Road Test: Toyota Auris 1.4 D4D Luna

Price as tested: €23,995

+ Slick new styling, comfort, ride, refinement, quality, space, economy
– Steering still too detached, engine a bit underpowered
= We were hoping for GT86-like driver appeal, we actually got the quietest, comfiest car in the class


Toyota generally gets a lot of flack for being dull and middle of the road. Indeed, influential US website Jalopnik.com has made the words Toyota and Beige almost indivisible. But it’s an unfair rep, especially considering cars like the original Celica (and its subsequent versions), the Supra, the MR2, the brilliant new GT86, all those World Rally Championship victories and the amazing Le Mans racing cars. Beige Toyota ain’t, no matter what some snarky bloggers might say.

In fairness though, some of Toyota’s mainstream models have been a bit too quiet for their own good down through the years, and the last generation Auris was a case in point. Too subtle on the outside, with a cabin that even Toyota now admits wasn’t up to snuff means that while it always sold well, the Auris fell well behind the likes of the Ford Focus and VW Golf in critical terms.

But what’s this? A new Auris with a sharp-looking body (check out that beaky nose with the dramatic bottom grille and big cut-outs for the foglights)? Has Toyota finally injected some flair and drama into its mid-size hatch?

Well, you won’t find much drama in the engine room. The 90bhp D4D Diesel engine is about 20bhp down on most of its rivals, and you can tell that as soon as you put your foot down. Performance never quite descends into being sluggish, but neither does it have the effortless punch of, say, Ford's 1.6 TDCI. Toyota, of course, has a grunty, efficient 2.0-litre diesel already in the Avensis. What hope of it being fitted to an Auris? In the meantime, the 1.4 D4D is at least a sweet-natured unit, and very economical. Toyota claims 3.8-litres per 100km on the combined fuel cycle (around 74mpg) and that seems entirely believable, as we were gettting close to 4.0-litres per 100km when driving mostly around town. 99g/km Co2 emissions (as long as you go for the basic 15" wheels) should keep you in the lowest two of the proposed four-way-split Band A tax ratings.

It settles quickly from idle into a distant thrummy noise, and fitting in with the Auris' generally refined nature. Cabin noise levels are very low, whether you're thinking about engine, wind or road noise and the ride quality, especially around town, is truly exceptional. It all adds up to make the Auris one of the most refined, comfortable cars in its class.

It is not, however, much of a drivers' car. Off the back of the brilliant little GT86 coupe, we had hoped that some of that car's DNA might seep through into the Auris and allow it to have a tilt at the sort of pin-sharp driver appeal as displayed by the Focus and Golf. Alas, no. The Auris' steering is light, verging on over-light (think of an early seventies Jaguar XJ6 steering and you're getting there) and it leaves you feeling distanced and separated from the car. That's a shame, as beneath the mush, the chassis feels well-balanced and controlled. There is, possibly, an engaging driving tool in there somewhere, but its light is being kept defiantly sub-bushel.

Such considerations are compensated for by the fact that the cabin is spacious, bright and airy, the boot a decent size and shape (although the boot floor is made of the most unpleasantly cheap flooring material we've yet seen) and of course, the fact that the famed Toyota quality seems to be present and correct.

It is also rather handsome. Possibly less so at the back, where it descends into generic hatchback-ness, but up front, the beaky new nose with its scowling lights, LEDs and aggressive trapezoidal grille looks rather striking, certainly by Toyota standards. It seems to owe no debt to any other Toyota (save perhaps a passing resemblance to the Avensis) and if so, hopefully it is the vanguard of a new family of sharper-looking Toyotas.

Prices start at €18,995 for the 1.33 99bhp petrol in Terra trim (which notably does without such items as air conditioning or Bluetooth phone). Our bells-and-whistles 1.4 D4D Luna comes in at a very competitive €23,995 and includes climate control, Bluetooth, reversing camera, touch-screen stereo and much more.

So while the Auris might be lacking in the final sheen of GT96-like driver appeal we were hoping for, its comfort, spaciousness and its likely reliability score very highly with us. The new found style is welcome, the rest are welcome returns. No drama then, but equally, no crisis.

Toyota Auris 1.4 D4D 90 Luna
Price as tested: €23,995
Price range: €18,995 to €27,990
Capacity: 1,364cc
Power: 90bhp
Torque: 205Nm
Top speed: 170kmh
0-100kmh: 12.6sec
Economy: 3.8l-100km (74mpg)
CO2 emissions: 99g/km*
Road Tax Band: A. €160
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested


*When fitted with 15” steel wheels
 

Road Test: Toyota Avensis 2.0 D4D Luna

Price as tested: €30,595

+ Quality, space, comfort, reliability
– Mushy steering, plain cabin
= Better than most motoring writers will admit




The Toyota Avensis gets a bit of a kicking in the popular press, with the word beige, dull and bland generally being hung around its neck like a bunch of grey garlands. And yet, hundreds, thousands of you go out every year and buy one, making it one of the best selling cars in class and country. Where’s the disconnect? Are motoring journalists just priggish snobs who refuse to like a car unless it can be teased into a tyre smoking drift (probably) or are Irish car buyers just blindfolded sheep who decide they like something and won’t be swerved no matter the evidence presented before them (possibly)?

