Toyota Avensis Tourer (2015-2018) Review

If you’re looking for a big estate car that’s reliable and durable, the Avensis could be the car for you. It has the potential to be cheap to run if you choose the right engine and it offers a respectable amount of interior space.

However, if you want your large estate to be comfortable and have a feel-good factor, there are better options available.

Unless you plan to do nothing but short journeys all the time – in which case we’d suggest the petrol engine – the 2.0-litre diesel is the best engine. It’s not as economical as the smaller 1.6-litre but it has much more useful performance and although it is not particularly refined, the fact that it has decent pulling power means you won’t have to work it very hard to make decent progress.

As for trim levels, the basic Active trim is quite generous. It comes with cruise control, air conditioning, a six-speaker CD/radio audio, Bluetooth, auto-dimming rear-view mirror, LED rear and daytime running lights and power windows. 

We’d suggest moving up to the Business Edition, however, which adds a touchscreen infotainment system with DAB, reversing camera, climate control, part-Alcantara seats and additional safety technology.

You can’t talk about large estates and not mention the Skoda Superb Estate and the Volkswagen Passat Estate. They offer the biggest load spaces you’ll find in a car this size, a high level of interior quality and a strong engine range. The Superb offers lots of space at a bargain price, the Passat is slightly smaller but also posher inside.

Other rivals include the fun-to-drive Ford Mondeo Estate and Vauxhalls well-priced and kit-rich Insignia Sports Tourer.

Few cars demonstrate the subtle but important difference between material quality and build quality like the Avensis does. 

In terms of material quality, it feels quite cheap and not terribly welcoming. You will come across plenty of plastics that are hard, shiny, or both, and the almost uniformly grey finish is hardly appealing either. 

Compare it to one of the better cars in this segment like the Volkswagen Passat and it’s hard not to feel like you’re being short-changed, even if there is a price difference between the two. You could almost believe that the entire dashboard was formed from a single piece of plastic and just injection-moulded into place.

However, what also becomes apparent as you spend time in the Avensis Tourer’s cabin is that it is built to a very high standard. The lid of the glovebox or a switch on the dashboard might not feel particularly yielding when you touch them, but the actual mechanism itself and the way it operates is reassuring – you just know it’ll work forever.

The infotainment system varies depending on which trim level you go for, on the entry-level Active model you get a simple radio/CD unit with Bluetooth, but on Business Edition models and upwards this is upgraded to an 8-inch touchscreen that includes DAB radio, navigation and smartphone connectivity.

The basic system is just that – basic. It’s perfectly acceptable for what it is, but given that Toyota’s own tiny Aygo city car can be bought for £10,000 and has a touchscreen system as standard, so it feels quite stingy that the basic Avensis does without a similar system. 

Even if you do go for the more sophisticated system, it’s well below the standards you get in other cars. Its screen is relatively small and it lacks the colourful, high-definition graphics available in cars like the Volkswagen Passat and Skoda Superb. You can also get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so you can neatly integrate all your smartphone’s features into the car’s big screen. 

On the upside, if you’d rather deal with conventional buttons the Avensis is the car for you – it has loads of them. 

You’ll not find much to complain about from the Toyota Avensis Tourer’s driver’s seat. There’s a good range of adjustment in the seat and the steering wheel so it should be easy to get comfortable, and there is plenty of head and legroom too. There should be no issue with shoulder room either, and although the Avensis Tourer offers a little less space than the Skoda Superb, it’s still pretty darn comfy. 

In the rear, headroom is good, while legroom is generous enough that one adult over six foot can sit behind another person the same height. You can also get three kids across the rear seats, but as with many cars, the centre seat is not as comfortable as the outer two and three adults will feel wedged together. 

Lift the boot lid and you’ll find a generous space that is well shaped and has many of the additional practical features that you’d hope to see from a car like this. 

There’s 543 litres of room with the rear seats in place – which is average for the class, but still a fifth less than the Skoda Superb estate has to offer. 

Fold the rear seats and this is increased to 1,609 litres, while the flat floor and tiny load lip make it easy to get your luggage into place. 

The Avensis is available with a 147PS petrol engine or two diesels – a 114PS 1.6-litre or a 143PS 2.0-litre.

