2018 Toyota RAV4 SUV

[MUSIC PLAYING] MARK TAKAHASHI: Small crossover SUVs have been wildly popular, outselling the less versatile sedans for quite some time. JOSH SADLIER: Mark and I brought our two current favorites in this segment, and Will over here brought the RAV4, the current top seller. WILL KAUFMAN: We're going to take a closer look at each of these vehicles to let you know what their strengths and weaknesses are. We've put hundreds of miles on each of these movies on the road, but we thought we'd spare you 12 minutes of us going to buy groceries. Instead, we took our three red people movers to our test track where we could make those disclaimers at the bottom of every ad about closed roads and professional drivers come alive. You may never drive your compact crossover like this, but at least you can rest easy knowing someone has. JOSH SADLIER: We've got the latest Honda CR-V here with the 1.5-liter turbo charged four cylinder engine that you get on almost every version you'll find at a dealer lot. There's the 2.4 that comes in the base LX. I don't know if I've ever seen one of those on the road. It doesn't really seem like something people are going to be interested in because you want the turbo motor, it gets better fuel economy and more power. How are you guys enjoying it so far? WILL KAUFMAN: This back seat is cavernous. There's a lot of room for me to flop around back here. JOSH SADLIER: I've been watching that, yeah. WILL KAUFMAN: But-- I mean, it's huge back here. There's just a ton of room in this car. JOSH SADLIER: Yeah, it is very spacious. This is effectively a mid-sized SUV I would say in terms of usability. MARK TAKAHASHI: I'm not getting a sense of that space, though. I feel like the headliner and the windshields are actually a little close to me. [ENGINE REVVING] WILL KAUFMAN: That's interesting. Oof. Oh wow, there's that noise. Ah, it just sounds like the engine wants to leap out of the engine bay. [LAUGHTER] The CVT just does not do it any favors in the sound department. MARK TAKAHASHI: In its defense, though, no one in their right mind is going to be driving a CR-V this-- JOSH SADLIER: Well, MARK TAKAHASHI: --hard. JOSH SADLIER: That's fair. WILL KAUFMAN: And it does provide a good boost and good fuel economy. I mean-- JOSH SADLIER: It does. WILL KAUFMAN: With the gas motor-- JOSH SADLIER: Well, not right now. WILL KAUFMAN: But with a gas motor, this is the most efficient of the three if you don't want the hybrid. JOSH SADLIER: Now this is the front wheel drive one, which means we're going to be getting under ideal circumstances, 34 MPG highway, which is easily the best of any of these competitors. The others are I think 31 and 30 at the top end. So the fuel economy is definitely a strong suit, at least according to the EPA. Now in the real world, if you're in a boost like I've been here, your results may vary. MARK TAKAHASHI: Here's the thing, though. It's making a lot of tire noise, but it doesn't feel sloppy. JOSH SADLIER: Yeah, I wouldn't call it sloppy. I mean, it clearly does not have much tire for this purpose, but in the real world, having driven this around, I didn't feel like it needed more tire like on a country road or something. So I think this is an extreme situation we're in right now, but I do like the way it responds. The steering, there's no slop in it and it goes where you point it. The thing for me about this car is the transmission. I think if people are not used to a CVT, this can be kind of a rude awakening in that it just doesn't always respond as promptly or as predictively as you might expect if you're used to driving like a traditional automatic transmission. MARK TAKAHASHI: And they don't offer any kind of automatic, do they? JOSH SADLIER: CVTs beauties across the board, yeah. Even with the 2.4, it's still CVT. That's the one thing, I think if people take a test drive and-- again, transmission's fine, what's he talking about? Cool, and then you'll probably like the rest of the car. For me it's a deal breaker. MARK TAKAHASHI: Wow, all right. WILL KAUFMAN: See, I didn't-- in normal driving, I haven't felt that way about this vehicle, because of the CVT, when you're just, you know, cruising in traffic, when you're driving on the freeway, when you're driving around town, the response that I expect from a car, the CVT isn't falling short of that. MARK TAKAHASHI: It's not until you start getting onto a highway, you know, on an on-ramp or something and you really want to get up to speed, does it feel like it's at a disadvantage? JOSH SADLIER: Yeah, and the engine gets really frantic. MARK TAKAHASHI: I think this is better suited to someone who has one or two kids. It's comfortable. It just kind of checks all the boxes. JOSH SADLIER: There's still some road noise there I noticed