Toyota RAV4 Woodland; Dealer Add-Ons That Are Actually Worth It

0:11 Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode unlike Monticello. I'm Michael Crossan and I'm Jeff Bartlett. So today we're going to spend most of the episode giving our first impressions of the Toyota Rav4 woodland. And we usually start these off with kind of three things you need to know about this vehicle.

0:27 And the first one is what's a woodland? Well, it's basically the rav4's off road trim. So that means it has all terrain tires, unique front end, elevated ride height, a tow hitch receiver, rigid Industries fog lights and some interior changes. And and it does have the ride height really honestly comes from the tires.

0:45 Goes from 8.1in to 8.4in. The second thing is, powertrain wise, it's this the second. This is the second crossing I the counting up how I was counting the the lift difference there, which is 3/10 of an inch, powertrain, basically identical to the regular Rav4, which means that as a 2.5l four cylinder engine with two electric motors and an electronic continuously variable transmission, and the woodland comes standard with all wheel drive.

1:09 So that means that has 236 horsepower instead of the 226 horsepower that the front wheel drive Rav4 is come with. And the third thing you need to know about it is that there is a fuel economy hit with these, with these off road kind of oriented trims in this case, because they're basically a little less efficient.

1:26 So instead of the 41 miles per gallon combined that the EPA rates the regular Rav4, XLE, premium all wheel drive that we already tested at, you're going to get 38 mpg combined by the EPA. So, and now we did buy this vehicle for our test program. The base price of the Rav4 2026 Rav4 woodland is $39,900.

1:49 Basically $940 and options including a power moonroof and then a destination fee of $1,595. And we're looking at a total purchase price of our test vehicle, a $42,435. Now we're going to get into, this the entire vehicle, really, whether, you know, you've seen our regular Rav4 video or not, we're going to talk about the whole car.

2:10 And we're going to get into the nitty gritty of, of what's the difference between a, you know, a woodland and a regular Rav4. But I want to start with, what exactly should we even be calling these things? Because this is kind of a of an I don't want to say maybe a fad, but this is something in these sort of off road trims are kind of becoming a lot more popular the last few years, whether it's, you know, Toyota's woodland Subaru has wilderness, Honda has Trail Sport, Hyundai has SRT Pro.

2:37 And so they're definitely gaining in popularity. But like Jeff, what should we even call them? Like inside baseball. You know, in the industry we tend to refer to them as soft roaders. I'm not sure people know what that means. Are should we call them those off road, off road oriented? What's the best thing to refer to these things as?

2:53 I'm not sure I have a firm answer on that. We have been calling them off road soft riders here, right? In part because it indicates that, you know, they have off road desires. But here's the functionality. You know, it's really just slightly elevated from a, you know, the typical models, right? These are mostly vehicles that have, become the equivalent of sneakers transforming into hiking shoes.

3:19 They look cool. You know, maybe you could go a little bit further than you would otherwise, but they're really not meant for off road exploring the way you think of a Jeep or a Bronco. And that's fine, because most people don't even do it. If you have a Jeep or a Bronco. It's true. But emerging as a class, you know, I think it's real easy to become cynical in terms of a lot of these trims seem like they're great profit drivers.

3:44 You know, they'll put $5,000 worth of kit on it and charge ten, but some of them actually seem to be pretty reasonably priced. And that extra little ability or even, you know, the hint, extra ground clearance, maybe perfect, depending where you live, if you live in, you know, a more rural area place with terrible roads.

4:03 Yeah, that's a good point. So they have the place, might be tempting to go back to the old joke of calling a mall crawlers, which is, you know, the joke people have about, like Jeep Wranglers that are so modified and never go off road. Right. Software owners kind of works for me, but I haven't heard it outside the industry.

4:23 What about you, Michael? So I mean, it certainly I would I think a trend is maybe what this is. Right. Because it's sort of in a way, even this just comes and goes, you know, throughout time, in high school, my brother had an s S10 bar, so was the off road trim of the S10. So again, this stuff just keeps coming around.

4:40 It's sort of like fashion, but I would call them off road, but I would spell it with with an eye on the end. I like that. Okay. You know, for for whatever y you mean. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Let's get into what it's really like to drive this thing. And, Mike, I'm going to start with you, like, if if someone were to get into our Rav4 woodland, is it going to feel like you just purely from the driving experience, is it going to feel like a noticeably different vehicle to the regular Rav4 straight away?

5:09 Not really. The ride height isn't all the difference. You're not going to notice that in terms of seat height with access and things like that. It's basically a visual thing. When you walk up to the car, seems a little more substantial because you have the all terrain tires, but when you drive it, it's pretty, pretty similar.

5:24 And the rav4's are pretty good. They've got decent power. I mean, this one, yeah, this fuel economy suffers a little bit, but 38 is still pretty good out of, you know, an SUV of this size that's, all wheel drive. It is a little louder because it sits a little higher. So you're up in the wind a little more, the tires are a little bit louder.

5:40 You do get a little bit of delay with steering, because of just sort of all the extra meat on those tires. It takes a moment for, for them to kind of react to your steering inputs. But I think your average probably Rav4 buyer wouldn't really notice a big difference between driving, this trim versus really any other trim of, of a Rav4.

