Want a sporty SUV with a quick engine? Get a Range Rover. Prefer a torquey motor for off-roading? Get a Jeep. But if you want a daily driver that can handle city streets just as well as broken roads, it’s hard to beat the perfectly balanced 2015 Toyota RAV4 and its 2.5L four-cylinder.
Key Points
- The 2015 Toyota RAV4 is offered with just one engine option, a 2.5L inline-four delivering 176 horsepower and 172 lb.-ft. of torque.
- With its 15.9-gallon fuel tank, expect an EPA-estimated 24 mpg around town and 31 on the highway. Towing maxes at 1,500 pounds, and payload at 900.
- Reviewers have praised the 2015 RAV4’s confident acceleration and capable off-road performance, making it an excellent all-arounder.
- RAV4’s are typically cheap to maintain, with the 2015 running an average annual repair of under $400. But look out for engine fires owing to the 12v battery.
2015 RAV4s 176-hp 2.5L Inline-four Engine is Perfectly Middle-of-the-road, in Every Way Imaginable
The 2015 Toyota RAV4 is offered with a 2.5L DOHC inline-four engine that delivers 176 horsepower and 172 lb.-ft. of torque. It’s paired with a six-speed automatic, and no matter your trim level or options, it’s all-wheel/front-wheel drive with 6.3 inches of ground clearance. Towing capacity maxes out at 1,500 pounds, and you’ve got a payload capacity of 900.
For fuel economy, the SUV is advertised to get 24/31 miles to the gallon, city/highway, while the EPA estimates a slightly lower, but still efficient 22/28, with a 15.9-gallon gas tank. Your mileage may vary depending on various factors like outside temperature, driving habits, and road conditions.
With those specs under the hood, it’s easy to guess where the RAV4 excels: it does a little bit of everything. It’s not quite a compact coupe, but it’s efficient enough to be a daily driver. And while it’s not quite an off-road mudding machine, it’s rugged enough to handle some broken roads and rough weather.
Basically, it’s exactly what you expect from the RAV4. Back in the early 90s, the perception was that SUVs were big, unwieldy gas guzzlers, and compacts were wimpy and underpowered. The RAV4 was instrumental in helping to bridge the gap, packing hefty horsepower and four-wheel drive into a nimble, fuel-efficient compact crossover, and paving the way for similar SUVs from Honda, Nissan, and Subaru in the second half of the decade.
Though not Exactly Sporty, the 2015 Toyota RAV4 won’t Hesitate on the Highway
As Motormouth points out in their first-year review of the 2015 RAV4, the SUV is primarily a city commuter, and to that end, they report that there’s “not really” anything to fault in the way the car drives. While the car’s 7.9-second zero to sixty time (in Sport mode) might not make this a rally car, it’s more than peppy enough to merge in and out of traffic with confidence and take hills without much struggle.
Taking the 2015 out for an off-road test, the guys at The Fast Lane Car found that the Honda CR-V outperformed the RAV4 when it came to digging into the snow and soft ground, but the RAV4 delivered a more even performance across all four wheels, for better handling overall. In any event, they had absolutely no issue climbing over rocks, snow, and ice.
Essentially, the SUV delivers the driving experience RAV4 fans have come to expect, and that is that it’s headache-free. Unless you’re completely careless, you’re not going to be calling friends to pull you out of the mud or anything like that. It can handle just about any normal driving condition, within reason, from city streets to broken roads and everything in between.
The 2015 RAV4’s Engine is More Reliable than Most, but Watch for Potential Engine Fires
With a score of four out of five stars, Repair Pal ranks the RAV4 in third place out of 26 compact SUVs for reliability, estimating an annual repair cost of $385, which comes out to barely more than a dollar a day. So, matching the RAV4’s driving experience, maintenance is headache-free, as well.
The car has never been recalled by the NHTSA for any engine-related issues, but there is a major open investigation you’ll want to be aware of. In a number of Toyotas, manufactured over the last decade, drivers have reported engine fires stemming from the car’s twelve-volt battery.
The investigation is still ongoing at the moment, and it would be irresponsible to speculate, but what we know thus far is that affected cars reportedly stalled at some point prior to catching fire, and that these were “non-crash” events, meaning that the fires did not start as an immediate result of an accident, although they might, or might not, stem from damage suffered in prior accidents.
At this point, all anyone can do is wait and see what the NHTSA turns up. But the rate of incidence is low enough that this shouldn’t scare you away from buying a 2015 RAV4.
The Sole 2.5L Engine Makes the 2015 RAV4 About as Good as an All-arounder Gets
Thanks in no small part to the capable inline-four engine under the hood, the 2015 Toyota RAV4 is one of the best all-arounders on the used market today. At 176 horsepower, the SUV can handle the terrain no matter where you live, and covering 31 miles on a gallon of gas, it’ll get you there and back without breaking the bank. It’s cheap to maintain and cheap to refuel with few issues to worry about.
If you want another hundred horses to help you pull that boat down to the lake, the RAV4 may leave you wanting. Likewise, if you want a little more torque to get that zero-to-sixty under seven seconds, or if you’re looking for a hybrid that can drive from one end of Texas to the other on a single fill-up. A true Jack of All Trades, the 2015 Toyota RAV4 doesn’t exactly excel at any one thing, but it’s pretty darn good at just about everything.
Photos: Toyota