The 1.8-litre petrol is the cheapest option to buy and is competent in most areas without being exceptional in any. It’s pretty quiet unless you work it hard (which is necessary if you want to get where you’re going in a hurry) but it lacks the lazy surge of power you get from the kind of modern turbocharged engines that are fitted to rivals like the Volkswagen Passat Estate. 

The 1.6-litre diesel is the most economical engine in the range, but this economy comes at a price – its performance is even more leisurely than the petrol in town. That changes on the motorway where the entry-level diesel has the mid-range punch that means it doesn’t need to revved to within an inch of its life just to overtake other cars.

That said, you really want the 2.0-litre diesel. It gets from 0-62mph in under 10 seconds and you can surge past fast-moving traffic without having to change down a gear to do it. It’s a capable cruiser, strong enough to carry heavy loads and makes a decent tow car capable of pulling a braked trailer up to 1,600kgs in weight.

The Avensis petrol engine is the most refined option here, idling quietly and only really kicking up an audible fuss when revved hard.

Both diesels offer patchy refinement levels and are a little way behind the class average in this respect. There is quite a bit of diesel rumble when starting from cold, and even when warm there is more vibration that is ideal when sitting in traffic. On the move, there is more gruffness, and this is more pronounced in the 1.6-litre diesel because it needs to be worked much more than the more torquey 2.0-litre option.

On the positive side, the Avensis Tourer does without the oversized alloy wheel options that some of its rivals come with so road noise is quite low. Wind noise is also contained for the most part, although there is some obvious rustling around the door mirrors at higher speeds.

The Toyota Avensis was tested by EuroNCAP in 2015 and was awarded an impressive five-star rating. 

As standard, all Avensis Tourers are fitted with front airbags including a knee airbag for the driver, side chest airbags for the front seat passengers and curtain airbags for front and rear passengers. 

Seat belt pretensioners and load limiters are fitted to the front and rear seats, while Isofix child seat mounting points are fitted in the outer rear seats as well as an airbag deactivation switch for the front passenger seat.

The Avensis Tourer also benefits from a package of driver assistance technology, with ESC as standard as well as automatic emergency braking for city and interurban environments. Speed assistance and lane assist are also fitted except on the entry-level Active model. Hill-start assist and LED daytime running lights and tail lights are also standard features on all trim levels.

The Avensis Tourer fits into impressively low insurance groups. The 1.6-litre diesel in Active trim manages to get into Group 8, lower than many superminis, while the 1.8-litre petrol in the same trim fits into Group 13. Even the 2.0-litre diesel is only in Group 15 in Business Edition spec and 16 in the higher grades.

The Avensis Tourer is another car that is affected by the April 2017 VED changes, so how old your car is as well as the engine you choose will affect your annual bill. Go for an early 1.6-litre diesel registered before April 2017 it will cost you £20 for the year, while the 2.0-litre diesel qualifies for a £30 rate if it is pre-April 2017. The 1.8-litre petrol is the same price or even more expensive before April 2017 on account of its relatively poor CO2 emissions, but all versions cost £150 per year after this date.

Entry-level Active still gets plenty of kit including: cruise control, air conditioning, a six-speaker CD/radio audio, Bluetooth, auto-dimming rear-view mirror, LED rear and daytime running lights and power windows.

Business Edition adds useful features such sat-nav, DAB radio, a reversing camera, plus auto lights and wipers. You also get climate control, 17-inch alloy wheels and part-Alcantara seat upholstery. To that lot you can add auto-dipping headlights, a lane departure warning system and road sign assist which can read road signs and display them on the car's infotainment screen.

Business Edition Plus models are a little big posher. On the outside they have  LED headlamps that have a bright white light, fog lights that light up corners and tinted 'privacy' windows. Keyless entry means you don't have to fumble in your pocket for your keys and, once you're in, you're greeted by  leather upholstery with Alcantara inserts.

Excel models are the top-feeders of the Avensis range. They get connected sat-nav that can route around traffic, an uprated stereo with ten speakers and headlights that can shine round corners. Electric seat adjustment takes the effort out of getting comfortable and you get leather seats.