Distance: 2,183 km
Date: 13-17 February, 2025
Location: Ontario, New York Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, D.C.
Up front: LE used to mean Luxury Edition, but there’s nothing luxury about the base model of the Rav4. The seats are cloth, the steering wheel is made of rubber and there’s no lumbar support. But the six-way seat adjustments and telescoping steering wheel make it easy to get comfortable for long trips. The tactile buttons are easy to reach and the dials are large and rubbery, perfect for gloves in winter driving.
Heated seats come standard, as does Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It’s easy to pair and connects seamlessly every time. There’s even a little button on screen to maximize the phone pairing area by getting rid of some menu buttons. However, the touchscreen is too far from the driver’s seat and lacks a scroll wheel in the centre console to control it.
As a base model, the centre rearview mirror only dims manually, which is fine. But the passenger side rearview mirror won’t adjust downward if it’s all the way to the right. Though I have long legs and a short torso, this is the first of over 50 cars I’ve driven where I had a safety concern with the factory adjustment settings.
In the back: The rear seats are fine. There are two USB-A ports for passengers to keep themselves busy and the space means installing a rear-facing child safety seat should be easy. The bench is reclinable to make room for more cargo storage, but the cargo cover doesn’t come standard. It’s an extra $400 on top of the $42,000 price for what other manufacturers usually include as standard.
Driving: The Rav4 used to have an outward-facing spare tire in the back to show off its ruggedness and off road capability. Not so in this generation. Most people will be buying this for grocery shopping as their only escape from domestic boredom and begrudgingly picking in-laws up from the airport. If that’s you, get the hybrid.
The 203-horsepower petrol turbo four-cylinder I got wasn’t a hybrid and shines on interurban roads, but that’s all it’s good for. It makes as much noise as a diesel at low speed and struggles to find an efficient RPM for highway speeds. Toyota claims a litre of fuel will carry you 14km on the highway while I got 11.5 for the first 700km of interstate highways.
Steering is responsive at city speeds and understeers slightly on the highway. Turbo lag is noticeable, but power is persistent in sport mode when it’s kept spooled up and ready to go, albeit at a fuel economy penalty.
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