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RAV4 Hybrid Excel 2019 compared to RAV4 Hybrid Excel 2018 with full spec media and panoramic moon/sun roof I have had the RAV4 2019 for 1.5 weeks and put on 500 miles. I part exchanged it for my RAV4 2018 which I had for 11 months and did 18,000 miles on. My previous cars were Landrover Freelander (with every accessory imaginable) and a Honda CRV 2005, both of these vehicles I loved and put over 150,000 miles on both. First off I would say there is a massive difference and improvement in nearly every area for RAV4 2019. It feels more refined. Suspension has a big improvement, I believe it is an 'active suspension' though I do not know what it was before for 2018, but now for me it matches my old Landrover Freelander. The drive and acceleration is smooth and really nice, but then so was the 2018. At the moment I cannot tell if it is faster, but has plenty of power there. At the moment I am seeing a big improvement on fuel economy averaging 42mpg for fast motorway driving and urban driving at weekends. for my 2018 for the same driving I would see 33mpg. Now this becomes really obvious when you fill up the car, as now I get a 530 mile range per tank where as before I got 330 mile range. Incidentally the fuel tank is I believe 1 litre smaller for 2019 being 55L Inside the car it seems so much more spacious, this sold it to me as my wife and daughter loved it. Seats seem wider and more hugging similar to my Freelander. Ride and comfort was always good and still is. But there are lots of improvements on switches. For a start most important ones now light up and are at easy access, they were a real dog in the 2018. There is now a switch to turn off parking audio bleep temporary on the steering wheel, before if in traffic and the car behind came too close or one drove to near the car in front the audio alarm would go off, and the only way to solve it was to go through settings and permanently turn sensor off. Door mirrors automatically fold in when engine turned off and lock the car, adds as a double check when you walk away. The media system is a massive improvement. I had the panoramic view cameras added for the first time and I love them, expensive but nice. I have lost the sun-glasses storage in the roof because the moon roof switches are now placed there, but there is loads more storage cubby-holes around. The rear seating is also a lot nicer, roomier and has 2 air vents and 2 USB plug points. The down side fuel level low warning sensor comes on for me far too late, for the 2018 it came on at 20 miles left and needle almost at the bottom. So far I got the 2019 down to 40 miles and warning sensor did not come on, so I assume they are the same. Because of the moon roof I was told I could not have a spare tire, in fact parts department told me there is not a run-flat in their catalogue for the 2019. I then pointed out they are selling 2019 vehicles without moon roof that have run-flat installed. Basically the 2018 run-flat can be used for 2019. I got rid of the foam kit and put a spare full size wheel in that I sourced second hand. I was told by the garage this would not fit, but by removing the polystyrene nest easy enough the wheel bay was perfect and cover fits perfectly. I needed a tool kit and jack which I sourced second hand. Garage wanted to charge £94 just for the jack, though I found the same jack with same load rating new on eBay for £40. Incidentally my car has the 18" wheels and these are slightly a different size to the 2018. Run-flats are 17" and generally not for driving above 50mph. Anyway I love the car. I will be looking to add a tow-bar and detachable roof-rack. I have a problem with the roof rack as it seems I can only install a Toyota roof bars which do not stretch and over-hang. I put at least 2 kayaks or canoe on the roof so need a wide roof rack which is not available.

It isn't just Toyota that is affected by catalytic converter thefts - as well as the Auris and Prius models being targeted, Hondas, Audis, VW vans, Citroen Berlingos, etc, etc are also affected, plus SUV's and vehicles with high ground clearance. So changing make or model may not prevent the issue happening again. As with any security device, theft cannot be guaranteed to be prevented. The same applies to vehicle alarms, trackers, steering wheel locks, etc.

Ordered mine after a very short test drive which is unusual for me as I spend so much time in it, it has to be right. Our fleet company usually arranges for us to borrow a prospective car for a few days to fully test it. I had already done so with the Honda CR-V hybrid and liked it a lot. Then the RAV started appearing. Through our fleet the wait for a demo was months! obviously popular. Its a pain being a fleet driver as understandably dealers are not interested in you as there is nothing in it for them, the lease company will buy from its nominated dealer only. I tried Toyota head office, not much help. Tried a local dealer who initially said they would lend me one for couple of hours then backed out. In the end I went to another dealer as a Joe Blogs 'buyer' and got a retail test drive. Very short but I did my usual trick of distracting the salesman at the right moment and 'accidentally' taking a wrong turn onto a route I knew would stretch it out a bit. Ride felt good, quick enough, quiet enough, comfortable enough, flung it round a roundabout quickly and it gripped fine (sorry salesman!).. job done. Everything else I needed to know I could get from documentation and the web. Ordered later that day.

Are you sure the yellow "tint" is on the inside? A lot of modern cars have plastic covers with a surface treatment which degrades over the years to make the headlamps look yellow. This degraded film can be removed with a bit of DIY/elbow grease, and you should be able to find a few threads about this on the Forum.

I think I have manage to understand the query, and hopefully given I think a suitable answer.

