TOYOTA AVENSIS TOURER REVIEW

My car

It is a very good car. The 2.0D-4D is a little noisy when worked hard but overall it's a great car to drive. With the T4 spec and stone/beige leather interior is very nice inside too. It's nice to look at, some may say dull, but you'd change your mind owning it. Interior makes for someone's dislikes of the exterior. This is a real driver's cabin. Everything in the right place, well composed and good quality. It's not childish or vulgar but it is definitely not boring.

Town - not perfect environment for this car but it is comfortable anyway. My usual URBAN MPG is between 39-42 depending on the conditions.

Motorway - the car is made for long journeys - excellent handling and speeds, quiet and very comfortable. When doing 70-80 mph car usually does 55 mpg. Never got to promised 60-ish. Having said that on the long Euro-Trip in Germany (average of 70mph) it did 58 MPG with 2 people on board and some luggage.

There are few minor design flaws like the the keyless start/stop system (order of the ignition and the electronic control of the steering column) but overall no faults at all.

Just turned 7500 miles car runs as well as on the day one.

Not a town car but very good estate and motorway cruiser.

My car

What could be a very good car is spoiled by design oversights. The basic car is OK, but most of the extras are poorly thought through and not worth the additional cost. - The shape of the top of the doors and poor roof drainage means that you get a free cold shower when opening a door in even light rain. Performance is severely compromised (despite what Toyota say about their "Optimal Drive" and handling is disapointing. It is good on the motorway for distance cruising but little fun in traffic. - The "premium" sound system is probably the poorest I've had in 10 years, but the integral SAT NAV is good. - The operational logic on the electric windows is just simply wrong, making small adjustments in wondow position impossible without windows shooting up and down. - The "Smart Entry" makes it impossible to check you have locked the car, adn I'd frankly prefer the tradtional remote lock/unlock. Also the keyless start is a gimmic, leaving you wondering where to put your keys. - The ignition sequence is wrong, preventing operation of the radio without ignition on, and headlights stay on after switching off.

My car

If your'e thinking of buying the New Avensis Tourer my advice is - don't! I have purchased one and deeply regeret it. Toyota have produced a car that looks good outside and in and the 2.0 D4D diesel is lively enough and economical....BUT The gear change has a 'mechanical' feel to it, sort of gritty - not good enough for a car of a car at this level, but the worst aspect of this car is the engine noise in the cabin which is simply unacceptable for a car costing c. £20k. Overall the ride, the gear change and the noise makes it feel like your'e driving a van. I have to say that these are problems that didn't seem to be present when test driving the car - maybe that was due to the various conditions at the time. I am assured by Toyota that the engine noise is normal - I've been driving diesels for many years now and this is by far the worst experience I have had. By the way this the second New Avensis Tourer in the past couple of months - the first one had a gear box failure after 415 miles! We bought this car as a comfortable, safe and economical car for touring with the famous Toyota reliability but now feel like we are stuck with a poor product and £20k poorer. I wouldn't want anyone else to suffer this car - there are plenty out there that will be better - and probably cheaper!