Toyota HiAce vs Audi RS5

What's the difference?

The HiAce maintains its staggering 50 per cent share of the mid-size commercial van market for numerous compelling reasons including its versatility, as evidenced by the diverse range of Aussie businesses that rely on it. Toyota’s latest suite of safety and other upgrades makes it even better.

Good looking, good to drive, and good to simply sit in, the Audi RS5 range ticks plenty of premium boxes. Whether you can live with the practicality pitfalls of the Coupe is up to you, but if you can't, might I suggest taking a wander over to our RS4 Avant review?

Apart from the recent safety upgrades, our LWB test vehicle resolutely adheres to a design that’s been perfected through decades of hard yakka.

Its simple and robust unitary chassis features MacPherson strut front suspension, a leaf-spring live rear axle, rack and pinion steering and (on all automatic variants) four-wheel disc brakes.

The HiAce’s traditional rear-wheel drive layout has an inherent traction advantage over front-wheel drive rivals, particularly when towing and hauling heavy loads on low-grip surfaces.

It also ensures the front wheels can be turned sharply enough for its 3210mm wheelbase to deliver an impressively tight 11.0-metre turning circle. And its 1990mm height also allows access to underground loading docks and multi-storey car parks.

There’s no load-floor liner or cabin bulkhead included as standard equipment, but both are available as Toyota genuine accessories. The use of unpainted plastic bumpers is designed to best withstand the wear and tear often evident in these areas on hard-working vans.

The cabin is spacious and airy, with a neat and functional dash design featuring large and clear instrumentation and (thankfully) physical dials and buttons rather than distracting touchscreens for the main controls that are easy to reach and operate. It’s a commercial van that’s easy to live with.

I defy anyone to describe the RS5, and especially the Coupe, as anything but stunning. Seriously, the near perfect proportions and swept-back styling make it look fast even when it's parked. 

Up front, there's a new-look black-mesh grille that's been given a 3D effect, like it juts out over the road in front it, while the thing headlights have been carved back into the body work like they're been windswept under hard acceleration.

The 20-inch darkened alloys fill the arches, too, with a sharp body crease that runs from the front headlight all the way back to the bulging shoulder lines above the rear tyres accentuating the curves.

Inside, the RS5 is a sea of black Nappa leather and sporty touches, and we particularly like the chunky, flat-bottomed steering wheel, which both looks - and feels - great.

With its hefty 2260kg kerb weight and 3300kg GVM, our test vehicle has a 1040kg payload rating. So, it’s a genuine one-tonner and up to 120kg of that can be carried on Toyota’s triple roof-rack set.

The HiAce is also rated to tow up to 1500kg of braked trailer and with its 4800kg GCM rating (or how much weight it can legally carry and tow at the same time) it can carry its maximum payload while towing its maximum trailer weight. So, that’s more than 2.5 tonnes of combined cargo-carrying capacity, which would comfortably meet or exceed most job requirements.

Its cavernous cargo bay, which offers 6.2 cubic metres of load volume, is accessed from either side through sliding doors with 1010mm-wide openings, or through rear barn-doors with 180-degrees opening to allow easy forklift access.

The cargo bay is 2530mm long, 1760mm wide and 1340mm high, with 1268mm between the rear wheel housings allowing up to two standard Aussie pallets or three Euro pallets to be carried, secured by a choice of six load-anchorage points.

An unusual feature is the roof’s full-length internal lining, which we suspect contributes to at least some suppression of tyre noise emanating from the rear-wheel housings. The walls and doors are neatly lined to mid-height and there’s ample internal lighting.

Generous cabin storage includes a bottle-holder and bin in each front door, small bottle/cupholders in the centre and either side of the dash, plus a single glove box. The console between the seats offers another two bottle-holders plus generous internal storage, which is topped by a large hinged lid that can also serve as a storage tray or work desk.

We only tested the Coupe, and I can tell you that the practicality perks on offer largely depend on where you're sitting.

Up front, you're spoiled for room in the two-door Coupe, with the two spacious seats separated by a sizeable centre console that's also home to two cupholders and a variety of cubbies, with extra bottle storage in each of the front doors. 