6:00 And, and so just that, I mean, that includes the powertrain, right? I mean, because we know that's basically unchanged. And so is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you like this, this, hybrid powertrain or, you know, what are some kind of highs and lows of this powertrain? Well, I think this hybrid powertrains definitely improvement over the previous one.

6:19 It doesn't feel as strained. The previous one was a bit gravelly or noisy. And when you pushed it a bit, it sounded like it was protesting. Yeah, this one still has a hint of that kind of course character that hasn't completely gone away, but the difference is the way it responds, both in power delivery and in the audio it feels like has verb verve.

6:44 It's eager to go. Yeah. So in a way, it went from being kind of disappointing in a nuisance to almost adding a little bit of, core sporty character to it. So I think that's an improvement. Certainly the fuel economy gains are great. And whenever I consider, you know, this kind of evolving trend of engines are getting a little louder and they're getting smaller and working harder.

7:09 What's the trade off right here? The really isn't the performance is a little bit better and the fuel economy is better. Right? I went as a buyer except for the woodland, which gets a little worse. But yeah but but I well the part of that still row and stuff with the roof rack. It's funny because I agree that I think that this as a, as a hybrid generation, whatever I do feel I agree with you that it is, a little bit better in just about every way than the, the, the last Rav4 hybrid.

7:37 But I will say kind of going off in a little bit of a tangent, we also have a Lexus ES hybrid right now, and I don't know if either one of you has driven that yet, but I have, and in my opinion, that's the way all Toyota hybrids should be. Because if you when you drive that thing, you're like, so the bump that you feel when the gas engine turns on, it's noticeable in the Rav4. Yes.

7:57 It's less noticeable than it used to be, but it's not like it's unobtrusive. It's there especially you know, this is we're talking low speeds. So you take off from a stop, you have that nice EV shove like most all hybrids, and then the gas engine turns on and especially at lower speeds and lower speeds with a harder throttle pedal, you're going to feel that bump.

8:15 And the Lexus, you barely feel that at all. The engine's quieter. And that's the other thing, is that, you know, because it uses an electronic continuously variable transmission when you're going up a long hill, it's the revs are going to climb and they're going to stay until you back off the throttle pedal or something like a Honda Hybrid typically is a little better.

8:35 They actually do the simulated upshifts. I know people are going to yell at me, simulated upshifts are dumb, whatever. Everyone has their opinion, but I like it when an engine isn't screaming at me the whole time. And this one does get loud when you push it a little bit, or on a long hill, because it doesn't do those simulated upshifts.

8:50 Toyota's hybrid four cylinder has been loud for quite some time now, and you do get some vibrations through the steering wheel, through the floor. All that said, I agree it's definitely better. And it's not like I wouldn't say don't go by it, but just be aware that this is not the quietest powertrain ever.

9:05 Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, Toyota is always going for fuel economy is as their number one where Honda I think has a little bit more of that sort of fun of driving thing. They put those shifts in there. Just sort of the mapping of when the, the EV hands over to the ice and things like that, it's for a little bit more of a pleasurable experience rather than all that fuel economy.

9:26 So, you know, if you're interested in the fuel economy, definitely look at Toyota's and and we'll we're splitting hairs here too. Like it's it's a little loud, but it's not crazy loud and certainly better than the last one and better than one before it and all of that. So, I think all in all, they did a good job.

9:38 I agree, and you mentioned handling Mike. And Jeff, you can certainly weigh in here as well. I agree that I think some people might not notice it at all. I think you're absolutely they might not notice there's any difference. But if you're if you're if you're really kind of trying to pay attention, you'll see that, you know, the steering feedback.

9:54 There's a little less steering feedback. It just I think because those I don't know if it's the, the, the taller chunks of the tread blocks, they kind of like a little squishy or soft to the corners and the limits are a little bit lower. And so you're going to, if you're kind of pushing a little bit hard, you're going to get into electronic stability control sooner.

10:13 And it's just not going to feel quite as sharp. And also sort of staying with we were just talking about noise is that you're going to know I don't I think honestly, where you notice the tire noise most is through sustained corners. And tell me if you disagree, that's fine. That's true. But I didn't notice it too much, you know, because like, say all terrain tires on.

10:32 I know everyone loves when I talk about my old 2000 Toyota Tacoma, those all terrain tires allowed. Yeah. I mean, they are just loud because these are truck all terrain tires versus these are SUV all terrain tires. These ones I don't really notice that much of an increase in tire noise, just regular driving.

10:46 But when you go through a sustained corner you hear a load of one side. More weight on more all terrain tire. I'm again still no reason to not buy it, but just be aware that those things are there, right? But of course, one big difference between this and your truck beyond the years is the Rav4 is fairly well insulated.

11:03 Yeah. How true. That's true. It probably isn't the case with the not the pickup truck. And then when we look at ride, this was something that, I'll be honest, when we did our several podcasts back, we talked about the kind of how we got a whole bunch of these that we borrowed from the automakers. These sort of off road oriented trims are off roading.

11:23 Yeah, with an IHI. And one of the things I think we maybe weren't necessarily expecting, maybe we should have expected, but we I don't think we did was that when you get these taller sidewalls and that's where we should have thought about it, you get a little bit more bump absorption in certain situations.