Actually, the answer is a bit of both plus a major dose of an easy temptation to label cars with simplistic tags. Thus, the Ford Mondeo is the handling champ, the VW Passat is the classy one, the Opel Insigina the pretty one and the Peugeot 508 the French one. Which leaves the Avensis very little other to be than the dull one.

But just as Bill Gates rose from being a maths nerd to Richest Nerd Of Them All, so the Avensis has more than a few talents, which are not exactly hidden but certainly obscured a bit.

So, to hammer home the point, Toyota has just updated the Avensis, with new or at least revised styling inside and out, and for the first time a diesel engine that’s in Band A for tax.

The styling job is actually pretty good. The Avensis was always one of the better and more distinctive looking cars in the class (yes, I just said that) and the facelift makes it look similar to before, but just a touch sharper.

Inside, the work has been less successful. One of the very valid criticisms of the Avensis in its current incarnation has been its interior, which has always looked and felt at least a generation behind the opposition. Old-fashioned dials, coal-black colour schemes and a feeling that, while the actual quality of construction was very good, the touchy-feely stuff had been left out. Things are a little better now. The surfaces are more soft touch and our highly specced test car came with gorgeous and very comfortable biscuit leather-and-suede seats, which lifted the interior ambience no end. The full screen colour sat nav (a snip at €655 as an option) didn’t do any harm either, but seeing as few if any actual bought-and-paid for Avensis’ are going to be specced like this, we’ll reserve judgement on the cabin update until we’ve had a chance to sample one with a more basic spec. The basics of comfort and space are and always have been spot on though.

Behind the beaky new nose likes an updated 2.0-litre 125bhp D4D diesel four cylinder engine which, at last, now qualifies for Band A tax thanks to Co2 emissions of 120g/km. Its claimed consumption of 4.6-litres per 100km should keep you away from the pumps too, but sadly, we could only get it to do low-sixes in fuel economy terms, giving a touring range of just under the magic 1,000km on a full tank.

It’s a reasonably refined engine too, once it’s warmed up and pulls strongly in each of the gears in the sweet-shifting six-speed manual gearbox.

Dynamically, the Avensis has always been a mixed bag and sadly, that hasn’t changed. You get the sensation that there is a really good, sharp chassis in there, trying to get out, but mushy, oddly-weighted steering just leaves you groping in the dark for messages about what’s happening at the contact patch. We know that Toyota can do near-perfect steering; the old Celica and the new GT86 are proof, but the Avensis needs to go to the same finishing school as its coupe sisters.

That should mean that it’s biased towards comfort and by and large, that’s true. But our car (and this may have been down to the specific wheel and tyre combination) exhibited an odd trick of bouncing and bucking when confronted with a bump that affected one side of the car. The rest of the time, the ride felt nicely firm and well damped, but this odd little sensation kept re-occurring. Not sure why. There’s also the issue of arriving at a corner and not being able to accurately judge the correct entry speed and line because the steering is so mushy. That sounds like the complaint of an uber-enthusiast, and it is, but the fact is that the Avensis’ competitors do it better and it’s a shame that the essentially sure-footed chassis has lost its main line of communication to the driver.

Still, there is excellent quality to be had here. For a basic €24,495, you get aircon, remote stereo controls, an electronic parking brake, lots of safety gizmos including active anti-whiplash headrests and a drivers’ knee bag (the Avensis has one of the highest-ever safety ratings from EuroNCAP), daytime running lights, iPod connectivity and more. And at last, Toyota has ditched the cheap-looking old fixed ignition key and given us a proper modern folding one. In fact, our test Luna spec car actually had a nice keyless entry and ignition system.

So, while things aren’t perfect, there is still much to admire about the updated Avensis. It’s still spacious, comfortable and quiet, still looks good (especially the very handsome estate version) and of course still has that benchmark Toyota quality and reliability. If only they’d let the chassis guys who did the GT86 get their hands on it for a day or two, we might have an out and out class champ. Until then, it’s better than most of us car critics allow it to be, but just not as good as we know it could be.

Facts & Figures

Toyota Avensis 2.0 D4D 125 Luna Saloon
Price: €30,595
Range price: €24,995 to €38,165
Capacity: 1,998cc
Power: 124bhp
Torque: 310Nm
Top speed: n/a
0-100kmh: 9.7sec
Economy: 4.6l-100km (61.4mpg)
CO2 emissions: 120g/km
Tax Band: A. €160 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star: 90% adult, 86% child, 53% pedestrian, 86% safety assist