Cars are like people, they all have their individual quirks and personalities, and sometimes you get along with them, and sometimes you just don't see eye to eye.

This past week, I've been driving a 2006 Toyota RAV4, and it's one of those cars that I'm just not getting along with too well. We have "issues," this little Toyota and I. The "issues" aren't of the checklist of features and competencies type either. Those are easy for a company like Toyota to deal with. The problems I see with the RAV4 are more spiritual in nature.

I've driven a fair number of different SUVs over the last decade or so, but this is only the second time I've gotten behind the wheel of a RAV4. The first time was probably a good 7 years ago, and the RAV4 of the late 90s was a very different breed of animal from the newly re-designed 2006 model.

The late 90s RAV4s had "issues" too, but they mostly dealt with inadequacies in rear seat space or in fundamental performance areas because of Toyota's decision to put out a "car oriented" mini ute instead of a "truck oriented" mini ute. The '06 doesn't have those issues. It has a much worse issue. It has no soul!

Say what you will about the older RAV4s, at least they were fun to drive. They had spunk. They had individualistic style (an ugly style, no argument there, but at least it was their own). They had a kind of carefree nonchalance. They were nimble and agile with a lean athletic attitude.

The 2006 RAV4? Fuhgeddaboutit! It now looks like a cross between the Highlander and the Matrix. It's too big to be fun, and too ordinary to be distinctive. And with the boosts in size and horsepower comes the inevitable hikes in price.

Oh sure, today's RAV4 will probably still be dependable transportation for years to come (it is a Toyota after all). It will probably still be easy to sell when you're ready for new wheels. But that kind of stuff is soooo BO-ring!

Know what I'd like to see Toyota do? I'd love to see a small SUV without a ton of doo-dads on it, without no damn fake 3rd row seat, without no stinkin' tach on an automatic-equipped vehicle, without cutesy little trim things all over the place, without huge honkin' expensive-to-replace 18" wheels, without an optional 269-horsepower engine. What I want is an SUV closer to the spirit of the original RAV4 (but maybe with some better off-road capability). Heck, price it closer to $15K than the outlandish $25K and up prices that you're seeing on some of the '06 RAV4s.

Unrealistic pipe dream? Nonsense! Today's Toyota is showing the world how to build GOOD small cars with its Scion line --- cars that are true to Toyota's lineage, but more important, cars that are FUN to drive. A fun $13K dinky van --- Toyota did it with the Scion xB. A good quality $12K dinky sedan --- they did it again with the Scion xA. Now, how about a good, FUN little SUV at $15K --- oh heck, surprise me and call it the xC!

Ah well, enough general opinion trash talk. Let's actually stroll around a real live 2006 RAV4, climb behind the wheel, and take 'er out on America's highways and byways (well, at least Texan highways, since I don't have time to go anywhere too far astray...)


Styling, Footprint, and the Curb-Appeal Quotient...
The RAV4 for '06 doesn't look much like its predecessors. I've heard folks say they thought the front end now looks more like the Highlander. I disagree. I think they ripped off the fat nose look from Honda's Pilot. Now the back of the new RAV4, yeah, that looks pure Highlander, but the front is definitely borrowed from much bigger, fatter SUVs.

From the side, the new RAV4 seems to bulge like a 30-something woman who insists that the jeans she wore when she was 20 "still fit", even as the rolls of stomach flab ooze their way over the beltline. RAV4 has the same "I really need to read jo.com's reviews of exercise equipment" look.

The numbers agree with my general "fat and bloated" opinion...

The new 2006 RAV4 has a 104.7 inch wheelbase. The '05 (which I already thought was edging too far into the realm of "too big") had a 90.2 inch wheelbase. Side-to-side, the RAV4 grew by 3-1/2 inches. Big increases --- more than adequate, I think, to justify a bottom line viewpoint that this is one seriously fat, bloated, pig-boat of a redesign.