11:37 The suspension on most of these is barely changed or not changed at all. But we did notice. Oh wow. Actually. So it's not all trade offs right? You're actually getting some positive besides your your better off road grip and in some cases slightly better snow grip as well. With these alternate tires, you're actually, certain types of bumps like I noticed, especially potholes.

11:56 This thing, you know, absorbs those a little bit better than the regular all season tires on the Rav4. Yeah. And I think that's interesting because, you know, this is the off road trim, right? So you think about gravel roads, maybe going camping, fishing, whatever. I drove the Kia Sportage, whatever they call their version, the X-Line something or something. Yeah.

12:15 And I picked it up in New York City and just driving in the city with all the terrible roads and like, curbs and we, you know, when gasoline, I parked it on the street, stuff like that. I sort of actually felt better in that version versus any other trim line of that car because you, I don't know, think that when you sit up higher, but you have a beefier tire.

12:30 Yeah, I feel like there's a little more protection for city driving in urban type situations. So these might not strictly be just for the people that, you know, get off the pavement and find dirt and that kind of stuff. I think there is a call for it. You know, if maybe you do live in a city. And I think they look pretty cool, too.

12:45 Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It's funny. So it seems like they could be very well suited to tough city driving, as well as if you live a little bit more in the country, like we know a lot of people. And if you can speak to New Hampshire, I can speak to Vermont, where my mom lives. There's still a lot of dirt roads in Vermont.

13:01 I assume there is in New Hampshire as well. And so for people who live on a dirt road and that they end up having to drive on miles of dirt roads at times, this could be another a really good reason to get these right. Oh for sure. But beyond these, I think to objective reasons, if you're just drawn to it for the fashion, maybe you're, you know, you kind of outdoorsy person with an eye and you like the looks you, you know, you like something that's a little cool, a little different than what all your neighbors have.

13:29 The trade offs aren't significant, which I think is really noteworthy right now, Wolf, you know, fine tune, the finessing. You know, things like, the impact and handling that may show out on the track. Right? But for most people there, you know, it's not going to be something noticeable. So the trade offs are fine.

13:46 And even the fuel economy, the difference looks like a real number. It's an integer on paper. But when you calculate it out to the annual cost, they were talking about like $100 difference. Year 38. Verse 41 is very minimal. Correct. I did notice something that I didn't like as much in, in this woodland chorus.

14:05 If you guys noticed, I didn't like the front seats as much. Did you guys notice anything or like, I'll tell you what, I just thought that they were flatter, just not as comfortable. They don't hold you in place as well. And, it actually has a different seat shape, so it's not the same seat, and it just didn't work as well for me.

14:22 And like, there was even a sort of a seam on the upper seat back that was bothering me a little bit. Did you notice that a little drop? Yeah. Felt very much the same, to be honest. I don't love the the regular Rav4's these perhaps a hint less, you know, maybe file it with, you know, the riding, the handling it, you know, little differences.

14:41 These look pretty cool. And I think that's the case with most of its rivals, you know, thinking in particular of, the Cr-V, whose seats I think look fairly similar. They look pretty cool and they do the part, but they don't feel as good as I might like. Yeah. Were you lukewarm on them? I thought they looked cool.

14:59 That was my first impression. Opening door. I'm like, oh, that's neat again. I don't fit all that well in any of the rav4's. I find the whole driver's area just a little bit tight, especially like the center console intrusion. So with that, you know, but I don't know that I would really call the seat out as being a difference for me.

15:14 Yeah, neither are awesome, but like, they're manageable. And I don't know if it'd be a deal breaker for me buying one more. So probably just the tightness of the driver's area might be my deal breaker. Yeah, I think if I recall correctly, both of us noted in the logbooks that, because of, you know, how tight everything is in the comfort, we may not want to be in long.

15:32 Yeah. In these for long road trips, which may be a factor for some buyers because, you know, in our households, you know, if speak for, it may not be an all purpose vehicle, it may be a great little commuter, so forth. But if you got to load up the family, you know, may choose something more comfortable, right? Yeah.

15:50 Controls are basically, you know, identical to the regular Rav4 highs and lows. They're, things that you like and don't like about the controls. Pretty easy to use or overall, it's pretty easy. This has the I don't say new. I guess it's new. The I don't know what the number is. But the newer version of Toyota's infotainment screen system kind of thing.

16:09 And I mean, it's not awesome, but it is better. They went in the right direction, and I think it's nice that it's basically the same across all the different trim lines of the Rav4. You know, so that's not really a determining factor. You know, if you're picking this trim versus that trim, they're all equally is good.

16:25 Yeah. My, my biggest issue with the controls really is just the climate stuff because fan speed, manual fan speed controls are on the touchscreen and they're kind of a little bit small and and hard to press at times, especially while you're driving. And then even they have physical temperature controls, but especially when you're wearing sunglasses, there's they're just kind of dark.

16:46 And so, I, it would like, take extra attention for me to look at either one of those to make those adjustments. So that was kind of my only issues there. But in general, no big, no big issues. Yeah, I think the infotainment system itself is incrementally improved. But you know, it's nice having a home button, for instance. Yeah.