The back seat, though, is a little, or a lot, tighter, with come acrobatics required to even climb into it, given the Coupe only has two doors. The Sportback offers two more doors, which will surely make the process a little easier. 

The Coupe measures 4723mm in length, 1866mm in width and 1372mm in height, and will deliver a decent 410 litres in luggage space in the boot. The Sportback measures in at 4783mm, 1866mm and 1399mm, and boosts your luggage space to 465 litres.

Either vehicle has your tech needs sorted, with an abundance of USB and power outlets serving both front and backseat riders.

It's available as a Coupe or a Sportback, but either way, the RS5 commands a $150,900 asking price. And that's not chump change, but Audi's performance model does come with a lot of bang for those bucks.

We'll get to the engine and safety stuff in a moment, but in terms of fruit, you'll find 20-inch alloys outside, as well sportier RS body styling, sport brakes, Matrix LED headlights, keyless entry and push-button start and heated mirrors, a sunroof and privacy glass. Inside, there's Nappa leather seats (heated in the front), illuminated door sills, stainless steel pedals and ambient interior lighting.

The tech stuff is handled by a new 10.1-inch central touchscreen that gets both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as Audi's Virtual Cockpit, which replaces the dials in the driver's binnacle with a digital screen. There's also wireless phone charging, and a killer 19-speaker Bang and Olufsen sound system.

Toyota’s well-proven (1GD-FTV) 2.8-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-diesel produces 130kW of power at 3400rpm and, in auto models like ours, 450Nm of torque between 1600-2400rpm. Its Euro 5 emissions compliance doesn’t require AdBlue, which minimises maintenance and running costs.

The refined six-speed torque converter automatic offers the choice of sequential manual-shifting. Fuel efficiency is optimised with full torque converter lock-up on fourth, fifth and sixth gears, along with overdrive on fifth and sixth to minimise engine rpm when highway driving. The traction advantage of rear-wheel drive is enhanced by an electronically controlled automatic limited-slip diff.

Its a terrific engine, this - a twin-turbo 2.9-litre six-cylinder TFSI that will deliver 331kW at 5700rpm and 600Nm at 1900rpm, sending it thundering to all four wheels (because quattro) via an eight-speed tiptronic automatic.

That's enough, says Audi, to deliver a 0-100km/h sprint time of 3.9 seconds in the Coupe and the Sportback. Which is very, very quick.

Toyota claims combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) average consumption of 7.8L/100km. Our 328km of testing was conducted with the engine’s auto start/stop function switched off and comprised the usual mix of city, suburban and highway driving, of which about one third was hauling a near-maximum payload.

Our own figure, calculated from fuel bowser and tripmeter readings, was 10.7L/100km. That’s still within the usual 2.0-3.0L/100km discrepancy between official and real-world figures and not bad for a vehicle weighing more than 2.2 tonnes driven mostly in metro settings and hauling more than one tonne during our test. So, based on our real-world consumption, you could expect a driving range of around 650km from its 70-litre tank.

The RS5 Coupe will sip a claimed 9.4L/100km on the combined cycle, and emit a claimed 208g/km of Co2. It's fitted with a 58-litre fuel tank. 

The RS5 Coupe will the same 9.4L/100km, but emit 209g/km of Co2.

The driving position is comfortable thanks to a well-sorted combination of supportive seating with power-adjustable lumbar support, a leather-rimmed steering wheel that’s adjustable for height and reach and a large left footrest for extra support.

The standard kerbside sliding door includes a large window, which partly reduces the huge blind spot over the driver’s left shoulder created by the cargo bay’s solid walls.

Fortunately, the HiAce also comes standard with blind-spot monitoring to ensure safe lane-changing on multi-lane roads, while its rear cross-traffic alert and rear-view camera are equally valuable when reversing out of driveways into busy traffic.

The new electric power steering has more noticeable changes in turning weight compared to the more linear hydraulic system it replaces. Its variable-ratio assistance feels even lighter at parking speeds for easier manoeuvrability and becomes increasingly firm and direct as road speeds increase.

