Very cute, small can find a parking anywhere.

Rattle up front.

I made a major upgrade from a Suzuki Sidekick to a used 2001 RAV4 with 31K miles. I love my baby.

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Suzuki sidekick.

Looks; good reliability. Accelaration. Towing ability good for a car its size - pulled a Jaguar XJS 500 miles no probs. Clutch lasted 150k miles.

Interior seats poor quality. Carpets rubbish. Paintwork on dashboard too soft. Engine oil seals - been dropping oil for 5 years despite garage attention. Difficult and expensive clutch change

Had car from new - 160,000 miles done. New clutch on 150k miles. Generally very good. Bloody good at lights - accelerates ++. Fitted own alloys - wider track = tremendous roadholding! Sourced cheaper outlet for tyres. Paintwork OK still despite various clowns bumping into it. Had all the extras put on - side steps (now well rusted) rear step, tow bar, bull bar, wheel arch extensions. Nice looking and well admired when first purchased in '94. Performs well in light snow and good on muddy off road with ordinary road tyres. Managed to do 80mph on a motorway with 1 tyre flat and didn't even know til someone flashed us! I think the original version looks more stylish than the current model.

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Toyota Previa

Good in snow.. and great on gas. and all over good except the engine?

engine burning oil

Well so far not good intake on this SUV. Have had it to 4 different garages 7 times for the same problem .My RAV is useing oil and not showing it in the tail pipe or on the ground cannot not find a leak have had seals gaskets etc changed.Now I have to go in to have it torn down to see if its the valve seal or rings.I have recently found out that I am not the only one with this problem. Being as though it is not cheap to fix a car no a days...Toyota should see about helping with this RAV4 problem.

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toyota all my life not no more

No great strengths...but maybe I'm still in shock.

-Little leg room. -Back door open wrong way. -Gas mileage not good (considering it's only a 4) -Dealer doesn't think enough about there product to re-sell it.

WAS always a fan of Toyota Products. Couldn't say enough good things about them. NOT ANY MORE. The Rav was nice but there is little of no leg room in back. Main beef, back door opens wrong way and poor gas mileage (for 4). Two things that I liked about the Toyota's was quality and re-sale value. Well I still think the quality is OK (not great) but when I tried to trade it in, 4 months after I took over my own lease, (on a 4Runner or Highlander), they wouldn't even take it. Several days before, I put a qt of oil in and forgot the cap (the engine compartment got a bit messy). Another problem was a major shuttle in the rear when I started off. This started shortly after I got the Rav. Has it checked out but they couldn't find any problems.

Reliability, reliabilty, gas mileage, looks, reliability.

Whiney 4 cylinder with a radically shifting auto trans. Cheap tires, cheap upholstery,

After much dilema between the Escape, Mazda Protoge, CRV, and others; settled on the Rav4 because of its reliability and resale record. After owning 30+ cars, I know that Toyotas are rock-solid in reliability and Consumer Reports backs this up. I actually liked the Escape better, with its V6 200 hp engine. But have had bad luck with American cars over 60k, so I guess you could say that I bought the car for the long haul.

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Escape, Corolla, Durango, Caravan.

Stylish. Roomy, especially for big people. Good gas milage. Can haul lots of stuff.

Can be noisy. Wish they made a V6. I don't like how the tire rims? rotors? rust.

I love my RAV! I am on my second one (had a 1997) traded in for the 2000 I have now. A GREAT vehicle for winter. I have actually plowed snow (so deep it was coming over the hood) going up hill on my back road. Total confidence on bad roads.

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Subaru legacy.

Appearance, Fuel Economy, Seat Comfort, Cruise Control, Radio, Ample Storage, Reliabilty, Power Options; Steering, Windows,Doors,Sunroof. Adequate acceleration. 4 Doors, Tinted UV Glass, braking, Air conditioning.

Wish it had an optional V-6 engine. When you step on the gas, the engine gets noisy at high RPM`s . Air conditioning noisy at high speed setting. Speakers for sound system could use some upgrading.

