The 2020 Toyota Rav4 is a Very Good Compact SUV

Here's what to expect in this car review. That's not that bad. It's not that good. This is like the grown-up like adult-y version. Do you have any issue in these seats? I actually have an issue on the passenger side. We do have a bunch of drive modes. Sport mode. It's going to be so fun, isn't it? Oh my god, the most fun. They're just making it difficult for you to use while driving. And now for the best feature on the interior. Oh, you mean best by worst? I'm Yuri. I'm Jacob. Thornburg Drive. 2020 Toyota RAV4. Limited all-wheel drive with no launch control. Okay, so it's pretty slow and it sounds like a CVT. That's not that bad. It's not that good. It definitely sounds like a CVT though. Horsepower and torque. 203 horsepower, 184 pound-feet of torque from a 2.5 liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder. So we've previously reviewed the RAV4 Trail. What's the difference between that one and this one? This is the top trim. This is the most expensive one you can get without getting into like hybrids and stuff like that. Yeah, and the first thing I noticed is that inside we don't have as much cool funky colors and everything. Yeah, this is like the grown-up like adult-y version. Yeah, I kind of like the Trail more. That was like a lot more fun. Yeah, and so did I. And then outside, there's a lot of different stuff too. Yeah, we get a totally different front end. The whole bumper's changed. Let's start with the looks. I want to point out that the new style RAV4 actually looks really good. It does. It looks like a baby 4Runner, which is a very good looking vehicle. And then this compared to how the CR-Vs look, this does look a lot better. It does. But the thing that sucks about this one and every trim of RAV4 is the headlights. They're just not impressive. Yeah, the DRLs aren't cool LED strips or anything. It's just normal. Yeah, they have like this chrome kind of fake boomerang thing, but it's only chrome. It doesn't actually light up. But it is redeemed with the cool grille and everything up front. Yeah, but I still prefer the one on the Trail. Then we do have two cool little fake hood scoop things underneath the hood, just like the R8. Exactly like the R8. I don't know. It doesn't look bad. No, it doesn't. I really like the wheels on this one. But again, I don't like them more than the ones on the Trail. But these are nice for the Limited. And what is the Continental recommended tire for the RAV4? The Cross Contact LX25 and the Viking Contact 7. And then if we go to the side view, we have a floating roof design. Yeah, like the most minimal floating roof ever. It probably looks a lot better in different colors because this is a dark burgundy. Yeah, this color does look good in the sun, but in the shade, it's kind of dull. And we do have a bunch of cool body lines on it. I guess I've been really into the crisp body lines lately. And we obviously have plastic cladding because this is an off-road monster. Monster. Yeah, yeah. Then we've only got a little chrome strip on the top of the window stuff and on the door handles. Yeah, and the chrome stuff is because this is the Limited. And on the door handles, we do have like the proximity touch stuff, which is nice. You don't have to actually click a button every time. And moving around to the back, we do have real exhaust and it's dual. I like it. How about the taillights? Taillights are okay. Not the best. And I still have my same complaint from the trail, where when the taillights are on, they're just two little dots. And since this is a hatch, we should probably do the box test. Box test! Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Get your own box on patreon.com slash TheStraightPipes. That's a really slow tailgate. And since this is the top trim, you do get a kick to open tailgate. Visor test. I don't think this is going to do well. No, no. Three, two, one. Fail and gimmick. Yeah, once you see one of these, you know it's game over. Exactly. And then it will fit a small cup of coffee just fine. It kind of hits the edges, but you got a lot of room for your fingers to come in there. That's a pass. So now moving into the interior, starting with that coupled area, we've got some cool burgundy slash brownish around there. And where the cell phone is for the wireless charger. I personally don't like it because it's not enough of that color. And we still have that same kind of shelf that we had in the trail, but now it's burgundy-ish. Oh, I think for a whole black interior, it's just subtle enough. Like in the light, it pops just enough. And material wise, everything is soft touch, which is pretty cool. And it's got some nice stitching in it. Yeah, and there's a mixture of fake leather and real leather. So