Driving Miss Crazy

Feb 3, 2008 - Super Bowl Sunday - Guacamole, Men in tight pants and car commercial fun

At my house, we won't be to interested in the game unless the Giants pull out all the stops and make it interesting.  I'm too old to care about men in tight pants as I still remember the Chicago Bears and Refrigerator Perry.   My prized guacamole dip will be present - no double-dipping please.

That said, I'm watching for the car commercials.  Yes, I will sit through the hoopla, confetti, halftime show and more in order to see what the creative agencies have thought of this year.

In the line-up will be spots from Cadillac, Audi, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai and perhaps even GMC.

CarSpace has compiled the Super Bowl car commercials from years past and present and will be adding to the collection as today's game progresses and concludes.    Just in case you have to make a trip to the kitchen or fall asleep during what may be a snoozer of a game, CarSpace will have you covered with the commercial highlights.

TiVo past the plays, stop and watch the commercials.

8:44 am | Categories: toyota, hyundai, car commercials, gmc, audi, ford, cadillac Comments (1) | Permalink | Alert Administrator

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Jul 19, 2007 - 2007 Toyota RAV4 Review

Ms. Adventure and I made it safely from Northern CA to Santa Monica and the RAV4 did a fine job getting us there.

My initial impressions when picking up the RAV4 - nice looking, not too big, not too small.  I have a rental, so it's white (eh, ok) but in our travels we did see many RAV4's on the road in various colors which are very attractive.  The overall exterior styling is nice with clean lines, nothing fancy or too curvy.

For around-town driving the RAV4 is very comfortable, easy to park and provides all the needed hooks, nooks and crannies for picking up dry cleaning and groceries.  I easily fit two booster car seats in the second row and measured whether or not a third, standard 5-point car seat would also fit in the center (the boosters need to be on the sides for the over-the-shoulder seat belts).  Installing the carseat in the middle would have been really tight. 

I did note that while installing the boosters there was plenty of rear legroom and thought the front seats must have been pushed all the way forward - they were not.  If you have tall kids or need a bit more rear legroom than normally found in other vehicles, you might want to look at the RAV4.

Cargo space in the back is great as you can see from the photos.  We certainly didn't pack the car to the hilt but certainly could have.  We did see another RAV4 at one of our gas stops that was packed to the roof and in speaking with the owner he and his wife both said that it carried much more than they thought it would and loved their RAV4.  We both agreed that the rear door was too heavy (it is!)

As for the interior appointments on the RAV4 (I was driving the base model, cloth interiors), I found the seats to be comfortable.  They could use a bit more cushioning but more for the "lush" factor than anything else.   The dash is clean but the steering wheel feels a little small and toy-like.  The climate control buttons are a bit "chunky".  I don't like the charger directly in front of the cupholders though as if you have something plugged in you can't put a drink in the passenger side cup holder of the console.  I also don't like mirror controls in the center column...more buttons for kids and teens to play with.  These are best on the driver's side door.  Nothing about the interior had the "wow" factor going for me, but it wasn'tlow-quality, just sparse.

The stereo was average and the AUX jack and charger in the console storage area is very nice.  You can plug-in your iPod and charge all at the same time. 

My miscellaneous gripes include door not having that "thud" so you know the door closed.  I had to keep checking if the door was indeed shut.  Annoying but I'm sure I'd get used to it.  The doors are solid and quite heavy - particularly the rear hatch.  Other than that, the only other nit was the side mirror controls set in the center console rather than the driver's door.  Never give a passenger access to the controls only the driver should have.

We did have one minor issue that we discovered in Santa Monica.  Underneath the front of the vehicle a plastic shield of sorts appears to have lost some bolts holding part of it in place.  I'm hoping this isn't a big deal and will simply hold for the return trip up Highway 1 along the California coast to Santa Barbara.  I'll check it again and then hope for all hopes that it remains in place for the remaining drive to San Francisco.  (It does)

MPG - how are we doing?  Well, not that great.  According to the specs we should get 22mpg city/29mpg highway.  We certainly aren't loaded down and we've yet to crack 25mpg.  For the entire trip our tank fill-ups kept us at 23.47 - 24.6mpg.  On that front, I'm not impressed.

Performance - we have the base model so I'll have to assume that some of what our Editor's liked in their 2007 Toyota RAV4 review was on a more well-appointed model.  It did have a little bite off the line, but nothing that would make me feel sporty.  Overall they scored it an 8 out of 10.  Consumers ratings at the time of publishing this entry had scored it an 8.9.  Both are fair from my driving perspective.

5:14 am | Categories: road trips, car reviews, toyota Comments (1) | Permalink | Alert Administrator

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