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Old Gringo, go and test drive what you wish. Don't listen to everyone on here, use your own judgement. By the way, every article I have seen on the RAV4 gives it top scores, especially the V6.
Old Gringo, go and test drive what you wish. Don't listen to everyone on here, use your own judgement. By the way, every article I have seen on the RAV4 gives it top scores, especially the V6.
Everyone has different needs, too, and what satisfies one driver won't meet the needs of another.
I'm taking the "Old" part of "Old Gringo" seriously - one of the things that you find is that car dealerships tend to be very accommodating once you get past a certain age - I was able to take loaner versions of the RAV4, Forester, Outback, Equinox and Escape home for a day (lol, not at the same time) and play with them, to see which one "fit" the best. Back when I was a car-crazy 25 year old, dealerships weren't nearly so nice.....
I'm thinking about the 4cyl version of this "cute-ute." Just wondering what experience any of you have had with it, in terms of handling mud/snow, general impressions and fuel economy.
if you are going to be doing alot of 4x4ing in the mud and going off road the jeep 2010 4 door jeep wrangler unlimited is great off road up there with the hummer H1 for off road ability from the factory
http://www.jalopnik.com/cars/assets/resources/2006/10/DSC03166.jpg (broken link)
I have a 2003 RAV4 and it's my second one. I LOVE it. Bought it brand new back then. I lived most of my life in New England and the car handles beautiful in the snow. I now live in AZ and occassionly need to drive it through minor flooding. Once I drove it through an overflowed wash. It got me through as the water got deeper and the car got slower. I was begging the car to get me through and I would NEVER do something so stupid again. It did and I haven't. I think it handles great. The new ones look like 'Soccer Mom' cars no? I take it for regular maintenance and I've had few to no problems with it. Also........I have personal experience in crash tests as I totaled the first one. Some guy ran a stop sign and I slammed into him broadside. Both our cars were totaled and I got out and walked away bruised but fine. Airbags deployed - life is good.
Last edited by lightenup57; 03-23-2010 at 06:33 PM..
Reason: addition
Rav4 gets great reviews. I suggest you drive one for yourself. My friend has a 2007 with 200K miles--no problems. He uses regular oil and religiously changes it every 3K miles.
I know some will question 200K miles on a 2007 but he is constantly driving for his job.
You obviously know nothing about what you think you do. The Rav is a very competent handler and has proven itself over and over on just about every comparison done by every car magazine out there., We have one and its one of the best cars we have ever owned. Does not eat tires, (have 36 k on the original tires) There is not delay in the stability system,. Take this from an SAE engineer.. heres some tests where it came out on top.. every time.
The RAV4 has so much creaky flex and poor suspension it's like a pot of spaghetti. We used to eat up tires and sometimes burn one down the belts in an hour. And we used a number of brands(yoko, bridgestone, michelin). It's also so damn scary to drive at speed and uncomfortable we had a number of people barf.
Do an emergency lane change in one compared to it's competitors and it will be very visible how bad the RAV4 is.
I have also tested the various dynamic control systems on these vehicles on ice and gravel for again thousands of laps and the Toyota system is SLLLLOOOWWWW. The Nissan and Subaru get on top of the problem right away and the Toyota has a noticeable delay of a second or two.
Last edited by frankgn87; 03-24-2010 at 07:14 AM..
So it would seem. Looks like the first generation was on the Corolla platform but now it has it's own. You may all point and laugh at me now.
no one is pointing at ya Its rare today when a car manufacture does not use an existing platform for a completely different car and it was a fair assumption that the Rav used the camrys..
Just bought a 6cyl RAV4 Limited after comparing Subaru (Forester, Outback), Jeep, GM (hated the Equinox), Honda CRV, Ford Escape, Nissan Rogue. The Subarus came closest, but the body flex in the Forester is awful (and the 4spd feels underpowered and the auto trans is only available in 4spd and is noisy at highway cruise) and I didn't like the CVT in the Outback.
Had a hard time deciding between the RAV4s - the 4 cyl is just adequate and the 6 cyl is a little more power than necessary for anything but passing. In the end I went with the 6 cyl for the 5spd. The 5spd trans means the 6 cyl gets 1 mpg avg less than the 4cyl - my driving is about 70% highway and I average about 27 mpg, which isn't too bad. The handling is good for the size and weight, too, although the tires it comes with are terrible for road holding, had to change tires ASAP.
May I ask what you didn't like about the CRV compare to the RAV-4? I like that the RAV-4 has the sideways-opening back door rather than the upward-opening type (hate those!!) but it seems that the CRV beats it in just about every other respect.
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Its rare today when a car manufacture does not use an existing platform for a completely different car and it was a fair assumption that the Rav used the camrys..
