Toyota RAV4 review - Practicality, comfort and boot space

The Toyota RAV4 started life as a compact SUV but has grown in size over the course of five generations. Today's car is a full-size family SUV that's aimed squarely at the Nissan X-Trail and Skoda Kodiaq and as such has been designed with practicality and space in mind. 

Size

The Toyota RAV4 measures in at 4,600mm long, 1,855mm wide and 1,685 tall. It's therefore almost 100mm shorter than a Skoda Kodiaq, but usefully narrower (by around 40mm) and a little higher (by around 20mm). 

Leg room, head room & passenger space

A 30mm stretch in wheelbase over the old car means that there’s space for four adults – and five could travel in reasonable comfort for a decent length of time. Headroom is good for six-foot adults too.

Boot

The RAV4's boot is pretty practical; there are 580 litres on offer with the rear seats in place (79 litres more than in the Mk4 RAV4), and 1,690 litres available if you fold them down.These figures look competitive enough against, say, the Nissan X-Trail, which musters 565 litres as standard. But the Toyota’s ultimate capacity is some way shy of the Nissan’s 1,996 litres total and on the whole, its loadspace isn’t a patch on what you can get in the (much cheaper) Skoda Kodiaq or the (similarly priced) VW Tiguan Allspace. Still, we wouldn’t argue with Toyota’s claim that the RAV4 can swallow a full-size mountain bike without taking the wheels off, so it should be more than spacious enough for most family uses.

13

Towing

Those looking to tow with their RAV4 will need to specify one of the three towing packs, each priced at £600 and offering different pin and receiver layouts as required. Unbraked towing weight is quoted at 750kg and braked at 1650kg for AWD models; two-wheel drive models can only manage 750kg and 800kg respectively.