Different garages and people will use different perceptions to describe 'worn'. Remember that the MOT test minimum is 1.5mm. Even once the friction material is completely worn off the pad backplate your car will still brake, albeit with a nasty grinding noise and feel. Although my last 2 Avensises (Avensi?) haven't needed replacement pads in my ownership my previous cars have gone over 40,000 miles for front pads (50,000 miles rear) before I've needed to replace them. I've never had any noticeable difference in brake pad service life between genuine and pattern parts in the past. There shouldn't be much of a difference either although if it really has worn out after 4,000 miles there really must be a problem with the brake pistons not returning into the calipers and the pads dragging on the discs. Tread carefully, and verify what your service garage is saying to you. (and I drive an automatic too)

Just above the AltGr key of your keyboard is the full stop key. Please use it in conjunction with the space bar to turn your statement into a question and I'll do my best to assist you. Kindest regards

Done this twice before and had a nightmare. I liked the Audi A4 2.4 V6 many many years ago went to test drive it. I loved it, put an order in and was told they had changed the model to a totally different spec. Mine was one of the first to come in the country. I hated it, gears 1 & 2 were almost identical leaving a big ratio gap between 3rd gear. Suspension failed after one year and I was told this was not in the warrantee and had to pay £800. They put rubbish tires on that were awful going round corners, I couldn't even ware them out so I change them way before their end time to Pirellis solving the issue. I kept the car for a long time but hated it. Incidentally the EU fined Audi many millions or euro's for forcing drivers to pay for maintenance that should have been a recall. Nice that the EU get all that money and none of it comes back to the car owners. Did the same for an Astra for my wife. She already had 2 previous Astra models and she loved them, I ordered a high end spec new one for her, again a totally new model again I was one of the first in the country to get one. Vauxhall had decided to add a new small car to their range and so made this Astra bigger, longer than previous models. My wife was furious with me it was too big for her. She hated it. Plus the gear box was a real dog while I loved the gear boxes on the older versions. How can you mess up something that was working really well in the first place. I now hate Vauxhalls and Audi's

I spoke with my dealer in greece, he told me that according to toyota hellas android auto and apple carplay will be retrofitted to cars that have been already purchased and that the update will be available early 2020. From what they have been told it will either be free or there will cost a small fee..

I waited until I'd driven a 2WD RAV4 before ordering, and had planned to wait for a test drive in an AWD, preferably in Excel trim (which is what I wanted), but when it become obvious that lead times were extending and it might be a while before an AWD demonstrator arrived, I took the plunge (in March), and no regrets (got the RAV 21st June). Plus, I needed one urgently - more later. After a bad experience in the 1990s with a Volvo, I was nervous about ever ordering again without driving the exact model. The car had just been launched and was factory order only if you were fussy about the spec (I was) - I wanted a V40 1.8 auto, and was only able to drive a 2.0 auto and 1.8 manual. I thought I'd be ok, but the 1.8 auto was a very different beast. It was actually worse on mpg than the 2 litre (much worse at 23 mpg!), and gutless until the revs reached 4,000 (28 mph in first) then went like a rocket. It was a liability pulling into traffic, and very noisy above 50 mph as they'd tried to balance the gearing of the 4-speed auto box with the poor low end power and relaxed cruising and got it horribly wrong on both counts. My last (4th Gen) Prius was ordered in Feb 2016 before a demonstrator was available (that came a month later), but the dealer gave me the option of cancelling if I had major problems with it. After having all three previous generations, I was fairly confident, and my initial impression when I got it after a 4 month wait was that it was the best car I'd ever driven. A lot of Gen 4 Prius owners say they feel the same way. Unfortunately, I later discovered that its amazingly low drag factor was partially down to a very low ride height and started having problems with my hips that became so severe I had no choice but to switch. The RAV4 was the nearest I could find that drives like a Prius, had most of the features I wanted (but very, very, VERY unhappy at losing the Head Up Display that Prius had since 2009), and the fuel consumption (though good for a large, heavy vehicle with the aerodynamics of a house-brick towing a parachute) is a shock after getting over 80 mpg on a cross country run (best in RAV 58). In a number of ways, the equipment on the 2019 Excel RAV4 is not as good as on the cheaper 2016 Excel Prius. Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed with the RAV, but wish I could have managed with the Prius. I even started to look at getting it fitted with air suspension with adjustable ride height, but it was too complex, and would have meant sacrificing the spare wheel.

Did extensive research last year, but couldn't see exactly the SUV that I wanted. Then the 2019 RAV-4 Hybrid came along this year so I did more research and concluded that this was the car for me. Tried some dealerships in April for discounts and delivery etc and was stonewalled for discount and delivery was being quoted back to October. Then out of the blue I found a new discounted AWD for immediate delivery. I couldn't take the chance on not getting it so I placed an order in April for May delivery. (I think this one of the first batch of AWD over here) Then I suddenly realised that I hadn't ever physically driven one, so I went to a dealership for a test drive. I was somewhat relieved to find that I had chosen correctly. Now, seeing the current delivery dates, I am so pleased I took the plunge. I've had the car the whole summer. The best bit was taking all the camping gear to Silverstone Classic and finding that not only did I not need a top box, but the car was begging for more gear! It swallowed everything inside and then gave me 55 mpg on the journey.

Ordered off plan 6/12/2018 when new model was first available for ordering as my existing 2016 Rav4 PCP was about to end with a good lump of equity. Took delivery of obsidian blue excel pan roof on 1st May without ever having had a test drive. One of the first few to arrive in UK. Not dissapointed - love it and feeling very smug when I see current delivery waits.

On my 2012 2.2 manual my latest set of front pads were 36,000 miles old when I traded it in. It had just been serviced & I was told that they were good for another year (~8,000 miles) but would probably need replaced at that point. 4,000 is way too low for normal usage, do you tow something heavy a lot (although even then I would say too low)?

Turns out the problem was a fuse. Now replaced and all back to normal. Thanks for the feedback.

Bah, just been told Jan 31st for delivery, ish.

So I spoke to Toyota to get a catlock on my gen2 Auris. They booked me in but said they’ve had thefts despite the catloc. whilst waiting for my appointment my catalytic converter has been stolen again!! Anyone had their cat converter stolen despite the catloc? Wondering if I should just get a new car!