It's safe to say that this little Toyota has got under my skin a little bit, and once again I find myself at the end of the month, and not wanting to let the car go that I had bought for the month. I thought about trying to convince Mrs Clint that the way forward was that she should have this little car. I know she likes it, but she's liked several of the other cars that I've had this year, and I'd hoped she would have, but when the time came, she didn't want them and so off they went to their new homes with their new owners.
So despite me really wanting to keep hold of it for a while longer I felt that there was really no point in once again trying to convince her worshipfulness that she needed this little Rav4 in her life. It really has been a brillant and fun little car to own for the month, but as the end of the month approached I found myself out on the street, taking photographs of the Rav4 ready for its auction listing on fleabay.
And so away it goes... Ha ha, yeah right, if only it was so simple. There it goes alright,
off to Tesco with my Dad at the wheel. So how come I still have it?
Well, to put it simply while I was outside taking the photos to use in the ad on fleabay Mrs Clint came out and said, "I don't know what you're doing that for, that thing's going nowhere!" It would seem that she had decided that a 1996 Toyota
Rav4 is the car for her, and to be honest I kind of agree with her. So
instead of trying to sell it, and obviously losing yet more money I figured that she might as well have it as she likes it so much. I'm not sure if this is a win for me or not, but I'm pretty glad it's staying if I'm honest.
The RAV4 has been described as the
offspring of a Toyota Landcruiser and a Ford Fiesta XR2, and this pretty
much sums it up. It drives a little bit like a hot hatch, and it looks a
little bit like an off-roader. But what
else can I say about my month of Rav4 ownership? Well I covered 1311 miles in
it, and quite enjoyed every minute of it, it's a fun little car to
drive! These enjoyable miles cost me £230 in fuel, and that equates to
201.12 foreign litres or 44.24 UK Gallons! This works out to be about
29.60 mpg, which isn't great, but it has been stood with its engine
running for quite a lot of the time while I've been driving it about as I
seem to have spent an awful lot of time in traffic this month. Plus,
and I have to say it, Mrs Clint has been driving it a fair bit,
and her feet are much heavier than mine! Anyway, moving on before her worshipfulness reads that!
Under the bonnet, just one engine choice, a 2.0 litre petrol
straight-four producing 120 horsey power straight from the Toyota
Carina, Corolla, and no doubt other 2.0 litre Toyotas. This whirrs away
quietly, and effortlessly, and produces enough power to almost convince
yourself that you're actually the pilot of a little hot hatch, and not a little
4x4.
Out on the road the RAV4 is quite happy, with safe, predictable,
car-like handling which is no doubt helped by it having the five-speed,
four wheel drive powertrain from the Toyota Celica. It also comes with a
switch on the dash to control the lock for the center differential
should you get stuck in some deep leaves at the side of the road. It feels
quite stable even at motorway speeds, and off-road it is very capable for what it
is. That is to say that it's not exactly outstanding, but then it's never going to be if you were
to compare with something like a Land Rover, or something with a more
agricultural back ground. Because lets face it, it's a soft-roader, and therefore
designed to spend most of its life pottering around the leafy suburbs, and therefore
not having a low ratio gearbox limits its abilities off road, but then
for 99% of these little cars, off road means parking on the pavement!
The ride, like many soft-roaders of this age is slightly bouncy, if not
occasionally a bit jarring, but oddly this adds to the charm of the
thing.
As I've said before, inside the cockpit is a surprisingly comfortable place to
be, the seating position is comfortable, and being up higher than most
other cars it gives you a good view of the road ahead, unless of course
you're on the school run, as all the Mums around here seem to have
bigger and higher 4x4's than the little Rav4, it does get a little bit leafy on the streets around here in Autumn, so they need those big 4x4's after all.
However the front seats are quite comfortable even on long journeys.
Last weekend I had quite a lot of errands to do, and things to pick up
which
meant that I was effectively in the Rav for the whole day. I never felt
uncomfortable in the seats even after driving for over six hours.
The dashboard is nicely laid out, if a little basic, however I do like
the blue dials. I'm not sure what kind of woman I've turned into lately,
but obviously since I've been driving this I have started to pick up on
little details like blue dials! One thing that I didn't like however
was that the switch gear on the column was the wrong way around. I don't
know why this was a problem, I have other cars with the switch gear the
same way round as this little Rav4, and it poses no problem in them, but in this I just couldn't get my head round it, and never got used
to having the indicator on the right and the wipers on the left. Other
things of note however is that there is quite a cheap and utilitarian
feel about the interior of the car, and no more so is it noticed than on
the doors, specifically, as I've said numerous times before, the window winder switches!
In the back my two little Monsters said that they had plenty of room, and
were very comfortable. However the thing that they liked the most was
that they could recline their seats for once. This they felt was a great idea,
however the bootspace is quite small, and when the seats are reclined it
is even smaller. This has resulted in a very angry Mrs Clint on more
than one occaision when we've returned home from shopping to find that
the kids have reclined their seats breaking eggs, and squashing fruit in
the process!
But without our two little Monsters in the back, and with the back seats folded
up you have quite a lot of room, and the little Rav can be quite a handy
little parts hauler should you need it to be. As you may know, I'm a bit of a wheel whore and a couple of weeks back I managed to get three sets of Rav4 wheels in there, which I felt was not too shabby if I do say so
myself! Her worshipfulness is still complaining that it smells a bit like rubber in there despite my best efforts to clean it out, and a small selection of magic trees hanging from the interior mirror!
All in all this
was, and is a great little car, it's fun to drive, and to look at! It's
pretty good on the road, it's not that bad off the road either. It's a great
little car, infact its so great that in 1997 It was named the Automobile
of the Year by Automobile Magazine, so it can't be all bad.
The thing
is though, if I'd have known that Mrs Clint wanted a Rav4 I
would've spent some time looking for the best one I could find. Don't
get me wrong, this one is pretty good, it's solid, and and drives well,
but it's clearly been used, and has a few battle scars, broken bits of
trim and so on. So a quick search of fleabay and I found most of the bits
and bobs that needed to be replaced, however, once I'd taken into
account postage etc, it was going to cost almost as much as the thing
cost me in the first place, which was irritating!
Therefore, as the more
Eagle-eyed of you lot may have spotted in this photograph the Rav4 has been joined by another one... The donor! I did consider that the donor would become car number 9, the September car, as although it is pretty similar, it is an automatic and not a manual transmission. My feeling was that I could do some sort of a comparrison, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that this might be somewhat of a cop-out, and so, although I feel that it is worth mentioning, it won't be car number 9. More like car number 8... The bonus level. Stay tuned...
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