drive edition on some pretty badly rutted and muddy terrain. It acquitted itself well enough to persuade us that this RAV4 has more than enough ability off road for the type of person who’s going to buy one. There’s no discernible pay-off in on-road performance either.
The latest RAV4 is yet to be tested by Euro NCAP, but the previous model scored a full five stars with decent ratings in most areas, so we have no reason to expect anything less for the new car.
All RAV4 models get Toyota Safety Sense 2 as standard. It brings adaptive cruise control with lane departure warning and steering assist, a pre-collision system including pedestrian detection, automatic high beam headlights and road sign recognition.
The latest RAV4 is too new to have featured in our 2018 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, but the outgoing model finished 51st out of 75 cars. A fairly low 11.5 per cent of owners reported experiencing a problem with their cars. Toyota itself finished 12th overall out of 26 manufacturers, beating big names Volvo, Audi and Mercedes in the process.
Warranty
All Toyota models are covered by a five-year, 100,000-mile warranty. The battery for the hybrid powertrain in the RAV4 is also subject to an additional year or 10,000 miles – this can be renewed up to the 15th anniversary of the date of registration and there's no mileage limit.
Servicing
Intermediate servicing starts at £185 for the RAV4, with a full service starting at £335, or £395 for a 'Full+' service. Toyota also offers a price match guarentee on new tyres. The RAV4's hybrid system is subject to extra diagnostic checks at service time, but Toyota doesn't charge extra for this.
Size
These figures look competitive enough against, say, the Nissan X-Trail, which musters 565 litres as standard. But the Toyota’s ultimate capacity is some way shy of the Nissan’s 1,996 litres total and on the whole, its loadspace isn’t a patch on what you can get in the (much cheaper) Skoda Kodiaq or the (similarly priced) VW Tiguan Allspace. Still, we wouldn’t argue with Toyota’s claim that the RAV4 can swallow a full-size mountain bike without taking the wheels off, so it should be more than spacious enough for most family uses.
Leg room, head room & passenger space
Inside, a 30mm stretch in wheelbase over the old car means that there’s space for four adults – and five could travel in reasonable comfort for a decent length of time.
Boot
The boot is pretty practical, too; there are is 580 litres on offer with the rear seats in place (79 litres more than in the Mk4 RAV4), and 1,690 litres available if you fold them down.
Towing
Those looking to tow with their RAV4 will need to specify one of the three towing packs, each priced at £600 and offering different pin and reciever layouts as required. Unbraked towing weight is quoted at 750kg and braked at 1650kg for AWD models; two-wheel drive models can only manage 750kg and 800kg respectively.
During our test on mixed roads including city and motorway driving, the RAV4 returned as much as 61mpg and didn't dip below 40mpg at any point. These figures are great, comparing favourably to the smaller, slower and similarly powered Kia Niro Hybrid. Emissions are equally impressive – official NEDC-corrected CO2 emissions of 102 to 105g/km are quoted (depending on driven wheels and wheel size).
It's worth factoring in the effect that the RAV4's impressively low CO2 emissions have on Vehicle Excise Duty (£135 across the range) and, more importantly, Benefit-in-kind taxation for company car choosers. The entry point of the RAV4 range, that front-drive model, has BIK of just 21 percent – and every other version is 22 percent, regardless of how many driven wheels they have. Toyota reckons a RAV4 user-chooser will save more than £120 per month in tax over a comparable Tiguan petrol or diesel.
Insurance groups
Insurance group information isn't yet available for the latest Toyota RAV4, but we expect that it will sit around group 24-26, much as hybrid versions of the outgoing model did.
Depreciation
Our experts predict that the Toyota RAV4 will hold on to around 39 to 42 per cent of its value come trade-in time after three years and 36,000 miles. By contrast, the Skoda Kodiaq should hold on to around 47 to 52 per cent over the same period depending on specification; a Honda CR-V Hybrid is expected to hold on to almost 51 per cent when specified with four-wheel drive and SE trim.
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