What's the point, Toyota? You guys already dominated the mid-size ute market with Highlander and 4Runner....I don't get it...why fatten the once-nimble and lean RAV4 leaving you with zilch in the small ute marketplace??

Some of the design features are just goofy.

Rear tailgate doors that swing open instead of either dropping down or lifting up really blow.

Anybody's whose ever owned a vehicle with the swinging tailgate probably will tell you the same thing I'm telling you. At some point or another, probably not the day you test drive it, you're going to be cussing and cursing yourself for ever buying the "stupid piece of crusty dog #*@^".

Why?

Well, because you can't fit large boxes, flat packages, or large objects into a vehicle with this type of tailgate. It is unusable!

Don't think suburban guys worry about carrying big things too often?

Go down to Ikea and see how many of their packages are large flat packs that would fit into the RAV4's "increased cargo area" if only the designers at Toyota had been smart enough to give their customers a tailgate door that really gave them access to the full width of the cargo area.

So don't give Toyota too much credit on beefing up the space --- not when their designers built in impediments to its functional use.


Passenger Perspective: Interior Comfort and Space...
Well, I can tell you one reason why Toyota might have wanted the fat hog approach for the 06 RAV4...the old RAV4's sucked to have to actually ride in. The front seat leg room was tight on the suckers, but the back seat was totally unusable for anything other than sacks of groceries sitting on the seat. Even a 6-year old kid probably would have resented the guillotine action of the front seats sliding back to chop off circulation of any rear seat passenger who actually dared to dangle even the thinnest leg down to the floor.

The back seat in this RAV4 is better than old RAV4s, but it's still a back seat. Toyota claims the RAV4 will seat 5, or 7 with an optional 3rd row seat. They lie.

The back seat is adequate for two people --- no more. With the arm rest down, it's just about right from the butt space perspective, and the leg room is adequate for kids (though it will still be tight for adults). Three in the back seat? Hmmm. Maybe very midget children....not 3 adults. No way.

I really don't like the weird armrest in the back seat. I realize that it's too narrow to put two drink holders side by side, and fattening it up would pretty much eliminate the "adequate butt space for 2" of the back seat, but other car companies that have faced a similar dilemma went with little pull-out doo-dads on the front for the cup holders, not this bizarre in-line drink scheme that only invites arguments from the small members of the family as to whose drink is whose and who gets to use the front one versus the back one. (Sigh! Remind me again why only tigers get to eat their young...)


Cargo Versus 3rd Row Passengers...
The third row seat is a total joke. An utterly stupid waste of money, in my opinion, and not really even adequate for one child, muchless the theoretical 2 passengers that Toyota claims. I can only assume they were talking about putting little He Man action figures into that space --- it might be enough for their 12-inch heights. Anything more is stretching reality...

One of the good aspects of the redesigned 06 RAV4 is that you could cram quite a bit of stuff in this beast, since while the back seat seemed to have gotten some of that 14 inches + of new length space, the big winner seems to have been the "behind the back seat" space, with its lengthened cargo area. I'll bet you could cram a good 20 cases of beer back there (like it could ever not be "good" having 20 cases of beer).

Toyota tells you the 2nd row seats fold flat if you want increased cargo capacity. Mrkstvns says "flat if you call bumpy and sloped 'flat'". SUVs like the Honda Element do a much better "fold flat" impersonation than the RAV4. But hey, that's just my opinion...


Driver Perspective: Usability, Performance, and Handling...
I kind of like the cockpit feel of the new '06 RAV4. The dashboard is surprisingly clean and uncluttered and most controls are well placed and intuitively implemented.

My usual barrage of usability complaints will have to be muted a bit for the RAV4 --- Toyota does too many things too well from the driver's seat.

Although I found the overlaying central instrument cluster a bit offputting the first day I had the car, I actually grew pretty fond of its efficiency and small footprint. I still think it's utterly stupid to have a tachometer in a car with an automatic transmission, but somebody must like them. I guess auto companies think it looks "sporty". Perhaps they think it makes up for the vehicle's actual lack of sportiness.