the seats are actually fake leather. They're Softex. And on the side door panel, it's really soft, but then the shifter has a real leather surround. And the steering wheel feels really nice. We've got a heated steering wheel and heated and cooled seats, which is cool. Yeah, the cooled seats is really nice to have. What do you think about this metal material on the inside? I like that it's satin. And it's very classy. It's not fun and kiddy like the trail. That's right. And then how about the room in the back? I'm actually pretty comfortable back there. And then up in the front, I'm pretty comfortable in these seats. Do you have any issue in these seats? I actually have an issue on the passenger side. So I'm kind of leaning forward a little bit hunched down, but if I were to sit straight up, my head actually hits the roof and there's no way to adjust it lower on the passenger side. And the driver's side has all that electronic adjustment. So I think it's time to get you in the driver's seat and see if you can get comfortable on this side. Yeah, I'd like to stop hitting my head on this. And now that I'm in the driver's seat, so much more comfortable, not even touching the stupid roof. Yeah, five foot eight. If I sit straight up, I'm really close. And just so you know, I'm six foot one and a half. And I say one and a half so that it's exactly accurate. And I'm not lying. So let's continue on with this interior. We do have a bunch of drive modes. Like a lot of them. We've got Eco, Normal, Sport, Mud and Sand, and then Rock and Dirt. And then we also have Normal, Snow and Hill Descent. Too many. Yeah, people that drive this car are not going to use this many drive modes. But how are you going to get to your cottage? That's true. If you can't drive up a 45 degree. Mud and Sand or Dirt and Rock. And to be honest, I don't really notice that much of a difference between Sport, Normal and Eco. It just kind of mutes the pedal a little bit. Holds the revs and that's pretty much it. Yeah. I haven't tried a RAV4 off-road. So I don't know what it's capable of. I would love to. So hopefully in the future, I will have the opportunity to do that. Yeah, we'll take one on the Rubicon Trail. See if we can make it or something. That would be fun. That'd be one year. One year maybe. Okay, so now on to the infotainment. We've got the tablet style infotainment that pops up. It's got a volume knob, a tuning knob. Hard buttons on the side. We've got Apple CarPlay and we have Android Auto. Yeah, we never had Android Auto before. So there it is now. Got some rewinding satellite radios. It's enough to get the job done. But look, when you click home, look how bad these menus are. Oh, I know. You can see the map below it. I know. It's got a dot texture and it's got icons that are hard to see. It's horrible. They're just making it difficult for you to use while driving. Like they have white outlines on blue in the background. I don't even know what's going on. We could probably change that. But the fact that it came that way is really weird. Yep. Okay, and then on to the gauge cluster. Do you like it? I don't like it, but I'm okay with it. You know what I hate about it? I know what you hate. It doesn't show your speed in a digital display. Yeah, so you have to go with the needle. That's it. The digital analog looking needle. Like just give me two big numbers. I don't want to have to think. Why do I have a compass there and not my speed? But there is a very small number and it's miles per hour. Yeah, it converts. It's like, what? Yeah. Nevermind. It does have a digital mode. We missed it. You missed it. I missed it. But we do have an analog display for our RPM. So I'm going to floor it. And that's where it feels like a CVT. It took a long time to kick down and it wasn't sure what gear to go in. Anytime it hangs up at the top. CVT. Yeah, so this is not a CVT. It is an 8-speed auto, but it feels like a CVT, even from a start stop. And you don't have paddles, but you can throw your shifter to the left and put it into the different gears. Yeah, and this has the same problem as the Lexus. So if you floor it, you can't actually change gears going up. It'll pretend you are, but no gears actually change. Yes, but that's a problem that pretty much no one will ever have. Yeah, exactly. And how about the lane keep in the RAV4? The lane keep works pretty well. I would say slightly worse than Lexus, but still pretty good. Yeah, but it's nowhere near as good as the Nissan Altima and the Hyundai Sonata. That's right. Even though those are cars, it's an SUV. Let's just say Palisade. Yeah, so they all use the same lane keep systems from the family of those cars. And now for the best feature on the interior, the 360 camera. Oh, you mean best by worst? Yeah, it's really bad. Hard to see, low res, old cameras. I'm sure they're going to update it all when they update the infotainment, just like every car manufacturer does. And then we've got this line that comes down in the middle that's black. So like, I guess you don't have to look forward at something, but you could see it behind it. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I said the Lexus RX was the worst backup camera I've used. This is now the worst. Well, it's also tied with the Altima. So, man, backup cameras in 2020. There's a lot of tied bad backup cameras. And the resolution is so bad that there's an automatic button on there. And I thought it wasn't a real button because it just looked so weird. And let's talk about one last display in here. The mirror. The mirror has a camera in here, just like Chevy's been doing. Yeah, I don't know why they added that to this. Yeah, but it's there. So you just flip a switch and you have settings in your mirror. And I don't like it because it confuses my eyes. Because when I move my head, I don't get any motion blur. And it's just like, ah. Yeah, it's a little off, but there you go. If you need it, it's there. So with all the interior and exterior out of the way, let's talk more about how this drives by sending it into cliche corner in sport mode. It's going to be so fun, isn't it? Oh my God, the most fun. Okay, it's definitely not the most fun, but there is a bunch of body roll. But it's not that bad. It does understeer. It is all wheel drive, but it's obviously primarily front wheel drive. And it actually has the ability to disconnect the rear wheels completely. So you can get a lot better fuel economy. Yes, which isn't good for sending, but it's good for gas pump stuff. This car is not good for any sendage at all. It's not. Even if you're taking a turn, you floor it, everything is slow. Everything's got a delay. I wouldn't bother having any fun with this at all. Unless being fun is getting to your cottage through the sand or the mountains. Yeah, and potentially uproading. Yeah. But what I do like is that the steering feels totally normal. It's got the right amount of weight. Yeah, nothing's weird about it at all. And I wouldn't call the engine underpowered, but you kind of just want like a little bit more. It's not slow, but it's not quick. For someone like you, though, someone who just needs this for a daily commute, they want a taller drive height. I'm sure a lot of people never floor their cars ever in their lives. Probably not actually. Let us know in the comments below if you or your significant other has never floored their car ever. And then unsubscribe. Just kidding. Rude. But the suspension is really comfortable, really well damped. For commuting, this is great. It'd be a lot better if I had those seats from that Altima. It would be. Because these seats are kind of stiff. The more I sit in them, you know, they're pretty firm. They are. We do have memory seats in the front for the driver, and we have heated seats in the back. So that's the kind of stuff that you get in the limited trim. So with all that stuff out of the way, let's get to the price. One price, no options. $41,505. Canadian. That's right. So like I said, the limited is the top trim, and I would actually recommend just getting the trail. The trail has most of the features that this has. Same disconnecting rear drivetrain stuff. I believe it can even tow more, at least according to the website. And it looks a little funkier. So if you want to have some more fun. Yeah, so you save yourself $3,000. Or if you're happy paying this price, you can actually get the TRD off-road package for the trail edition, and it looks even cooler then. Okay, okay. Yeah, so I actually wouldn't recommend the limited. So out of all the competition, this or a Honda equivalent, Hyundai equivalent, Nissan equivalent, what would you take? I think I would take the Hyundai equivalent, but this in trail trim, I think I prefer the looks of this the most. Yeah, same with me. I think having that better lane keep assist, better 360 cameras, better satellite radio and infotainment stuff would be better. And I like the drivetrain in this better than the Santa Fe, because I felt like that was always up a gear. It just, you always wanted to shift. This one's always in the right gear. But looks wise, this pretty much kills all the Hyundai and Honda stuff. It does, because it just looks good. Like it's very appealing. Even not in the TRD slash trail edition. That's right. So let us know if you ended up actually getting a RAV4. Do you like it more than everything else? And why did you get it? And make sure you click on this video or playlist right here, please. For more SUVs? Yeah, probably. See you next time. I wonder if there's a RAV2 ever.