17:03 But I found it difficult to repair my phone. Yeah, that seems to be a thing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So you meaning you get back in? Yeah. It was paired. Right. Get back in. And then it just there's not it doesn't want to either. Doesn't recognize it or it's going to Bluetooth audio rather than Android Auto.

17:21 Yeah. And the only way I found around it is to go back into the settings and kind of go through the process again. Yeah. Which can be frustrating if you just want to get in and go, yeah. Which I assume most people do. Yeah. Or else we're always late. I know I'm always late. That's kind of I mean, I have a basically a ritual.

17:40 Every time I pull out the gate, I sit there and go through this whole process, which includes restarting my phone and a bunch of stuff as you wait for the gate to close. I mean, I think if I bought one, if I owned one, I would just have the right cable in the car and just go wired and just let it be.

17:53 But are you iPhone or Android Auto? I have an iPhone is on my iPhone as and I had the same problem I was in. Not exclusively. I just sort of every whenever my phone is dead, I just kind of get whatever is the best deal of the best one is. Yeah. So I tend to go back and forth. But yeah, it seems to definitely be I mean, I know iPhone people complain about it, but clearly Android people have some trouble too.

18:11 So, speaking of the, you just a little bit of extra attention that's required for those climate controls. Do you know where I'm going with this? I'm interested to to see what I want to know here in camera. Oh, yeah. Constant companion. Yeah. So, obviously with this one, you can't turn it off. You don't have to have it on.

18:31 I personally, I mean, I have it on a from a tester perspective, but also I feel like they are, a good safety thing. Right. Because we don't we want to make sure we're painting. Absolutely road. But this one, correct me if I'm wrong, seems super picky and sensitive to the point. Hypersensitive. And again, Maddie McCarty, our you know, usability expert, would say that, well, the main problem here is that you've designed, you know, your your climate controls that aren't as easy to use.

18:59 So they require you to look away and then it gets mad at you. So typically it was mad at me when I was trying to adjust the manual fan speed, but it also gets mad. And again, maybe Maddie would have an opinion that this is okay when you're looking at the driver's display. So I'm looking at the driver's display, which means my eyes are maybe not quite on the road, but they're certainly in line with the road.

19:20 And so sometimes I'd be looking at that and it will get mad at me, and it gets mad in a very obnoxious way, am I right? Like, it's kind of too quick. Yeah, yeah. Be nice. If there was one, maybe one more second of delay before yells at you and, the warnings kind of stern. Yeah. That's fine. I mean, it's angry.

19:36 I'm like, I don't, you know, I get yelled enough at work. I don't need it from the car as well, you know, like, I don't know, I would say I think there's something to I agree that I think the systems are worthwhile. Right. Because we're all we all could be distracted by something. But a system that is so sensitive, you're going to be you're going to get annoyed.

19:53 You're going to turn it off. Now what good is it to have a system that you've just turned off? So you have zero? I do think, a little bit of work could be done there. Yeah, I can see the challenge from engineering it in terms of the difference from being naggy versus appropriate. It might not even be a full second, but it's our perception of threat.

20:10 Like I just needed a moment more. Right. And you know, I found that half the time it got mad at me because of a problem IT manufacturer. I'm trying to use the controls, right. The other time I might be looking at my wife talking, and then you know, almost becomes like a rude interruption in the conversation.

20:28 You know, like, a child attracting attention, right? Right, right. Okay. So I think what we've determined is that, you know, there aren't a lot of trade offs with these things, right? With, with this one in particular. I mean, I think we found that actually out with when we had a bunch of them here that there aren't as many trade offs as we thought there were going to be.

20:52 And I do agree with I think both of you basically hinted at it or flat out said it, that a big reason to buy one of these off road trips is for the styling, because that we are we know how important wheels and in this case tires for the whole year change. The look of the look of a vehicle goes from looking like a regular service to that thing's kind of tough looking.

21:11 Yeah, I think that's, added to with the roof rack, too, because compared to a Rav4, without it, all of a sudden it seems a little bigger presence. But I wish they went a step further with it. So the front is different, right. And, you know, I don't necessarily love the kind of building block type design that they chose.

21:30 I would have loved if it was far more retro. And so that when you looked at it, you thought of, you know, an old f-j, a, you know, a lighter Land Cruiser or something that like, oh yeah, off road in a way that I think Ford captured with the Bronco Sport. Yeah. Where, you know, somehow it's a shrunk down and, you know, kind of a baby Bronco.

21:49 And that's kind of fun. And likewise on the inside, know the trim in the patterns are unique to this. But there isn't anything that says would I mean, not always they're not something literally wood. But if they're choosing geometric patterns and so forth, abstract art or whatever on the doors, why isn't it look like a forest or a mountain or, you know, something that evokes, I mean, the whole conceit with the wilderness.

22:14 I just did a video on the Crosstrek Wilderness, and I mean the floor mats and there's emblems in the headrests that have like, mountains and there's a bumper cover strip on the back that's all like geometric kind of mountain rock shapes. They kind of went the whole other way, like all the way, into that.

22:30 But this feels thin to me, right? It feels thin. Both in terms of no skid plates. Right. Why not throw us a skid plate? The interior has, what, like, rust colored, you know, trim here and there that those false colored gives a little accent and a steering wheel accent, and then it has woodland rubber floor mats.