Ride quality is reasonably supple when unladen or lightly loaded and the 2.8-litre turbo-diesel, with its sizeable 450Nm of torque, has strong low-rpm response and displays good flexibility in city and suburban driving.

Internal noise levels below 80km/h are acceptable, but like all vans can become intolerable at highway speeds due largely to tyre roar emanating from the rear-wheel housings. So, if you do lots of highway travel, we’d recommend fitting Toyota’s genuine accessory solid bulkhead to insulate the cabin from this noise.

The six-speed auto’s shift calibrations feel like they’re getting the best out of this engine, particularly fuel-efficient highway travel which requires less than 2000rpm to maintain 110km/h. The sequential manual-shifting function can be handy in certain situations, though, like hauling/towing heavy loads in hilly terrain.

To test its GVM rating we forklifted 830kg into the cargo bay, which combined with our crew of two equalled a total payload of 1010kg that was only about 30kg less than its 1040kg limit.

The stout rear leaf-springs only compressed about 30mm, which left more than 60mm of static bump-stop clearance that was more than enough to ensure there was no bottoming-out on our test route.

Its ample torque made light work of hauling this payload in city, suburban and highway driving as well as our 13 per cent gradient, 2.0km-long set climb at 60km/h, which it easily cleared in third gear.

Engine braking on the way down, in a manually-selected second gear, wasn’t as robust but within expectations given the one-tonne-plus payload it was trying to restrain.

We also tested what we safely could of the HiAce’s latest safety upgrades in road use, which all worked as intended. The ‘lane trace assist’ function when using adaptive cruise control was outstanding, as it resolutely kept the vehicle centred in its lane even around curved stretches of multi-lane highway, without the driver needing to intervene.

With our time behind the wheel limited to the RS5 Coupe, we can only really report on how the two-door feels on the road, but given the prodigious power on offer, it's unlikely the addition of two doors is going to make the Sportback any slower. 

In short, the RS5 is thunderously fast, collecting speed with utter nonchalance thanks to this thick and endless-feeling supply of power unleashed whenever you plant your right foot.

It makes even the most ham-fisted attempts at cornering feel fast as lightning, with the power flow able to make up for every slow entry and exit by simply piling on pace between bends. 

But that's what you expect from an RS model, right? So perhaps more impressive is the RS5's ability to transform back into a relatively sedate urban cruiser when the red mist subsides. The suspension is firm, especially over rough road surfaces, and you do need to be a little careful with the accelerator to avoid that lurching feeling at every green light, but driven calmly, it doubles as a everyday car quite nicely.

Like in the RS4, we did find the gearbox felt a little quick to change at pace, shifting up or down at strange moments on the way into or out of corners, but you can reclaim control via the paddle shifters.

The safety story begins with six (Coupe) or eight (Sportback), and the usual suite of braking and traction aids, but then climbs into the tech-savvy stuff from there.

You get a 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise with stop and go, active lane assist, front and rear parking sensors, AEB with pedestrian detection, rear cross-traffic alert, an exit warning system, blind-spot monitoring and turn assist, which monitors oncoming traffic when making a turn.

It's a lot of gear, and it all contributes to Audi's five-star ANCAP safety rating, awarded in 2017 to the A5 range.

The HiAce is covered by Toyota's five-year/unlimited km warranty which is in line with competitors like the Ford Transit Custom and Hyundai Staria Load but lags behind the LDV Deliver 7's seven-year term.

Scheduled servicing is a relatively short six months/10,000km interval, whichever occurs first. Capped price for the first 10 scheduled services up to five years/100,000km totals $3650, which is $365 per service or $730 annually.

Toyota currently has 275 dealers across its vast Australian network located in metro, rural and regional areas. Toyota dealerships are also service centres.

Audi vehicles are covered by a three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is feeling more than a little underdone when compared to some competitors.

Services are due every 12 months or 15,000kms, and Audi allows you to pre-pay your service costs for the first five years, at a cost of $3,050.