2023 Toyota C-HR Pricing and Specs

You’ve layed out some challenging requirements here. You’d like a small SUV with a bit of ride comfort and clearly a bit of performance too, given your question about the i30 N.I think you’ll find the ride harsh on the i30 N, especially since you found the ride on the Kona harsh already. Keep in mind the i30 N is a hot hatch and has the suspension to match.I find the Subaru XV has very nice ride comfort for the small SUV segment, but I also feel that you will be disappointed with the performance from its 2.0-litre engine. You may also want to consider the new Hybrid Toyota C-HR. The Hybrid drive gives it a smidge of extra kick and it’s a fuel consumption hero, too.For a better blend of performance and ride, really only the Volkswagen T-Roc and Skoda Karoq are going to excel in the small SUV crowd. In terms of ownership both now have five year warranties, and you can (and should) pre-package five years of servicing on top at a discount.

Boy, there’s a big difference between a Toyota CH-R and an Isuzu MU-X, Kathy. Rarely would both those models make it to the same short-list. In any case, the problem you’ll face is that buying any brand-new car involves waving goodbye to a large chunk of its residual value the same day you drive it home for the first time.

Who is advising you to get rid of the Toyota? I’ve seen plenty of V6 Toyotas with more than 300,000km showing and still going strong. And if the mileage does worry you, what about finding a low-kilometre second-hand Aurion and pocketing the many thousands of dollars you’ve saved by not buying a brand-new car? You already know you love the way the Aurion drives (and its reliability is beyond question) it’s big enough for grand-kids and it’ll handle its share of dirt-road action.

If you can’t find an Aurion, a V6 Camry is a good alternative, offering a similar level of interior space, performance and lots of value for money. A later-model example will also have side-curtain air-bags to protect rear-seat passengers. And when the word honesty is used in the context of cars, a Toyota Camry is one of the first mental images to appear.

I’ll assume you had a good poke around the various settings menus before contacting us, Sweta, so I’ll skip that part of the advice. But from what I can gather, your privately-imported car may not actually have the functionality to switch to an English-language format.

Different markets have different specifications for this and sometimes the same vehicle can be built in two (or more) different factories around the world. Certainly, if the car you own had been destined for a market outside Japan, it would have had multi-lingual abilities. But, if it was only ever destined for the Japanese home market, there’s a big chance it only has Japanese programmed into it.

If that’s the case, you might find you need to change the entire head unit. That might be wise anyway, as some Japanese radio stations operate on a wave-length that isn’t used in Australia. Basically, this is another of the pitfalls of parallel-imported cars.