Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
SUVs Toyota RAV4 Toyota RAV4 pre-2006
2123 messages, Last post on Aug 20, 2009 at 7:57 PM
You are in the Toyota RAV4 Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & tidester
How did people ever manage to survive before: air bags, side air bags. ABS, skid control,disc brakes, etc, etc, etc.............Get over it!
|
|
|
|
|
Replying to: olizer (Oct 08, 2004 3:54 pm) |
|
|
Replying to: olizer (Oct 08, 2004 3:54 pm) Toyota tries to be so concerned about safety, yeah fails when it comes to their actual vehicles. DO NOT BUY A TOYOTA RAV4 unless you want an UNSAFE vehicle. |
|
|
is coming from on his last post, but I don't entirely agree. We tried in vain to requisition an 04 Rav w/side airbags back in March and waited 5 months to find out that Gulf States Toyota couldn't or wouldn't get one equipped that way for our dealership. According to our salesman, a total of two w/ side airbags had been shipped to the five-state region over the preceding three months. For whatever reason, this is the way Gulf States was handling this option--I don't know what they are doing for 05. As a result, my wife and I bought an 02 Rav. Is it less safe than equivalent Ravs with side airbags? Almost certainly! Do we feel it an unsafe vehicle? No, or at least no worse than our other two vehicles that lack side airbags. However, to suggest that purchasing a RAV is an unsafe choice is an exaggeration. Lets face it, many SUVs are less safe when compared to sedans and coupes due to their higher center of gravity and tendency to tip a wheel in avoidance maneuvers. Let's not forget that many truck-based SUVs do not have to comply with safety standards that are applied to all standard cars (sedans/coupes). Isn't buying a convertible inherently more dangerous than an equivalent sedan--even if both have side impact airbags--should the car be involved in a rollover. I guess my point is that most vehicle purchases involve certain safety trade-offs. There are a sizable number of cars on the road that have no airbags or anti-lock brakes including plenty of Volvo wagons and sedans that were, and are, touted for their safety features. Should someone who can't afford the newest car or truck with the latest safety features be told not to buy a car because it's unsafe? My problem is with the word "Unsafe" vs. "less safe". I do agree that Toyota should make this either a standard feature--as with the Honda Cr-V--or a widely available option. I think a better way to get Toyota of America to equip vehicles with side air bags is to let the dealership know you consider it an important option and are delaying purchase until you can get one so equipped rather than labeling other stock as unsafe. |
|
|
gogiboy, you are correct! If you look at the crash test results, a vehicle equiped with side airbags provide better crash test results than a vehicle without side airbags. It is not that RAV4 is "unsafe", however, when you compare it to others in it's class such as the CRV with standard side airbags, the RAV4 is more prone to the driver and passenger suffering injuries. Above all, the point of this posting was that Consumer Reports which for some people that don't even look at what they are buying, but simply go by what CRs says you should own, they put the RAV4 as their best small SUV. So given what you have confirmed about the availability of getting a Toyota RAV4 with side airbags, their recommendations have a lot to be desired as they are recommending a vehicle with POOR crash results. However, this is the case with any Toyota when the airbags are optional...you will likely never find one on the lot. A sales person actually told a friend of mine one time when he was looking at the RAV4 that they were not really necessary, yet I imagine if he actually had one in stock, he would have used it as the vehicle having an advantage over the competition. It all comes down to value and price and Toyota should equip their vehicles accordingly and stop trying to play both sides of the story. |
|
|
I think we fundamentally agree on this issue. I don't know why more 04 Ravs aren't equipped with side airbags since it was an option we really desired. For some reason the NE US gets quite a few equipped that way. By surfing the net we actually found one equipped exactly the way we wanted it including the airbags at a dealership on the eastern shore of Maryland--problem is we live in OK. Although my wife's family is from MD, we didn't want to fly to MD and conduct the break-in of the Rav on the 1400 mile drive back to OK. I generally have had much success with Consumer Reports' recommendations and I believe that CU, the publisher, attempts to balance a lot of competing, and sometimes conflicting, information from the various agencies who test for crash worthiness. I'm not defending them in this particular instance, but the folks who rate the products do stick their collective necks out on various occasions to report unsafe vehicles (Acura and Suzuki SUVs come to mind). I also read the Consumer's Guide on both the Cr-V and Rav. They much preferred the CR-V, but it had nothing to do with safety. In the end safety wasn't as paramount an issue for us as it might have been if we had kids or had prior serious accidents. Our own insurance agent quoted us nearly identical rates for both the 04 Rav and 04 CR-V. He attributed the slightly higher rate on the Rav ($60 more/year) to Toyota replacement parts being more expensive than Honda.
|
|
|
Replying to: gogiboy (Oct 10, 2004 9:31 am) |
|
Is the next generation RAV 4 due out in fall 2005 as an 06 model? Has anyone heard anything about the changes? Will it get any bigger?
|
|
|
Replying to: revit (Sep 26, 2004 5:47 am) |
|
|
Don't blame CR. CR rates vehicles on their reliability (based on the CR questionnaire) and on how well they perform (based on CR testing). They have always done this. They have recently included crash test results from organizations that perform them (CR does not crash test vehicles). They recommend vehicles based on (1) reliability and (2) how well they perform, that's it (some that perform well may still not be recommended because of poor reliability issues). The only vehicle that CR did not recommend because of safety reasons was the Suzuki Sidekick (it tipped too easily during their normal testing). There are many vehicles that don't perform well in crash tests. Incidentally, most accidents are caused by driver error. CR now provides readers with this information in order that they can decide for themselves what vehicle best suits their needs. If you decide that the RAV (or any other vehicle) is not safe enough for you and your family, don't buy it. Don't blame CR.
|
|
You are here:
Forums
SUVs Toyota RAV4 Toyota RAV4 pre-2006
New? Join Now!
Forum Tools
Search Forums
Browse by Vehicle
2011 Toyota RAV4
Browse by Board
Browse by Topic
Today's Chats
