2019 Suzuki Vitara vs Toyota RAV4

What's the difference?

My eyes always light up when my inbox dings with news of a Vitara. It's a refreshing, honest car that does its job really well. While I sometimes struggle with the pricing, the 2019 re-jig has brought a few bits and pieces - like the cool Alcantara seat trim - and an uplift in quality over the older cars. Its interior space is competitive with the best in the class, as are the ride and handling.

The Vitara Turbo is easily the best of the range's trio, unless you really need the all-wheel drive of the Allgrip. The Turbo takes all the good bits of the base model, eliminates its biggest problem (the engine) and adds a whole heap of safety gear. 

This new RAV4 has converted me. I didn't like any of the previous ones, with varying levels of displeasure. None of them were bad, they were just dull transport wrapped in what Toyota thought was fun.

The fifth-generation RAV4 joins the C-HR and new Corolla as genuinely likeable cars. Toyotas have always been 'good cars' - solid, dependable and could take a pounding few others would even contemplate. But that's not enough anymore and the TNGA platform is delivering cars that aren't just good transport but really very good cars.

The only problems with the Edge are that it costs too much and isn't a hybrid. Both of those things will probably have you saving a few bucks and buying the Cruiser hybrid.

The Vitara wears its SUV heritage proudly, with a blocky, 8-bit aesthetic I'm quite partial to it, but not everybody I've spoken to is. That's okay, the clamshell bonnet is one of those cool design things that most people don't care about until you point it out.

The 2019 update left the styling mostly alone, with just a mild bumper-and-grille change and solid red rear-light clusters that took some getting used to, yet added a bit more '80s arcade-game cred.

The cabin is entirely conventional and, again, in 2019, has had little done to it. Suzuki says the the dash is less hard and that's fine, if not especially important. The diamond shapes in the Alcantara-trimmed seats are classy, though. It's an honest cabin that doesn't try to do anything fancy.

I do feel a bit sorry for Toyota's designers. We moan about dull cars - the previous RAV4 was mostly pretty dull - and say, "Be more interesting." Then they pop out the new RAV4 and people like me say, "No, not like that."

While the overall look is pleasingly chunky and blocky, some of the details are less so. That weird black strip that joins the rear quarter window to the tailgate looks unaligned with anything else on the car. The Tiguan rear lights look a bit stolen.

The Edge looks like a ruggedised RAV4. It has its own bumper and grille treatment and chunky, unpainted wheelarches, along with its own exclusive colour palette.

The new cabin is a pleasing step up from the old car's. Here in the Edge there are some fun splashes of what looks like McLaren's Papaya Orange and even more splashes of rubber.

Some of the switchgear and grab handles are finished in rubber, harking back to the idea of a hose-out interiors of early Land Cruisers (do not hose out your RAV4).

That's about it for adventure, though, but that's okay. It's an interior that will take a family and its stuff without fuss.

The Vitara's cabin is very spacious, especially given its modest external footprint. It's amazing how much space you can liberate when you've got a high roof and you can lift the rear seats for a more natural seating position.

Front seat passengers have plenty of headroom and without the Allgrip's sunroof, it's quite lofty. You also have two cupholders and a space for your phone under the climate-control switches. There's also a new sliding armrest, which doubles as a cover for a storage bin.

The back seat is fairly sparse. Bereft of cupholders and an armrest, you'll be holding your own coffees back there. And keeping your inboard elbows to yourself. Rear leg and knee room are excellent for a car this size, with plenty of space for me at 180cm and even for our resident tattooed totem pole, Richard Berry, who stands another 11cm taller.

Each door has a bottle holder for a total of four. 

The boot is one of those split-level arrangements, with a false floor under which you can hide valuables or, given the lifestyle vibe, wet towels/muddy boots/sandy boogie boards. You don't know how useful that is until you use it, let me tell you.

Cargo space starts at a very useful 375 litres (beaten only by the Honda HR-V and the Nissan Qashqai) and is way above the tiny hatchback boot of the CX-3's. Fold the rear seats and space increases to 1120 litres. 

The orange bits in the Edge highlight a couple of very handy storage ideas. The dash shelf that I've often praised in the Kluger as being exceptionally useful is here, as well as a Qi wireless charging pad in the same vivid colour.

Both are rubberised so stuff doesn't slide and clatter about. There are USB ports everywhere, too - one for the media system, two in the central console and two for rear seat passengers.

Boot space is better than before at 580 litres with the seats up, an improvement of 33 litres. As is Toyota's wont, we don't have a seats down figure.

Given its likely use as a family car, the RAV's rear seat space is top notch. I had tons of room behind my driving position (I'm just under six feet) and number one son who is well north of six foot tall also had enough room for his knees and giant headphones.

The front seats are fantastic, which is becoming a trend for Toyota and the segment.

There are four cupholders and bottle holders, two up front and two in the back.

At nearly fifty large ($47,140), the Edge is, er, on the edge but it is loaded with stuff. You get 19-inch alloys, a nine-speaker stereo, dual-zone climate control, adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, electric tailgate, leather wheel and shifter, keyless entry and start, front/side/reversing camera, active cruise control, electric driver's seat, sat nav, auto LED headlights, auto wipers, lots of synthetic leather, sunroof, power everything and space saver spare.

The nine speaker stereo is branded with JBL badges and has DAB. It has the awful user interface from the Corolla stretched across the 8.0-inch screen along with some cheap plastichrome buttons to operate it.