22:51 And the coolest thing about the exterior is the Rigid Industries fog lights in Japanese. Like, how many times does this idiot talk about those things? How often you off roading in the dark, where you go into the mall and the rigid industries is actually a real off road brand, well known. And I bring it up because, and again, I know how much everyone loves me talking about my Tacoma, but Alex and Isaac, again, I've talked about his he has a 2000 Toyota Forerunner, and we do go actual off roading together with our trucks.

23:20 And sometimes he has, several LED off road lights. So he turns his headlights off and he has just these cool, LED lights on, and that's really neat, except as near as I can tell. And, I don't know, maybe it's a legality thing. You can't have just these rigid industries, fog lights on and nothing else on.

23:37 I tried every configuration, you know, headlights off, parking lights on, fog lights on. Couldn't do it. It just you can't do it without the actual headlights on, but they still look pretty darn cool on the vehicle. Now, that's not a reason to buy it. And that's where I want to go next. So I'll start with you, Jeff.

23:53 If, between the regular Rav4 and this Rav4 woodland, which one would you buy? And if, and if it's not for you, who do you think this woodland is for? What kind of buyer is it for? I'm kind of torn on that. That seems like a simple one. I see the virtues. You know, I think it would help somebody who, either lives in a, you know, really crater filled city or, you know, has a legitimate need to, you know, go on a gravel road or, you know, travel a little bit off pavement.

24:27 But the compromises are very slight. So ultimately, I would say if it appeals to you and the extra cost, which is about $2,500, if that doesn't faze you, then go for it. I have nothing at all against that. I think for myself I'd probably just get the regular one because at least at the moment, I'm not going off road very much, right.

24:48 And I try and avoid potholes now. So for that, the $2,400 I think would be money, well saved. Yeah. What about you, Mike? So I think it's tough. I think the, the $2,400 I think matters in this case, because it's not like it's a $10,000 swing to get to this level, because to your point, they didn't put a lot of off road bits in here.

25:10 It's really a set of tires and a roof rack. Yeah. And I don't know if the roof rack would be really functional for me. So really we're looking at tires. Yeah. So what would I spend to just to put a set of all terrains on a regular Rav4? Probably less than $2,400. And if I like the look, you know, you don't get the like the seats in the, the whatever, the bronzy color interior stuff, but that doesn't really matter.

25:30 I might just go regular Rav4 and put a set of tires on it if I kind of want that looking maybe a little more functionality. That being said, there is also the plug in hybrid, and you can get the plug in hybrid in the woodland trim as well. And I think that becomes interesting. Yeah, because you get a lot of EV operations.

25:46 You get a lot of quiet operation. You could even have some virtually silent off road driving, which is actually kind of pleasant. It's almost like going for a walk in the woods. It's it's a strange thing because I like cars and internal combustion and I've exhaust on everything I own, and they're all louder than they should be.

26:02 But there's something nicer just being in the woods in. It's quiet. So that in my notes that I was going to mention, which of course I forgot to mention and I don't know where it is in my notes, but I remembered when we did the, the off road driving around our track, which, you know, yeah, Mike was involved in kind of making up this off road course for us.

26:20 That was one of the cool things about this Rav4. Again, the borrowed one that we did, we haven't done that with this one because it hasn't gone through actual testing yet. But it was neat to be in an off road situation and have it in its electric mode because it's a hybrid, and that was kind of cool. It was.

26:34 I mean, you could hear birds and you know, yeah, as you're going over the sticks and stuff. So just different experience. That being said, the plug in hybrid is like that $10,000 swing. So that is a lot of money to spend. But it is really fast too. Yeah. Like it's incredibly fast. It's a lot of vehicle I don't know I'd probably get the regular one.

26:50 Do they maybe put some all terrains on it. Do we need a fourth Rav4 there though here at the track? I mean because we already have three right now we have three rav4's. We have maybe the Jeep Wrangler Rav4. Yeah, I'd vote for the GR. We got to drive that. Yeah. That's the the the borrow one for sure.

27:06 Yeah. Just to see what that's about. But it's I mean, they kind of have a different flavor depending on what you want to spend on what you want. Yeah. My biggest complaint across the board on all of these is all the colors are really kind of like drab and sort of depressing. You can get a red, but otherwise it's like grays and even the same boring.

27:23 You can get red, you can get red, you can get red in any of them. But I just wish there was. I get like, it's so again, it has two trends, right? Everything comes back around. I just wish there was another choice of color, something to kind of bright because I do think people like that and we see that a lot of like off road vehicles too, that, you know, yeah, you're not blending into the scenery, but sometimes it is actually nice to stand out for visibility, like on a trail, right?

27:45 Yeah. You know, through the woods and stuff like that. So a green camouflage color is what you want. I don't know, I mean, I do like green and that might be interesting, but you know, a yellow or just a, an oddball color, something bright, maybe a teal, something like that. Yeah. All right. I think that if you like the way this thing looks and, and, I go for it, like you're not going to be disappointed by me.

28:06 Disappointed? There's very few trade offs. And there even are some, some, some wins in terms of the slightly more comfortable ride and the better, off road traction, better gravel road, dirt road traction. So if you if you like the way it looks, go for it. You're basically and just make sure the front seats work for you.

