2026 Toyota RAV4 Road Trip Review: Comfort and Road Noise Hold It Back

• What's new: We have a 2026 Toyota RAV4 in our One-Year Road Test fleet, and I took it on a road trip from Southern California to San Francisco.
• Why it matters: The RAV4 is only available as a hybrid, and it returned great fuel economy on my trip.
• Edmunds says: The RAV4's gas mileage and driver aids are great. But comfort? Not so much.

I was hoping for a more comfortable ride

The RAV4's front seat was plenty comfortable, with good lumbar support and a supportive headrest. But I found the area around the seat a little confining. I'm not especially tall at 6 feet, 1 inch, but I found it next to impossible to position my legs in a way that didn't lead to my right knee banging against the hard plastic center console. That really got old after the third hour behind the wheel. 

And it's noisier in here than I thought it'd be

The RAV4's engine noise wasn't much of an issue, but there was more road and wind noise than I anticipated. Our testing data backs up that the 2026 Toyota RAV4 is noisier inside than competitors like the Hyundai Tucson or Honda CR-V. 

We measure the cruising (70 mph) volume of every vehicle we test, and sure enough, the Tucson and CR-V (64 decibels) were both a bit quieter than the RAV4 Hybrid (66.7 dB). That's not a big difference, so I wouldn't say it's a reason to pick one of those SUVs over the RAV4, but the noise was noticeable even with music turned up louder than my otolaryngologist would prefer. 

Were driver aids a help or a hindrance?

This is a definite bright spot for the RAV4. The adaptive cruise control worked great. I was able to set it to 70 mph and largely leave it alone for most of my drive. The system isn't hands-free, but I didn't need to constantly jiggle the steering wheel to assure the RAV4 that my hands were on the wheel. 

Blind-spot warning and lane keeping assistance also worked as expected. There are long stretches of Interstate 5 in California that are two lanes, meaning you're regularly moving into the passing lane to get around a row of semis. These systems worked very well alongside adaptive cruise control to keep me on the move. 

Would I take the RAV4 again?

Did you see what I said about gas prices earlier? Yeah, of course I would. I hoped for a more comfortable ride, but I also recognize that discomfort is at least in part due to the distorted shape of my corporeal form. It is what it is. I wouldn't let that stop me from grabbing the keys to the RAV4 on my next sojourn to the superior half of California.