Toyota is promising us Apple CarPlay and Android Auto soon, but will want to do something about the washed-out colour on the screen

As with the Allgrip, the Turbo ships from Hungary with the 1.4-litre turbo four-cylinder Boosterjet engine, a vast improvement on the 1.6-litre in the base model. You have way more power here, with 103kW and a comparatively muscular 220Nm.

The front wheels get their twist via a six-speed automatic, which is shared with whole range.

Under the Edge's high, flat bonnet is Toyota's 2.5-litre (A25A-FKS) four-cylinder, delivering 152kW/243Nm to all four wheels. An eight-speed automatic transmission gets the power out.

No turbos, no obvious trickery, just a classic Toyota machine, but this time it has a bit more power than previous cars. Irritatingly, you can't get the 163kW hybrid powertrain here at the top of the range.

The all-wheel drive system keeps the power up front for the most part, but can send up to fifty per cent to the rear.

The rear axle also has some clever torque vectoring tech. It won't have you out mixing it with a Land Rover Defender, but the system should make the RAV4 pretty handy in the rough stuff.

There is a terrain select dial where you can choose three different modes (mud and sand, rock and dirt, and snow).

The official combined-cycle figure for the Vitara Turbo is 5.9L/100km, which is within a tenth of the much less powerful base model. Unencumbered with even a simple stop-start system to reduce fuel usage, we've consistently found the turbo engine will deliver a fuel figure in the low-eights, with the two-wheel-drive Turbo returning 8.1L/100km.

The sticker on the windscreen will draw fuel from the 55 litre tank at a rate of 6.1L/100km, which would be nice if it happened. My week with the RAV4 cost fuel at a rate of 10.2L/100km.

If you've stepped out of the base model and into the Turbo, as I did, it's like night and day. While the base version has a good equipment level, it's badly let down by the underpowered 1.6-litre engine. The turbo 1.4 is so much better. Smooth and torquey, it makes much lighter work of the 1100kg-plus car and gives the automatic transmission a lot more to work with.

While it's a lot better than the 1.6, it loses almost nothing to the more expensive Allgrip. As it's front-wheel drive its off-road capability is rather curtailed, but the bonus is you can save a lot of money and some headroom if you don't need part-time all-wheel drive.

The Turbo drives as well as the rest of them and rides as well, too. It handles very securely on a decent set of tyres. The ride on this car is one of the most surprising things about it, with a smooth, easygoing gait. Cars as light as the Vitara can get a little bit bouncy and out of control, particularly on broken urban surfaces, but not this one.

While the body can roll around a bit in harder cornering, it's never chuck-inducing and, if you're a driver who likes a bit of fun, the Vitara delivers, with light steering and a reasonably eager chassis. It's all bit unexpected, even if you've driven one before.

You do sit ridiculously high in the driver's seat, something my wife mentioned. Normally she sits a little higher than me but complained the seat must be stuck. Nope, that's just how it is. You sit really high and, for some, that's uncomfortable.

I came in to the RAV4 expecting good things. Underneath the chunky body is Toyota's Next Generation Architecture (TNGA) which is also under every good Toyota I've driven in the last couple of years - Corolla, C-HR and Camry.

The RAV is quite different to all of those cars. It rides higher and Camry excepted, is heavier. I also had reservations - the new RAV4 is chunkier than the old car by a fair margin and that rarely brings good news.

The first bit of good news before I even got going was finding out that the 2.5-litre engine is paired with an eight-speed automatic.

Getting underway, it felt slushy but is still preferable to a CVT. It may also have felt a bit slow because the engine makes quite a racket, especially compared to other cars in the segment.

A Tucson of the same grade packs a quiet, smooth 1.6-litre turbo and you can have a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel unit. You have to rev the RAV to get it moving, which partially explains the gap between claimed and real-world fuel usage.

Enough of the complaints, because the RAV4 is good. Very good. Quiet once you hit the cruise and super comfortable front and back, this thing will destroy road trips. The stereo will drown out the road noise, too.

Around the suburbs the ride is firm on the big alloys and even on 55 section rubber, it's a bit jumpy on sharper bumps like expansion joints. The chassis handled bigger bumps and depressions quite happily.

I am very pleased to report that it's good fun to chuck around. Despite that high-riding weight, it changes direction really well and it takes a lot to get to the eventual gentle understeer when you're really pushing.

The old car was a wooden duffer, with no steering feel and a deeply ordinary set of numbers when it came to performance.

On top of all that, the tech works pretty well and the lane keep assist doesn't try and break your thumbs or pierce your eardrums to keep you in your lane.

The RAV4 arrives with seven airbags (including driver's knee), stability and traction controls, forward collision warning, AEB (with pedestrian detection and daytime cyclist detection), lane keep assist, reversing camera, high beam assist, road sign recognition, blind spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.

There are also three top tether anchors and two ISOFIX points.

The fifth-generation car scored a maximum five ANCAP stars in May 2019.

Suzuki offers a three-year/100,000km warranty, but that's just the start. If you continue to service it at Suzuki every six months/10,000km, the warranty will go for as long as five years/100,000km. 

Suzuki's servicing regime works out at about $472 per year - most services are $175, with a couple of services at $359 and $399.

Toyota is close to leading the pack with warranty these days with a five year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and that can go up to seven years for the engine and transmission if you keep the car properly serviced.

If you return to a Toyota dealer every 12 months/15,000km, you'll pay $210 per service, which is absurdly reasonable.