Toyota RAV4 GXL 2018 review

The RAV4 is a smooth, easy drive. The steering is painless and you can make three-point turns and reverse park with little effort at the wheel, especially with the very decent turning circle of 10.6m.

It’s the bigger of the two petrol engines on offer, so it gets up the hill near my house that I test all cars on quite well. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it does lack a little charm. It’s not an interesting car to drive, but it does the job - it’s reliable and you know it will work time after time.

It’s here that Toyota has come through with the goods, because they have just added a whole bunch of safety features that you used to have to pay for on the GXL model. That means things like Auto Emergency Braking, collision alert, blind spot monitoring, front and rear parking cameras and active cruise control all now come standard for only an extra $40.

It also has seven airbags, two ISOFIX points and three top tether points for child car seats, with a five star ANCAP rating. So, for a family looking after their children, all of this stuff is important and good value for money.

Aha! I have found the reason the Toyota RAV4 is one of the best selling cars in the country. Just walk around to the boot and you’ll see what I mean. The boot is BIG. Really nicely big. I went to IKEA and was able to fit a bunch of flatpacks, plus photo frames, a chopping board, some glasses, a lamp… I won’t go on.

I got the version with the space saver spare tyre, where the boot is 577 litres (with a full-size spare, boot space drops to 506 litres). That’s a whole 174 litres bigger than the Mazda CX-5’s. And I think people underestimate the importance of boot space to a family. Being able to fit boogie boards and sporting equipment and all kinds of things in the back is very useful.

It’s not particularly new, but it’s not super old. The last design upgrade was in 2015 which is a while ago if you compare it to the Mazda CX-5 or the Volkswagon Tiguan - both are brand new. So it’s not the flashiest car on the block on either the exterior or the interior.

Nothing is bad about the design, it’s all… fine. It’s just no Manolo Blahnik. Are you looking for a Manolo Blahnik? Then you’re in the wrong place. This is gumboot territory. A nice, painted gumboot, sure, but a gumboot, nonetheless.

Inside, the GXL has fabric seats and fairly basic interior dash design. It won’t win any awards for style, but there’s nothing that stands out as nasty. It’s what I like to call: standard.

There was a lot of legroom up the front in the RAV4. It was comfortable to sit in and drive for an hour in (the longest I was in it at a time).

The back seat was also really quite spacious, with a fair amount of legroom for my four-year old and six-year old, and plenty of room for their legs to grow, too. The cabin is light and airy.

The RAV4 GXL comes in at $38,490 and Toyota claims an 8.5L/100km combined cycle which is pretty good for a car this size. They offer Toyota’s standard three year/100,000km warranty.