For those of you who may have missed the latest CR issue, they confirm what we know. Yup, it's official: The 4.3 in various price ranges is recommended as a reliable used car that you can recommend to family and friends. CR lists the I4 '05, '09, '10-11, '12-13, and the V6 '08-'12. As icing on the cake CR states that, "The RAV4 is the rare small SUV to offer a V6 engine. It's a budget hot rod..." (2015:81). (Emphasis mine.)>
Thanks - that CR issue has not yet made its way to some of us on the West Coast. Info is not surprising to all of us who were fortunate enough to be able to get ours before the Toyota wimps decided to eliminate the V6 (not to disparage those who feel that the 4-banger is adequate for their needs).:smile
The four cylinder IS adequate for our needs.....but I have driven a V-6 and it is ALL that everyone says it is. :surprise <----- (a screamer!) Since it is primarily my wife's car,she decided on the four.I still have my own V-6 Maxima when I want to feel the rush,though.
Yep it is nice ... to have the extra power, but I have to keep the
foot out of it as I get terrible smells ! Turned off the stability and
hit a snowy parking lot, gas it and break and spin the steering wheel
and brake, and gas it .... pee u. Its done it a couple times in traffic,
with a quick stop, turn and gas it. Its a something is burning, and all
the fluids are up and not discolored. And nothing leaks.
Anyone else experience that?
You can certainly surprise folks with the power. Poor little v6 Charger tried to cut us off recently. He sure seemed surprised he couldn't leave the soccer mom mobile in the dust and found himself behind us instead.
...For those of you who may have missed the latest CR issue, they confirm what we know. Yup, it's official: The 4.3 is recommended as a reliable used car that you can recommend to family and friends. CR lists the I4 '05, '09, '10-11, '12-13, and the V6 '08-'12...
I find it interesting Consumer Reports finally is getting their act together by dropping the 2006-08 with the I4 engine as a recommended used car. These years had always been recommended before. Somehow the oil burning issue escaped their data and nary a word has ever said about it in all their wisdom.
When I recently took the annual car survey to rate my RAV4, they now specifically ask this question: "Have you ever experienced excessive oil consumption?" This tells me it is finally on their radar.
Either the CR survey data in past years has been too small to mention the problem, or they have been lazy in analyzing it. While it's nice to get a pass, it doesn't serve the consumers well, which is the whole point of their mag. Now with the lawsuit and the Toyota 'enhanced warranty extension' for oil burners, CR is finally taking notice.
Consumer Reports analyzes everything in their surveys. It's all done by computer so "laziness" doesn't factor in. They get many thousands of responses.
I just took the survey and it asked that same question about oil consumption for other cars and years (about oil consumption). It wasn't specific to the RAV4.
For 2006-2008 V4 the RAV4 has an overall rating of average in reliability and average for reports of oil leaks (which falls under category of "engine minor"). "Average" is not a great rating relative to most of the other years for the RAV4 which are typically above average or much better than average. By the way both the V4 and V6 RAV4 2007-2008 are much worse than average for engine cooling in their surveys.
Thanks for the discussion and corrections. I did not think about the reason for the I4 '06-'08 omission, i.e., oil burning. And I've checked the 2011 CR and they only note below average for the '06 suspension, average for the '07 suspension, '06 and '07 body integrity, and '06 and '07 audio systems. Phew! This is getting a bit too OCD even for me.
Also, I did not mean in any way to case aspersions on our I4 members. Not everyone is an elderly lead-footed, boy-racer, speed-freak like yours truly. And that's probably a good thing. What matters is not the engine, but that you have a 4.3.:thumbs_up:
If trying to cast aspersions, you can do a lot better than that! The RAV V6 is a classic case of the 'iron fist in a velvet glove.' Nice that Consumer Reports picked up on that.
I am not the daily driver of our I4--I just get to maintain it. And for that, I am quite grateful for the reliability. Thanks for your original post highlighting CR's overall used RAV recommendations.