Looking At Buying A Rav4

[sotal]

I've not been on here for a good while, but I'm just looking at changing car and would really appreciate some advice on the Rav4.

My current car is a 2.0d S40 but I've changed jobs and currently drive 2 miles to work each day and back again. My car isn't used much more than that and I only do between 2000 and 3000 miles per year. We tend to use the wifes car at the weekend as it is bigger and easier to put the kids in.

So I'd like to get a petrol car as I don't think the short journeys are good for diesels and most of the newer diesels seem to have the dpfs which are no good for short journeys.

I also have a requirement to drive across fields occasionally which are quite flat and any 2wd car is fine in winter but could do with 4wd for winter.

I also have a requirement to be able to tow our caravan which is about 1100kg.

I need a good amount of space in the car to make it easy to take the kids and the dog in the car - which would in turn make the car get more usage at the weekends etc.

I'd like to have leather seats. I also like the factory steps and bullbar - I think they really suit the car.

So I've got my eye on a few 2.0 VVTi XT4 Rav4's which seem to have leather seats and the ones in question have the steps and bullbars - they seem to be around £6000 for a 2006 which is around my max budget.

Is there any common faults?

Anything to look out for on them?

One was an Auto - are the autos OK on these or should I stick to manual?

Is the equipment OK on these? I take it they play mp3's in some way or another? I hadn't noticed SatNav - not the most important thing as I tend to use my phone but would be nice to have.

Are they OK fuel wise? Am I right to go for petrol or would the d4d be a better choice? As I say the idea would be to use this car more at the weekend so during the week it would go back and forward doing rubbish 2 mile journeys - car never warms up, but at the weekends it would do more lengthy journeys but I'd still do no more the 6-7000 miles per year.

Thanks

[firemac]

Have a look at this thread for starters; it should answer some, if not all, your questions.

http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/162027-potential-buyer/

Good Luck.

[sotal]

Thanks, went to look at one today which was supposed to be a mint example of an XT4 with full service history and mint interior and exterior.

When we turned up the car stunk of smoke and still had !Removed! butts in the ash tray, there was crumbs on the back seats and takeaway wrappers under the rear seats, the front bumper hung lower on the offside than the nearside, the bottom right of the rear door didn't look to fit properly - looks like a trim piece but as it wasn't fitting properly it was scraping the paint of the body when you opened and closed the door, the exhaust pipe between the middle box and the rear box looked heavily corroded. The body had quite a few little minor scratches and marks on it. I realise that most of this is minor but as it was priced as a mint example I felt it was considerably overpriced. Obviously we walked away.

To be honest if it hadn't stunk so much I might have made a lower offer but it would have probably been lower than they would have accepted but as it was I didn't want it!

With regard to the rear door is there normally a trim piece over the lower right corner of the door? Is it common to be ill fitting?

With the scratches the body work is quite exposed, is it just something you get with these? This one was silver and they seemed to show up quite a lot, I hate to think of what it would have looked like on a black one.

This was a 4.3 model XT4.

[Mike88]

I'm looking at buying a RAV4 also. The 2013 Icon automatic 4x4 version. Everything seems right to me but yesterday I sat in one for the first time. The seat (the part you sit on) seemed to give very little support to the leg just above the back of the knee. The version I sat in had leather seats but I couldn't get comfortable. A cloth seated version was not available for me to try. I'm 6 ft but my 5ft 6ins wife had the same problem. Is this issue particular to leather seated versions or is it a general problem that others have experienced?

[firemac]

I'm looking at buying a RAV4 also. The 2013 Icon automatic 4x4 version. Everything seems right to me but yesterday I sat in one for the first time. The seat (the part you sit on) seemed to give very little support to the leg just above the back of the knee. The version I sat in had leather seats but I couldn't get comfortable. A cloth seated version was not available for me to try. I'm 6 ft but my 5ft 6ins wife had the same problem. Is this issue particular to leather seated versions or is it a general problem that others have experienced?

Hi Mike,

I have sat in a 4.4 (the one you're looking at) and didn't particularly find the seats to be much different to our current 4.3 or the 3 4.2's that we had previously.

I'm 6'1" and have never found the seats in the 4.2 or 4.3, leather or cloth, to be a problem, even though I value under thigh support. The RAV's seats are not as cossetting as, say, my previous BMW M-Sports, nor as adjustable for under-leg comfort but then again the BMW is a more performance-focused drive than the RAV. Overall I found the leather seats to be more comfy overall whilst the cloth seats tended to be grippier (probably simply because leather is more slippery than cloth).

I guess that whatever vehicle you have been used to up until now will have some influence on your opinion of anything else that you try.

Good luck.

[Mike169]

To Sotal

I'd go for a petrol auto version if i were you for what you want from a vehicle. Just fom comments i have picked up about manuals and the clutches wearing out they can be expensive to replace and even then there are conversions which indicate the orignal clutch has it problems.

Mike

[gjnorthall]

There were issues with the DMF / clutch on diesel versions of the 4.2 up to 2005. 4.2 and 4.3 petrol models don't have DMF's and don't suffer from clutch issues. Toyota seem to have the DMF issue on diesels sorted with the advent of the 4.3 in 2006 - the DMF / clutch on this model isn't a problem. There are however issues with the 2AD diesel engine fitted from 2006 - 2009 see

http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/132178-charliefarlies-guide-to-the-toyota-2ad-diesel-engine-and-its-issues/