The shifter feels solid and natural, and I like it's position a bit more back and to the right than some other vehicles I've driven lately. The stereo controls are just about perfect --- the guys at Honda need to take a look at how Toyota did this (can't stand the radio controls in the Pilot).

The one place where Toyota's engineers could possibly improve the dash is in the climate controls. I did not care for the odd-feeling "wheel" control paradigm and I thought the digital display was annoying and nowhere near as usable "at a glance" as the simple slide control along a bar graded from blue for cold to red for hot. Different or "more high tech" is not more advanced when it comes at the price of degraded usability.

I thought the seat controls were easy to use, though I feel like the front seat is still a bit tight if you're tall. I'm about 6 feet, and even with the seat in the furthest back position, my knees were bent up when my foot was positioned naturally at the accelerator. The support system feels firm though, and I don't get fatigued, even sitting for extended periods. It's pretty comfortable, and if you're a bit shorter than I am, it would be a pretty decent drivers seat.

The steering wheel feels solid and substantial, and I like the fat feel of the thing. Unfortunately, the vehicle is a wallowing pig boat when it comes to actually making turns, but what do you expect from a thing with this kind of stretched out length to it. The steering wheel feels nice, but you still ain't winnin' no road rally.

For typical suburban use, it's probably fine. You can turn it around in a mall parking lot, which is probably as far off road as you were planning to drive it anyway.

Acceleration, likewise, is adequate for suburban Dad driving, but pokey if you wanted a spirited stallion. Toyota says it'll do 0-60 in a bit over 9 seconds. A BMW Z4 can do it in about 5, and some Corvettes in under 4, but who cares? If you really wanted performance, you wouldn't be considering RAV4s, would you?

The 2006 is not as nimble or as fun to drive as earlier RAV4s. If you have an old RAV4, you might have enjoyed being able to turn on a dime. The '06 turns on a $5 bill. I'm unimpressed. I don't think my significantly larger Honda Pilot is exactly an agile athlete, but the RAV4 is supposed to be a smaller, lighter vehicle, and it really does no tighter turns than the Pilot. That really blows if you're a fun-lovin' young driver who wants something lithe and agile. I suppose it's okay if you're a boring, dull, fat, old middle-aged guy in the suburbs....but then, you'd probably be driving a Sequioa or some similarly over-sized and over-priced hog of a vehicle.

The 06 RAV4 is equipped with a stability control system, but I really need to mention that no SUV is as safe as a similar sized sedan. SUVs roll. It's physics and no amount of electronics or agency-spun ads to the contrary can eliminate the higher rollover risk attendant with all higher center of gravity vehicles, be they SUVs or jacked up pickups. Drive these things as if you were in a BMW Z4, and you'll be in the ditch and on your roof faster than you can say, "Whose yer daddy?"

Remember back in Drivers Ed classes when Mr. Owens kept telling you to watch out for your blind spots? Well, this vehicle has a couple to watch out for, and even introduces an unexpected one you might not have previously experienced. Take a look out the rear view mirror....nope...that isn't a fat-headed, Epinion-writin' Texan sitting in the back seat with his Stetson blocking your view --- it's the spare tire! Why Toyota couldn't have moved it someplace out of view is a mystery that even Agatha Christie can't figure out.


Overall Impressions...
Remember the Peter Pan version with Robin Williams as Pan? Peter grows up to be a dull-witted, passionless automaton, devoid of soul, yet amazingly successful as a cog in the corporate machine.

RAV4 is that Pan.

On its surface, the vehicle seems to have grown up so well and looks so fine in its new suit. Underneath though, it's forgotten what it is. It's lost its soul. It's lost its ability to have fun. It's yet another interchangeable, dull, boring mid-size SUV in an already overcrowded market.

Yawn...