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Toyota Avensis |
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| Toyota Avensis |
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Love Your Knees? Maybe The Avensis Is The Car For You Safety, residuals key selling points for new Toyota Another Fine Family Car In Sector Crammed With Excellence Every product has to have its unique selling point and Toyota has aimed its new Avensis straight at those who like their knees so much, they want special protection for them in case of a crash. The Avensis not only has front, side and curtain airbags. It has a special unique-to-this-class knee air bag, which deploys from beneath the steering column. Currently, only top-of-the-range products like the ¤80,000 plus BMW 7 series can offer you this protection. There are many high quality full size family saloons out there, led by my current favourite, the Honda Accord. Then there’s the Vauxhall Vectra, Renault Laguna, Nissan Primera, Ford Mondeo, VW Passat, and Mazda6 to choose from. So what to choose? Toyota has concentrated on safety and strong residuals as top reasons to buy its new Avensis and differentiate it from the opposition. Highest Ever NCAP Score It is at the forefront in safety. The Avensis has just been awarded the highest-ever score under the stringent Euro NCAP crash safety rating system with 34 points. It is also the first car to be awarded the maximum 5 stars by Euro NCAP under a new, tougher testing regime, according to Toyota. The Avensis also features the latest generation ABS system and Electronic Brakeforce Distribution as standard. If safety doesn’t wow you, maybe, saving money will. Toyota says that the Avensis will display strong residual values across the range compared with its competitors, with an advantage of 7% over the Ford Mondeo, and 9% more than the Renault Laguna after three years and 60,000 miles. v Toyota Avensis 1.8 T2 5 door - 35% v Mazda6 1.8 TS 5 door - 32 v VW Passat 2.0S - 30 v Vauxhall Vectra 1.8 LS 5 door - 29 v Ford Mondeo 1.8 LX 5 door - 28 v Nissan Primera 1.8S - 28 v Renault Laguna 1.8 Authentique - 26 (retained value after 3 years:source CAP Monitor) The old Toyota Avensis was a bit bland to look at, but it had a reputation for terrific build quality and copper-bottomed reliability. |
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Handsome, Understated The new one looks a little bit more handsome, smart and understated. From some angles it looks like an old Mercedes E class. It is likely to be just as easy on the chequebook as the old one, but does it have any kind of unique appeal that would make anyone part with their hard-earned cash? The build quality is terrific. The dashboard layout is fine and the instrumentation clear. The test car, a T3x, had a 1.8 litre 129 bhp VVT-I petrol engine, and for £15,495 it comes with 16 inch alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning, electric windows all round, front fog lamps, rain sensitive wipers, heated retractable mirrors and leather steering wheel. Pretty impressive for the price. In the range of saloons and hatchbacks, there is also a 2.0 litre direct injection engine, and a 2.0 litre direct injection diesel. Overwhelmed By Data Fire up the engine and it is quiet and unobtrusive. Put your foot down and it becomes noisy and a bit boomy, delivering performance, which is adequate for the price range. It was a bit noisy on motorways. It didn’t want to pick up in top gear much under 35 mph, so the gearbox has to be worked. The manual box was adequate, but nowhere near as good as the fantastic, slick Accord gearbox. The boot is gigantic. A nice touch is the individual air conditioning settings. In the centre of the dashboard is a huge computer screen which pumps out the data of your choice. On my test car, the screen assailed the senses with more information that you would ever want to know about the fuel consumption – one minute it was doing 7.9 mpg, then 80.2, then 65.8, then 19.5 – never really telling you want you needed to know – how was the fuel economy for this particular tank going to turn out. My test car returned a not particularly impressive 32.8 mpg overall. Indicators A potentially annoying innovation is the system to make sure you put your seat belt on. A warning light goes on if the driver and front passenger fail to buckle up, followed by a warning buzzer when the car reaches 10 mph. After 30 seconds the volume and frequency of the buzzer increases. Come to think of it, nobody, anywhere now moves an inch without buckling up, so this isn’t likely to annoy anyone. A waste of technology, I’d say. In a final, desperate attempt to find something negative to say about the car - the turn indicators are too quiet and the self-cancelling mechanisms didn’t work too well. Double Wish Bone Rear Suspension The new Avensis has double-wishbone type rear suspension derived from the Celica sports coupe to improve handling and it seems to work. The car is sure footed and the steering feels very accurate and responsive. The new car is a winner, according to Toyota. “The new Avensis will set standards in the segment with its refined styling, precision build and excellent ride and handling qualities. The new car is larger than the previous model, but not as large from the outside as many of its competitors. The very essence of the design of the new car was not to make a cumbersome, large car but to make it very roomy and spacious from the inside, using intelligent use of space,” Toyota said. Toyota is also keen to stress the “European-ness” of the car, saying it was designed at its studio in the South of France and engineered specifically to meet the demands of European drivers. So is the Avensis worth buying? It is a fine car amongst a large group of terrific choices. My favourite still remains the matchless Honda Accord. Toyota Avensis T3x Engine - 1.8 litre VVTi, 4 cylinder Power - 129 bhp Acceleration - 0-62 mph 10.0 seconds Top speed - 124 mph Gearbox - 5 speed manual CO2 - 171 g/km Fuel consumption - Toyota claims 39.2 mpg combined - Wintonsworld test 32.8 mph Length - 4,630 mm Height - 1,480 Width - 1,760 Suspension - front; MacPherson strut independent - rear; double wishbone Insurance group - 7E Price - £15,495 Pluses - Matchless safety, good all-rounder, great build quality Minuses - Bland styling Score out of five - *** Neil Winton, May 20, 2003 |
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