[CUF]

Hello from Germany, my name is Florian and I'm currently driving a 2005 Toyota Celica. I'm starting a new job next year, the car got 250.000km (approx. 155.000 miles) and I wished for something more comfortable for long drives. The Celica will retire and is planned to only be driven sometimes in summer.

So my search for a reliable and comfortable car ended up with the RAV4 3rd Gen (I prefer a facelift) but I can barely find information on german websites. So I started reading on this forum and registered here.

I'm curious to get in touch with you and I'm looking forward for my future RAV4.

Well and I got one question: Is there some kind of database where you can find common problems with the different generations of the car and some general purchase recommendation? What I already found out is to stay away from the 3rd Gen models before 2009 due to oil problems.

Best regards :smile

PS: I apologize for mistakes with the english language.

 

[Blogson]

Welcome! Your English is better than the English of many Americans! Third generation RAVs with the 4 cylinder engine in North America had oil burning problems but many had the engines rebuilt by Toyota, but I don't know whether that problem affected European RAVs even though I suspect that it did. I don't know about a database regarding third generation RAV problems, but you can do a Search on this forum by going to the top of this page in the menu bar and click on Forums, select the Third Generation forum, and selecting the Mechanical part. Also you can do a general search by using your internet browser's search function. Good luck!

 

[Theo]

Hi Cuf,

Welcome to the RAV club!

I'm a member from The Netherlands and we own a RAV4 4.3 from 2006 imported from, yes indeed, Germany.
Experienced no true problems since we Bought it in 2012. Once a huge repair on the V-tec module, that's all.

Sometimes it's hard to get a 100% good idea of common RAV4 problems, because most RAV's spoken over in this forum are US versions.
I would suggest to buy a 4.3 with from a Toyota dealer with at least half a year garanty, that will give you some security.

On the other hand we're talking about the Lean designed Toyota brand with a high reputation on quality, the reason why you see this brand so much used/driven in rough situations were people need a car they can trust. For example Afrika, Asia, etc.

 

[CUF]

@Blogson: thanks for your post :smile . Well in Germany there is no option for a V6 engine, they just got a 2.0 4 cylinder (engine code is 3ZR-FAE). The 1ZZ-FE 1.8 engine which is in many common Toyota models in Germany is known to have oil problems, so I am very cautious about that...
Besides that, are there very "common" problems to look after? Haven't found any so far on this forum.


@Theo: Thank you too for your post. Well I also thought about the 4.3, but to be honest I don't like the front, looks too "asiatic" to me.