28:23 That's one. That's it. Want and access as well. And the price seems pretty reasonable. It seems like you get $2,400 worth of, as with every vehicle that goes through our test program right now, it's getting, 2000 braking miles. So it will be entering the actual instrumented test phase two actually on the alignment rack right now.

28:39 Oh, wow. So he has he has the Crossout Chronicles, the inside story. So then, pay attention to, Consumer reports.org because we will be having full road test results of this Rav4 woodland up soon. For 90 years, Consumer Reports has been testing, reviewing, and advocating for you. We are independent and nonprofit memberships don't cover everything we do.

28:59 So please consider donating today to help us go further. Now we're going to move to our audience question of the week. And remember, the best way to reach us is to send your questions to Talking Cars. At Consumer Dork. We like to give people incentive to send in awesome questions like not just a good question, but an amazing question that really kind of like, what did the click on clock used to say, you know, stomp the chomps?

29:26 Yeah, right. So try and stomp the chomps, right. With a really good question. And if you do and if we use your question on the show, our producers will send you some KR badge swag, like a t shirt or something like that. With that we actually, have a video question today from Spencer from Roanoke, Virginia.

29:44 So let's see what Spencer is asking us today. Hello. So my question is at the dealership, are any of the add ons actually worth it? I understand that conventional financial and negotiating advice for at the dealership would suggest just don't put any those all in. It's just a waste of money. You could probably go buy a car class up if you just, you know, didn't have those add ons.

30:08 But just wondering your opinion if there's ever any value to those. And, you know, if I've gotten duped in the past by adding on some things and, you know, just if you don't mind, just kind of speak to some of them, like oil change packages, upholstery packages, service contracts, extended warranties, is anything like that of really value or should just kind of cleanly say, no, I'm not going to have any of those when I go to the dealership and buy a car.

30:32 So we hear about this question a lot. And, certainly, we've written stories about it and, and we write these stories and we talk about it because it is such an important question. I mean, I just had, a thing the other day where a friend of a friend, her daughter was buying her first car. She it's just early 20s, first true job out of college, and she's buying a Mazda CX five.

30:56 And, her her daughter and husband were out buying the car, and she found out that they got talked into buying, paint protection package and an extended warranty. And as soon as she heard this, she's like, no, no, no, my kid Consumer Reports. And don't get those things, you know? So my point is that these things happen and that's why it's important.

31:17 And I'm it's a great question like what should I get and what shouldn't I get. Like what's worth and and what isn't. And so that's about all I'm going to say because we have two great guys to talk about it today. Jeff, who has written stories about us before on this exact topic, and of course, Mike Crossan, who has worked at dealers before.

31:35 So, you know, the ins and outs of, what their you know, what they're trying to do and how they try and get you to, kind of go, do you want to, you know, sort of feeling a little guilty that you really need these things. But let's start, Jeff, with some of these things that people are that that usually it's the, insurance and finance guy that's going to be trying to talk you into these things right before you're trying to get out the door.

31:55 So what, walk us through some that are maybe you should always avoid and maybe some you might give some consideration to. Yeah, sure. So it's important to recognize that so much energy is focused on choosing the right vehicle. And frankly, that's the fun part of shopping. By the time you get through the negotiation and you're ready to leave the dealership, you may have been there for hours.

32:14 Maybe emotional may be stressful, you may be hungry. You may have kids tugging at you. Then they put you in a room with the most experienced, seasoned person there who's also one of the highest paid. His or she is going to be very skilled in extracting every last dollar from your checking account. It's important to have your guard up and to think of the types of things we'll kick around here before you go in, you know what makes sense to you?

32:41 What are you interested? What do you just want to say? Respectfully? No thank you. I'm going to pass. It's certainly incumbent on the dealership to make a profit. Capitalism is what it is, but it's also up to the shopper to decide what they want to spend their money on. So with with that said, I think you can say no to almost everything.

33:01 Yeah. And there may be some rare cases where, an add on makes some sense, but most of them, frankly, don't make financial sense. And any of them, if you add on to the price of the car, you just negotiate it and finance it become even more expensive over time. So, you know the types of things that you're going to see.

33:20 They're going to often pitch an extended warranty, for instance. Or if you're buying a new car, it comes with a warranty. And usually they're very good and often very long, especially if you're buying an electric vehicle or a hybrid. The powertrain warranty can be quite extensive, we would say. Instead, focus your research on choosing a reliable vehicle, one that's predicted to have better than average reliability.

33:43 Spend the money to get that, rather than a model that might be discounted but has lower reliability. But if you have your heart set on something, you know it's not the best choice, then you know the added protection could be worth thinking about, but you got to focus on the details. You want to make sure the dealers are not selling you some third party warranty.

34:04 You want it through the, the factory and as much as you can, but you need it through the factory so that if you move, if you're traveling, you know exactly where you can go to get the work done. And you have someone that's going to take your call, you know, five years from now when you need the warranty.

34:19 Otherwise, you may not be someplace that's willing to honor it right now. He specifically mentioned, he said oil change packages, which I think he or maybe he said service contracts, which are kind of the same thing. Mike, are those something you'd ever, so recommend somebody get, or is that usually more expensive than all of these possibilities?

