New Toyota Rush Review - The Family Car You Need

Hello , what you're looking at here is a 32 year old guy with no Children driving a family car .

This has presented some issues .

And so for the purposes of this review , I have consulted some motorists who have Children and it has been illuminating .

First off , let me introduce you to this , the new Toyota Rush .

It's an Avanza based sort of S U V built by Daihatsu in Indonesia .

It differs from the Avanza in that it actually looks really rather good and instead of seven seats , you'll have to make do with five .

I really like the look of the Rush .

It looks like a mini for tuna actually , which I think is really going to help it find a lot of homes in this country .

The led headlights and tail lights , certainly help it feel more modern .

And if we move down the side of the car , it's hard not to notice these beautiful 17 inch wheels which are fitted as standard overall .

I think Toyota have definitely done enough here to make the rush feel very different from the car that it's based on while the rush is massively more appealing than the Avanza it still has to make do with the same chassis , gearbox and engine as that car .

It's a really old tech , so probably means it's bulletproof but there are some downsides , there's very little power and talk .

And so to make the best use of a Toyota I've put in very short gear ratios and that's kind of fine around the city .

It makes it a little bit difficult to drive , but it's actually a pretty perky car at slower speeds .

And that's fine if you live in Mumbai or Jakarta and I've driven in Mumbai .

And besides it being absolutely terrifying , you never really go faster than say 18 K S an hour .

But this is South Africa .

We have a lot of highways and we really like to go on holiday and that's where the rush just doesn't perform very well at all when you're in fifth gear and you're doing 100 and 20 Ks an hour , the engine is sitting at 3600 R PM .

It's very noisy and pretty much the exact opposite of what you want on a long journey , it's not particularly relaxing .

So if you're looking for a city run about this might fit the bill .

But if you do a lot of long distance cruising , this car really needs 1/6 gear .

So the rush is not the best car for long distances but will be decent as a city run around and over the course of our test we averaged around eight liters to the 100 which is fair for a vehicle of this size .

But what it lacks in power it makes up for in practicality , removing the third row of seats has resulted in an absolutely cavernous boot space .

It's much larger than that in the Toyota Rav four .

In fact , it's one of the biggest boots I think I've ever seen and the second row of seats tumbles forward and that results in an absolutely house moving amount of space .

This car is great for carrying your kids things around , but that sort of thing go in there , no problem .

But as my procreation consultant told me it's great for his kids , but his kids have friends and then where must they sit ?

And I think that would have been awesome if Toyota just offered the third row of seats as an optional extra and you could remove them when you didn't need them as it is in the for tuna .

Right ?

Let's talk about the interior and thankfully , there is a lot to talk about .

There's a seven inch touch screen with Android Auto and Apple Car play USB ports up here and H D M I ports .

And when you put the car in reverse it beeps .

Thanks Carl .

I know I put it in reverse , but you get a reverse camera and park distance control , which is very nice .

There's auto climate control , auto headlight , a multi function steering wheel , but there's no reach adjustment .

So you can only go up and down , you can't come out .

And I think for tall drivers , it's going to be difficult to find your ideal driving position .

Even though the seat is height adjustable , there's electric windows all around electric mirrors as well , push button start keyless entry .

So you just keep that in your pocket when you need to get in the car .

And overall it is a really decent interior spec , you get all of this as standard for about 300 grand for the manual gearbox and about 3 14 for the auto .

But here is a top tip .

When you get your rush , this might annoy you if you have the radio on and you want it to go off if you hit the off button , which sounds quite sensible , right ?

The screen just goes off and you still have radio .

So what you need to do is hit this button here , which says radio off .

Now , I know that does seem quite obvious , but I I couldn't figure it out .

It was quite annoying .

So I thought I'd tell you about it .

Generous interior spec good looks , great practicality and a decent price tag .

But of all its features , the most sought after and most valuable might just be the badge on the nose .

Another thing Toyota really got right with the rush is the safety , it's fitted as standard with six airbags vehicle , stability control hill start assist and of course , a BS but that badge on the nose does mean a lot to South Africans .

And it probably means that when you come to sell the car further down the line , there will always be a queue of people lining up to give you a wad of cash for your car .

But I wouldn't look at the rush in isolation .

For instance , there are other cars out there from Japan and from China , which are similarly priced , if not cheaper and offer better warranties than this rush .

And whether the car being from China is a downside or not , is a constantly evolving issue .

Also keep in mind that if you want to stay in the Toyota brand , if you take 300 K right now into a Toyota dealership and ask to see their second hand Rav fours , you will have a lot of good cars to choose from .

In fact , right now on our website , there are 532nd hand Rav fours to choose from .

So if you don't mind the way this car drives and you're willing to put up with a bit of noise at high speeds , then I can see the rush being a pretty solid family car at a decent price .

And right now that is pretty much what South Africans want and need .

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