2001 Toyota RAV4 L review from North America

Rear brakes squealed upon first use in the morning, or other times where they'd had opportunity to sufficiently cool. Dealer never fixed this in a way that lasted more than a few days.

Check engine light came on, but we were told nothing was wrong with the car, and it was 'reset'. Of course, it came back on in short order. Same thing again. Finally, we got tired of messing with it and just lived with it until we could get rid of the car.

Tires wore very quickly. This time we were smart enough to avoid the dealer (the car could be belching oil and metal shavings from its tailpipe and they'd say it was normal) and went to a local tire shop. They prescribed new tires and a very frequent regimen of tire rotation (as in every 3K miles or sooner) due to extreme negative rear camber. I tend to believe this diagnosis, since the rear tires were in worse condition than the front by a good bit.

This car is poorly designed. A simple rear end collision could cause the rear-door-mounted spare tire to cave the rear door in. Since the door is attached at the hinges and latch, the caving door will put the squeeze on the rest of the car's rear end. Wouldn't that be a mess!

Safety ratings are not that impressive, in fact, they're a little scary (ignore the dealer, look to more neutral websites and see what they say).

It was terribly underpowered! Step on the gas hard and the transmission would downshift, the engine would spool up and make convincing noises.. And you'd slowly accelerate forward.

Handled poorly.

We replaced this car with a Subaru Forester which we've grown very fond of. The one place the Toyota shined: Trade in. We didn't lose a whole lot for having driven is for a year and put 20K miles on it.