on a longer drive over the weekend. WILL KAUFMAN: It does seem like for this vehicle, they looked at the old RAV4 and they said, OK, it's going to be just better in every measure. Not necessarily tremendously better, but it's going to be better. It's also the only one that has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This is the 2018 RAV4, and it's the RAV4 that really started the compact crossover craze way back when. And it's still the bestselling of any compact crossover. In fact, it's the bestselling vehicle in the US next to the pickup trucks that everybody loves to buy so much. But I think part of the appeal of this is that there's nothing complicated about it. There's no other reason you buy it, you don't have to think, oh, I want the one that handles well. You just think, I want the one that will carry all of my people and stuff and I don't want to worry about it. MARK TAKAHASHI: It's not something that I don't think you really aspire to? There's nothing that kind of gets me excited about this car. It's the safe choice. JOSH SADLIER: Yeah. There's actually decent bolstering in these seats. A little more than I expected. Thanks for helping me to feel that with that turn. WILL KAUFMAN: I mean, it is-- it's just a perfectly fine place to spend time. I mean, I agree, there's nothing that stands out here, but that's sort of part of the point of this car, is it just does what it does without any pretension to anything else, and you can get a hybrid power train so you get better fuel economy than any of the others if that's what you're looking for. It's also not a very thrilling engine. The transmission will, even though it's only a six-speed transmission, it will sort of jump around if you're in normal mode and you start asking for a little bit of acceleration. JOSH SADLIER: There's something kind of honest, though, about this power train that I'm drawn to. WILL KAUFMAN: Yeah, it's basically the same power train as the Mazda. MARK TAKAHASHI: Even to be competitive nowadays, you have to overdeliver on a number of fronts-- refinement and comfort and performance. Everything has now gotten to the point where everybody is expecting more. This doesn't really overdeliver, it's adequate in almost every way. JOSH SADLIER: It's an aging product that's kind of hanging in there, but you're right, it's not really going the extra mile. WILL KAUFMAN: The ride and handling isn't bad. It is a little rough around the road than that CX-5, you definitely feel the bumps a little bit more. I mean, it's not sloppy around these turns. MARK TAKAHASHI: It was that little boaty coming out of that last turn, though. I felt a little bit of residual bounces as you set it into the turn. JOSH SADLIER: Yeah, you wouldn't call this the driver's choice. MARK TAKAHASHI: No, no. JOSH SADLIER: But at the same time, I feel like if someone told me, hey, I just bought a 2018 RAV4, it would be hard to argue against that. MARK TAKAHASHI: Oh no, no, no. JOSH SADLIER: Well maybe-- MARK TAKAHASHI: He would say, why didn't you get the 2019 and just wait nine months? JOSH SADLIER: Well, it's an all-new model, you want to give it a year or two to sort things out. MARK TAKAHASHI: Do ya? WILL KAUFMAN: The other thing is, you'll be able to get a really good deal on one of these-- when it's on dealer lots and a few months when the new one's out. JOSH SADLIER: That's a great point. WILL KAUFMAN: This is going to get cheaper. You don't always see sales on Toyotas. MARK TAKAHASHI: Welcome to the best small crossover you can buy today, the Mazda CX-5. It's a little sporty, it's a little more reactive and responsive. Sure it's an SUV, it's a little tippy, but there's only so much you can do in regards to physics, right? WILL KAUFMAN: One of the things that impresses me in this car is the body roll is really well-controlled. JOSH SADLIER: You should try sitting in the middle back here, but I take your point. MARK TAKAHASHI: Well, in addition to better driving dynamics, I think it's also the best-looking in the bunch. JOSH SADLIER: I would agree with that. MARK TAKAHASHI: I mean, it's better to look good than feel good, but this does both. JOSH SADLIER: If you look around at the competition, there's not really another crossover at this price point that actually makes a style statement. Not one that I can think of, at least. MARK TAKAHASHI: It's not over-styled either. I mean, it just-- like the overall shape is really pleasing. JOSH SADLIER: Yep. WILL KAUFMAN: It's also definitely the nicest interior of any of the ones we have here today. MARK TAKAHASHI: Some of these materials we wouldn't have expected to see except for maybe a luxury car last generation. JOSH SADLIER: Yep. MARK TAKAHASHI: And it's got this great infotainment controller here that's kind of the same as