34:39 Right. And I'm just going to rattle through a list here. So we're gonna call them extended warranties. And I'll circle back to that because they're not really warranties, but there's wheel and tire package fabric protection, paint protection. Sometimes there's like a key policy if you lose or damage a key gap, insurance nitrogen in the tires in like maintenance or an oil change plan you need to see does it make financial sense?

34:58 And then the answer is maybe you get it, maybe you don't. The way these work, it's like insurance. You pay X amount per year to ensure your Tacoma. And they're just hoping that you don't wreck it. And let's say you do wreck and you cause $100,000 worth of damage because you run into that new Jaguar that they just, you know, announced, they lose, right?

35:15 Because you haven't given them as much as they have to pay out. Right. But they know the percentages. Most people don't crash. Most people pay more than they pay out. So the insurance company makes money. And that's the same thing that's happening here. So let's say you has for oil changes and maybe like two cabin air filters go to service and say I'm buying this car.

35:32 What does an oil change cost. What does a cabin filter cost. Do the math and you might save 2530 bucks like over the course of these four oil changes. So then you have to think of that is a savings. But is it specific to this dealer. Or if I move or I'm somewhere else, can I use it elsewhere? Also, think about the fact that you've given them five, six, $700 today.

35:53 They have your money, so now the dealer can do whatever they want with your money. You know, they invest it and they're making money off your money, and your money is now in their hands. You're prepaying essentially for these services. You know, you could get in an accident and you're never going to realize these services.

36:07 You could sell the car. Maybe you just don't like the car and you sell it. So now you've lost, right? So it just it's a mathematical equation. Just, you know, are you going to get value out of it? So oil change or maintenance program maybe some save you more than others. Nitrogen in the tires. Skip it.

36:23 Air is 70% nitrogen. So from a science point of view, yes, there's a benefit for nitrogen in the real world. Absolutely not. If the car comes with it, it's fine. You know, it's got the green caps on it. Just make sure you're not paying for it. Gap insurance, I would say just make sure you have really good insurance versus buying gap insurance.

36:42 But, you know, read the policies and all that kind of stuff. Keys. I don't know if you're prone to losing things. Maybe. But again, do the math. Find out what the key costs, find out what it cost to program and go from there. Pain, fabric protection. I was just going to ask you that because I want to get the inside.

36:59 So right now here's the deal with these. What the deal is with paint protection and fabric is is fabric just Scotchgard. So that's a name brand product. And basically all cars go through detail. They spray some stuff on there. And does it work. Yeah it works. Does it work forever. No. It needs to be reapplied. That's in the fine print.

37:16 But you could probably do it yourself. You could, but so here's what you're actually buying. You're not a buy. You're not actually buying the product that they put on the seat or the paint. You're buying insurance policy against something happening. So if you spill something or like if you wear designer jeans, the blue rubs off on your light color fabric.

37:32 The policy will cover, in theory, getting that cleaned or getting the seat cover replaced or having paint stuffed on. The trouble is, working at a dealership and I worked at dealers that sold this stuff. Getting the policy to actually work is so difficult and it doesn't pay. You go through hours of work as the service advisor to get $35.

37:53 Now that I can give my detail, got a cleaner? I'm better off just going in begging my detail guy to clean it. That's what happens around back. There's an advisor cleaning it myself, so I would skip those. Again, you're buying an insurance policy that you're probably never going to make a claim on. They're very difficult to claim now when it comes to warranties.

38:10 If you're let's say we're on a Toyota episode here. So you're buying a Toyota. They're generally reliable. I probably wouldn't put any kind of extra warranty on a Toyota. But in a lot of manufacturers, when you buy a new car, you can actually buy the certified pre-owned warranty extension. So that would be like from Toyota, from Ford, from Mercedes, you know, at the dealer where you are.

38:28 If you're planning on keeping the car essentially like forever, that might not be a bad thing to do because it does get you some extra mileage and some extra time on your warranty. But then Jeff brought up these third party warranties. This typically comes about, you know, you're at a Volkswagen dealership and you're buying a used Audi and they're selling.

38:46 They can't sell you Volkswagen coverage, but they can sell you from the ABC company of this this insurance policy. They're going to call it a warranty, but it's not really warranty. You know, you need to read the fine print and it's boring, but you need to read it because there's all kinds of pitfalls that happen in there.

39:01 And the example I can give is I worked at an Audi dealership and just north of us was a Volkswagen dealership. They sold a lot of used Audi. Yes. And the telltale was the person comes in and they have the paperwork with them and it's one of these like triplicate carbon copies. It was pink and yellow and they like unroll it like it's the scroll as they're walking it I'm like, oh boy, here we go.

39:19 Because I know where they bought it and I know where we're headed. Yeah, this car's got problems. You have to pay for diagnosis. So you just bought this car. You have a warranty that you spent four, five, six, $7,000 for, maybe, depending on, you know, the level of car you bought. And I'm like, well, you have three problems.

39:33 I need three hours of diagnosis. So that's $200 an hour. So you've got to come up with 600 bucks for for us to look at the car. Then I have to call it in depending on what it is. Is it covered. They might need to come out, inspect it. You might have to pay for tear down if I have to go into an engineer transmission.