I bought the Rav 4 at Carson Toyota, located in California. The servive there is excellent. If you plan to buy a Rav 4, go talk to the Fleet Sales Department. I got an excellent deal. Make sure you do your homework on the dealer invoice, price, I think I paid about $650.00 above invoice, fully loaded. Carson Toyota had the exact Rav 4 I wanted so I bought it the same day. Its funny how after I read all these reviews, that if you did your homework, you would know exactly what you were buying. Stop the whinning! you should have bought something else.

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Honda CR-V, ugly, too much black rubber (bumpers, lower panels. Ford Escape, too many recalls. Choppy ride.

Good gas mileage. I have a disabled relative who can easily get in and out of the vehicle. Great layout of interior, good compartments to put things like first aid kit, etc. Handles great, easily fits in the smallest of parking spaces. LOVE THIS VEHICLE!

SEAT FABRIC! It is picked after only 17000 miles and I have put in a complaint to Toyota. My local dealer blamed my dogs for picking the seat fabric, however in ALL other vehicles my husband and I have owned, this has NEVER happened. I took my vehicle to an expert in my area who reupholsters car seats and they told me the fabric itself contains lots of nylon and it is picking at the seams, so to blame my dogs is ludicrous. Even if my dogs were at fault (they are tiny Poms), I expect more rugged wear out of the fabric of an SUV. In car washes, brakes tend to get wet and grab hard, but they dry quickly.

Great vehicle, especially for running around town. The tounnou cover can be used to put bread on to keep it from being smashed on the way home from the store.

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Ford Expedition, Toyota Camry, Toyoto Tercel

Size, AWD, fuel economy, cargo room, head room, stereo.

The engine really is fairly weak for an SUV. In those high mountains I talked about the engine can't maintain speed. The transmission shifts suddenly and violently into 3rd or 2nd gear, and doesn't seem to want to pick a gear. When I buy my next RAV4 I will look for a stickshift, so I can better control the shifting. In almost a year and 20K miles we've only had one mechanical problem, due to a short in the towing light hookup. We just pulled the fuse for the towing, since we hardly ever tow anything.

This is absolutely the best car I have ever owned. After having a policy of never financing vehicles, my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and trade in my Cherokee to buy the RAV4. We found a 1997 4-door AWD automatic with about 80K miles on it. We bought it last September, and have not regretted it once. This is my wife's car, most of the time. She's a graduate student in pottery, so she ends up hauling around a lot of clay and finished pots. You can haul a lot of stuff in there. The RAV4 has a lot of room considering its size, and I've found that if you remove the rear seats you can fit just about anything in there. I once moved two massive Victorian armchairs and an area rug with little trouble. I've towed a trailer with it before, but I wouldn't recommend doing this too much, due to the small engine. I commute over some very high mountains along the NC-TN border, and whevever it was snowing I would just trade keys with my wife. Once I was the only person to show up at work one day. I had commuted in the RAV4 through the snowstorm 70 miles over mountain peaks, and the rest of my coworkers, who only live 4 or 5 miles of city streets away, stayed home! I've actually TRIED to lose traction in this thing, just to see if I could, and wasn't able to pull it off. It's amazing for a full-time system. I'm getting ready to sell my Honda Civic, and I think I'm going to get another RAV4, this time with a stickshift (see weaknesses). I love this car, and would (and will) buy another one!

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Jeep Cherokee, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Subaru Outback.

Roomy for a small vehicle; easy to park, easy to get in/out.

Dieseling, smokey exhaust. Water pump failed at 30k. Gas guage highly innacurate, hand gets burnt reaching for dipstick, air vents set to high, unable to properly set vent/ac/heat settings, EXTREMELY LOUD on freeway, plastic trim quickly oxidized, exhaust rattles and dealer can't tighten, ..............

My wife really wanted this car. It's a piece of garbage. Latest problem is the constant dieseling and smokey exhaust and the dealer can't figure out what's wrong (to a tune of $300 so far to me).

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civic hatchback, 4-runner.