you'd expect from BMW, Mercedes, and Audi. And I love that. It's just well-managed, you know? It's easy to drive, it's fun to drive. WILL KAUFMAN: It raises the question, why do you buy a compact SUV? It is because it handles nicely? MARK TAKAHASHI: You know, there are certain people left in the world who appreciate cars that handle well and are sporty. WILL KAUFMAN: But if you're buying one of these, what you need is practicality, right? What you need is to be able to fit stuff and people and just carry things around. I mean, what are the tricks of this car other than it's nice to put around a turn, which, let's face it, most of the only chance you get to do that is a freeway on-ramp. Not every road is our test track. MARK TAKAHASHI: Well, you don't think that this has enough cargo space? WILL KAUFMAN: You've got two kids, especially if they're small, you've got two strollers you gotta throw in the trunk. That's a lot of space right there. This is definitely going to be the worst at moving stuff. MARK TAKAHASHI: Worst? WILL KAUFMAN: There's no other power train option in this car. This is the only one here today-- MARK TAKAHASHI: I don't think it needs more power. WILL KAUFMAN: Well, the power is only part of it, right? The other thing that-- the other thing that the other power train options on the other vehicles offer is not just more power, but more fuel efficiency. You've got a hybrid motor in the RAV4 and you've got the 1.5 liter turbo in the CR-V, both of which are more efficient than what you get in this car. JOSH SADLIER: But I think the point about cargo capacity for me in this segment is I doubt that many buyers are actually folding down the seats and maximizing every last cubic foot that's available. I feel like what they're looking for is a high seating position. Yeah, a convenient hatchback trunk, sure, you can fold down the seats if you need to, but I think it's the style that really pushes this one over the top compared to other cars in the class for the price. Like, you want to look good driving a crossover, I feel like that's part of the appeal. WILL KAUFMAN: This is also the best seating position of any of the ones we have here today for sure. I mean, you feel a little bit more ensconced in the vehicle, you've got armrests that at least for me actually work on both sides. And that's-- I mean, just that, just the feel of sitting down and in this vehicle, there is a little bit of that sportiness to it. And I also think it's just the most comfortable-- these seats to me are the most comfortable of the three we have. JOSH SADLIER: Starting with acceleration, the CR-V turns out to have a pretty significant advantage. We're talking about a second-and-a-half to 60-- seven-and-a-half for the CR-V, nine seconds-plus for the CX-5 and RAV4. What do we think about that? MARK TAKAHASHI: It's crazy. I mean, the CX-5 feels so much faster and livelier, but numbers don't lie. JOSH SADLIER: Braking distance we go from 60 to zero, full panic stop. Once again the CR-V has a significant advantage-- 121 feet in that panic stop versus 130 for the other two cars. When it comes to cargo space, the CR-V has a class-leading 39.2 cubic feet of it behind the second row. That's on par with some mid-size SUVs. MARK TAKAHASHI: Cargo capacity is one of the main reasons people gravitate towards crossovers like these. WILL KAUFMAN: That is really impressive, but on paper, it's within a cubic foot of the RAV4. In the real world, that makes a difference, though. You can see, after the most unexpected game of Tetris ever, JOSH SADLIER: We are down one golf bag, but only one golf bag, so they're pretty much the same. The CX-5, though, I feel like it's a little smaller. Is that-- Mark? Is it smaller? MARK TAKAHASHI: It's smaller. That is what didn't fit in the RAV4, and all of this is what doesn't fit in the CX-5. At 30.9 cubic feet, it's the smallest capacity of the bunch, but that's still a lot of stuff. WILL KAUFMAN: I know the force is the bestselling vehicle in this segment, but it's really starting to show its age. Compared to these other two, it just can't really hold up. We're going after you run this test again and we get the new model in because I think it's going to be a big improvement. MARK TAKAHASHI: And I realize that the CX-5 doesn't have the greatest cargo capacity, but it really appeals to my left brain. I mean, it looks great, and drives even better. JOSH SADLIER: But here's what the right brain says. The CR-V's got the best fuel economy, best cargo capacity, best braking, and best acceleration in the whole test. Case closed. MARK TAKAHASHI: Let us know what you think. Leave a comment below, and if you like what you see, hit Subscribe. And check out Edmonds.com for full ratings and reviews of each of these SUVs. [MUSIC PLAYING]