39:49 So what that means is they're going to send inspector, but they want to hold the broken part in their hand. That might be inside your motor. So I got to say, Mike, I need $7,500 from you to take your engine apart and get this broken piece out, and you're like, I have a warranty. I'm like, yes, you do, but they need to see the thing and I need to pay my tech.

40:06 So now you're on the hook for the full boat, hoping that they're going to cover it. All right. So you need to read that fine print because exclusions matter. What's included matters. A lot of them don't cover fluids. Right. You know, so you're still buying the oil and the coolant and stuff like that.

40:19 So it ends up becoming kind of a. Yeah. Even though you think you have this pretty good warranty and maybe they will cover it at some point. It's going to be a lot of push to jump through to get it, extend your service time. And again their, their business is taking in more money than they pay out. Right. So and they have the actuarial tables.

40:38 They know they know how much your A4, your A6, your AA is going to cost on average. So they sell you the appropriate plan and they're basically gambling. In that's essentially what you're doing to when you're buying this, whatever the cost is, you're saying my car is gonna have problems and hopefully it has more problems than what I just paid out, which is ever where you want to be. Hopefully the car is reliable.

40:58 Some of them are great. Some of the aftermarket, companies that offer them, like CarMax, always had a pretty good one over the years. They've put restrictions on it. Yeah. Like they don't do V12, they don't do Amgs, they don't do G wagons anymore because they lost money on every single one of them. Right.

41:13 Fidelity always had a pretty good extended warranty. I worked for dealer Group, a big dealer group that was privately owned. We had our own. It was very good. It was very easy to work with, and it was good anywhere. But this particular dealer that was north of us with this scroll that would come out when you call, it sounded like the person you spoke to was working from home before. It was what the cool kids did.

41:33 It's like a guy, this kitchen table, he's like, hello? Like, I have this policy, like, you want the policy numbers like, sure. So you read off this policy number. He's like, all right, what kind of car is it? Well, shouldn't you have that when you brought up the policy number? They don't know, right? And you're like, I need to remain silent.

41:46 Guys are not covered. Thanks. They just hang up on you. It really seemed like it was a guy. This kitchen table. So that particular one seemed pretty shady. And you don't know is is the thing. So what I would say is go to service, go to the service center at the dealer where you're buying and talk to a service advisor.

42:03 They are direct. They're the most direct people you are going to meet because they get be done by everybody. And it's a self-preservation mechanism that they develop. They're going to tell you what the deal is. They're going to say, yeah, you know, it covers a lot. Yeah, sometimes we have trouble getting audio stuff covered or whatever.

42:18 But they will be very honest with you. Yeah. And tell them what you're buying, what your concerns are. And you'll get the real story from service because service has no skin in the game to lie to you at this point, because when you come back, they're the ones you have to break the bad news to you that this thing is not covered.

42:32 You know, I want to be upfront with the customer ahead of time, right? We're on the sales side and you have and I say they just want to get you to sign and pay. And well, now now your services problem basically. So talk to service and read all the fine print no matter how boring it is. Read it. Okay.

42:48 Well, that's, Professor Cross's lecture for the day. Spencer, hopefully that helps you out a little bit. And I talked about, some of the stories are written. There's one up on Consumer reports.org called Just Say No to these car dealership extras. So please check that out. And lots of helpful I want to point out that you can say no.

43:06 Yeah. You don't have to buy these things. And I had a friend who was buying a new car, and he texted me from Five Eyes. I guy, they're trying to sell me less. I just say no. Yeah. And he was there for hours, like, why are you sitting there? There's still time. As soon as I say no and tell him you'd like to move on and you're leaving.

43:19 You know, they work for you. They're not holding you hostage. Just be like, I understand, but thank you. Know, I will sign the thing that says I declined the coverage and let's move on. Yeah, well, I'll add that if you do want to say yes to any of those things, make sure you negotiate. Right. A lot of them. Yeah. You can.

43:33 The price is a little flex. Yeah. And so what often happens is well first of all they're really good at making you feel guilty. Like you're the bad guy here because what? You wait, you're not going to get an extended warranty. You know, my favorite one is there's a jar of, like, nails and screws on the person's desk.

43:51 Of all the stuff that have come out of tires. Yeah, they want to sell you the wheel and tire plan. And sometimes that could be worth it. If you worked in construction, where maybe you're prone to pick up a lot of debris, it might be worth, you know, buying this plan. But these plans, essentially they have a limit as to what they will pay out.

44:07 Yeah. So you want to look at that and you want to know what that is. Yeah. And but to Jeff's point, if you say no, say to an extended warranty, don't be surprised if they say, you know, we'll sell you this for like $2,000. And then when you say no, they might be like, well, you know, maybe we can knock that down to 1500.

44:22 So they're going to try and figure out a way to get some more money out of you. Negotiation is part of the the whole process. But yeah, the saying no is the strongest weapon you can win. All right. So Spencer, hopefully that, helps you out a little bit. That's going to do it for this episode. But before we go, we just want to, talk a little bit about, helping us out.

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45:21 Don't forget to send us your questions. So talking cars at consumers. Org. As always, our podcast is produced by Dave Abrams and edited by Andrew Police and Anatoli Schumacher. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you all next week. You have lots of questions and an era of AI generated answers. It's important to know who you can trust.

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