I really really, really like the Rav 4, but . . .

[Marcusthehat]

18 months and 13,550 miles in,

I still find the operation of the speed limiter and cruise control unintuitive or  indeed downright difficult to use, this despite assidously using both functions from the start, multiple times on every trip, like even on the 4 miles into and through the town to Tescos. So plenty of practise.

Why does the cruise control jump in 5mph bounds but the speed limiter is single mph changes, like I am unaware of any speed limits that are not either 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70, so would it not have made more sense for both functions to  be in 5mph increments?

And the click-on-click-off nature of the buttons makes it impossible to know if either function is activated, WITHOUT spending TOO much time studing the display, to the point of being distracting  .  .  .

And I quite often inadvertently catch the on-off CC/SL button while attempting to set or reduce the set speed.

All in all I find it surprising that Toyota did not make a better fist of "eyes front" operation of these functions.

P.S.

Also the random/scattered/semi hidden location of the controls for the auto headlights, fuel cap release, bonnet release etc. Toyota, please why why why?

But I really really really like the car.

Marcus,theHat

 

[Yugguy1970]

Aye, I find it really odd the 5mph increments, in my wife's Yaris you can change in 1mph like normal.

[ernieb]

I can change my ACC speed in 1mph increments, a short press on the up reset button. Longer press and it goes to the displayed road speed.  I use this to increment the speed indicated to 64mph and know that in reality the car will be doing 60/61mph. Great for the miles of speed restricted road on the M1.

[Hybrid21]

I find the CC a bit distracting too Marcus and tend to avoid using it for that reason.

There is a way to increase in 1mph steps but can't remember 😕

[ernieb]

See page 381 etc. of manual for description.

[philip42h]

1 hour ago, ernieb said:

See page 381 etc. of manual for description.

That may be the case for a PHEV, Ernie, but for the HEV the Owners Manual states:

and the UK is still in Europe so 5 mph increments it is (unless the speedo is set to km when it becomes 5 kph).

[philip42h]

I don't use the speed limiter - that's my responsibility anyway - and I've become used to the 5 mph increments on the cruise control so that doesn't bother me at all. That said, I'd still prefer the 'cruise' controls on a third stalk (as previous RAVs and the current C-HR) to the new steering wheel controls but I'm getting comfortable with that too.

As for 'hidden buttons', that appears the be a feature of current RAVs but, honestly, the 4.5 is far better than the 4.4 ... 🙂

[Yugguy1970]

Yes, it's weird the 5mph thing, that was deliberately coded to take away choice.  Why?  Even weirder that when using plain none-radar cruise you CAN do 1mph increments.

[ernieb]

1 minute ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Yes, it's weird the 5mph thing, that was deliberately coded to take away choice.  Why?  Even weirder that when using plain none-radar cruise you CAN do 1mph increments.

Now that sounds more like a design error than a practical reason for making the two different. In reality it would be relatively easy to recode that piece of the software.

It’s also strange that their is a difference between he HEV and PHEV, which I’d not have assumed but Philip pointed out.  I guess for me is even the smallest things can be different between the two model types.

[philip42h]

35 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Yes, it's weird the 5mph thing, that was deliberately coded to take away choice.  Why?  Even weirder that when using plain none-radar cruise you CAN do 1mph increments.

Dynamic radar cruise control in vehicle-to-vehicle distance control mode is really an instruction to follow the car ahead up to a particular speed. Constant speed control mode, by contrast, is an instruction to travel at a fixed speed.

The 5 mph increments thing works perfectly well in vehicle-to-vehicle distance control mode and makes it easy for the driver to select a different speed faster or slower. It works very well with variable speed limits etc..

In constant speed control mode the car needs to travel at a specific fixed speed - 1 mph increments are more appropriate for that.

The design seems perfectly reasonable (to me).

[Yugguy1970]

Not sure I agree sorry - I see radar cruise not as a device to follow someone else, but to maintain whatever speed I want whilst being able to react to other vehicles.

E.g, I want to travel at 58 in the 60, but if a car doing 50 pulls out in front of me I want the radar to slow me down, then when the car pulls back in, or if I pull out to the outer lane, to get me back up to my speed.

My wife's Yaris does radar in 1mph.  My friend's Merc with radar distronic does it in 1mph.  On my friend's car, a blip flick of the stick is 1mph, hold the stick past the blip point, it's 5mph.  He gets a choice, I don't. 

[ernieb]

9 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Not sure I agree sorry - I see radar cruise not as a device to follow someone else, but to maintain whatever speed I want whilst being able to react to other vehicles.

E.g, I want to travel at 58 in the 60, but if a car doing 50 pulls out in front of me I want the radar to slow me down, then when the car pulls back in, or if I pull out to the outer lane, to get me back up to my speed.

My wife's Yaris does radar in 1mph.  My friend's Merc with radar distronic does it in 1mph.  On my friend's car, a blip flick of the stick is 1mph, hold the stick past the blip point, it's 5mph.  He gets a choice, I don't. 

Guy, very much the way that previous cars and the current PHEV operates. It’s really what I’ve come to expect.

[ZZYGY]

I've  had my HEV 6 months and seem to have finally cracked the CC. I somehow disabled the speed limiter and now the Radar cc works OK. Before this it was "crashing" randomly. I thought it was "big thumbs" as the buttons are quite small but now I find touching the edge helps. The Radar CC is brilliant, very relaxing on the A9 where there is a lot of speed variation, I even leave it on at roundabouts. The LTA assist is useless and scary except for long motorway runs with well defined white lines. LTA was one of the reasons I bought the car, I though it would be an aid but the way it pulls to the near side is scary.

[ColinB]

I tend to use the "normal" cruise control with its 1mph increments, however I did find the radar cruise control great in heavy motorway traffic where it could come to a complete stop and then move off again with just a touch of the throttle.

I just can't get on with the lane assist though.

Colin