Toyota Kluger Grande AWD 2017 review

I was genuinely, pleasantly surprised by the comfortable drive in the Kluger. Yes, it’s large, but it’s also smooth, quiet, has beautiful steering, sticks to the road and has the power you need to zip around easily.

It’s not heavy, like some SUVs this size can be, and takes off quickly from a stationary position so if you have to change lanes quickly, you can. 

What Toyota has successfully achieved is that you don’t necessarily feel like you’re driving a big car.

It also makes me feel good while driving. It’s bigger than a lot of the other cars on the road which makes me feel safe - and when you’re driving little kindy kids around, that’s a good thing. Add the fact that the Grande is the top of the range Kluger, and you do feel like you’re driving a premium vehicle. Not like you’re showboating or anything, but, well, you can allow yourself to feel a little bit special in here. 

What Toyota has successfully achieved is that you don’t necessarily feel like you’re driving a big car. It’s still relatively easy to park. There are a bunch of tools to help you do this: front and rear parking sensors and the ever-nifty reverse parking camera. All in all, it’s a really nice, smooth driving experience. 

We’ve already discussed how solid it is, which makes you feel safer on the road, for one. Then there are the seven airbags - front and side for the first row, and side curtain for the next two rows. It has tether points for three car seats in the second row, however none in the third row. 

There are also a bunch of safety features like 'Auto Emergency Braking' (AEB) where the car will brake itself if it can sense a crash is imminent and a 'Blind Spot Monitor' to help when changing lanes. 

The Kluger gets a five star ANCAP rating which is the highest you can get.

I found it incredibly practical and easy to pop the kids in and out of. It happily blended into my lifestyle, just like a good Beyonce track. 

The boot opens automatically with a button on the key which is so helpful when you’re carrying loads of groceries, or in my case, loading picnic fodder in and out of the car (though it does make a beeping sound while lifting and lowering, and I could do with less beeping). It opens quite wide, but you can set it to open to a certain height every time if you need to. 

Popping the back row down and up is a breeze, as is flipping the second row forward so that others can climb into the back row.

There are eight cupholders in this car - two in the front, two in the second row and four in the third row, plus four bottle holders. And storage space: there is a giant storage bin in the centre console in the front, so big that I could fit two bottles of bubbly (for the mums at the picnic!) plus two 2.0-litre bottles of water in there. Seriously. Big. It also has pockets on the back of the front seats, and a sizeable glove box that actually fits more than just the driver’s manual.

Popping the back row down and up is a breeze, as is flipping the second row forward so that others can climb into the back row. I’m lucky that one of my children is just on a booster seat, so we can easily remove that and push the seats forward for third row access. I wouldn’t want to be removing a fitted car seat each time, I’d probably make the third row passengers climb in via the boot! 

There’s an 8.0-inch touchscreen which was easy to sync with my iPhone and I could play my Spotify playlists and my podcasts out of it, plus it has a digital radio. So there’s that. But I thought the sat nav technology could be clearer, I found the map confusing to read and resorted to using Google maps on my phone instead. 

My children were excited to learn there was an entertainment screen for them which dropped down from the centre of the roof, with an SD and Blu Ray disc slot. Even though car viewing time for them means an old David Attenborough-narrated animal documentary, they still absolutely love it. It comes with three sets of wireless headphones and a remote control, which they also thought was just fabulous - as did I because I could listen to the radio while they were watching.

However. The drop down screen means all five seats behind the front row can see it, but it presents a problem while driving, because it blocked my visibility in the rear vision mirror. I mean, I could still drive, but I don’t think anyone needs a rectangular blocker taking up a fair chunk of the mirror. The top-spec Nissan Pathfinder has a screen on the back of the front row headrests, which may mean that the third row will have trouble viewing, but at least you’ll be able to drive safely. 

The Toyota Kluger Grande comes in at $69,617 + $550  for the white pearl paint option, which comes to $70,167

Toyota claims it will consume 9.5L/100km on the combined cycle, and on the last CarsGuide test we recorded 11.1L/100km.

The Kluger comes with a three year/100,000km warranty and a fixed price servicing plan will cost you $1080 for the recommended six month/10,000km visits over the first three years.

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