Stick with Toyota unless you plan to dump the Audi the minute the warranty runs out. Overpriced VW with a different label on the front.
2014 Rav4 V6 is awesome.
No one has considered both: diesel hybrid.
We have one here where I work.
A tiny turbo diesel and electric motor.
It’s not street legal. It’s a test bed for the students.
No V6 in the 2014 Rav4.
There are car based SUVs (although they are rare, and most have become crossover vehicles), and there are truck based SUVs.
I don’t really consider a car based SUV to be an SUV. I guess some people do. Vehicles like the Jeep Grand Cherokee…is also a unibody…but I consider the Jeep a truck…not a car.
"A Highlander is not an SUV"
Guess you’ll have to take that up with Toyota and the rest of the automotive world, these publications, the US government etc…they all say it is.
http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/rankings/suvs/
But, if you say it isn’t…
In reality, they can be truck based with ladder frames or not. But, even unibody like a Pilot or Highlander has more towing capacity then a framed Geo tracker., and some unibody are excellent off road. Getting back to my original contention, diesels are not ideal SUv motors unless they have high tow capacity (7500 lbs is considered high) can be set up for plowing…which few actually are in this day and age…crossover is just another name for a type of SUV…which still may be considered an SUV.
Some people don’t consider a Honda Ridgeline a truck…unless you talk to consumer reports, Mechanics illustrated, Motor Trend, etc…and all those publications who test them as trucks.
Getting back to my original contention, diesels are not ideal SUv motors unless they have high tow capacity (7500 lbs is considered high) can be set up for plowing
WHY?? That’s nonsense. A Class III is perfectly acceptable for a Diesel. The reason Diesels are GREAT for SUV’s is because…
. Better highway gas mileage.
. Better towing with a smaller engine that gets better gas mileage.
. Hybrid batteries tend to run out of juice when towing up a hill - which then means the smaller engine that hybrids usually have will be doing the towing.
When the Highlander first came out Toyota called it a Cross-over. Just because it got - a little bigger…Toyota decided to change it’s classification. Definition of an SUV is NOT clearly defined.
If you want to consider a car based vehicle an SUV…fine. That doesn’t take away from the FACT that Diesels are perfect for MANY true truck based SUV’s on the road. (Pathfinder, 4Runner, FJ, Grand Cherokee, X-Tera, Explorer)…just to name a few.
Just to name a few SUV diesels for 2014.
Jeep Grand Cherokee. - 21/28 mpg (4WD), 22/30 mpg (2WD)
BMW X5 xDrive 35d - 19/26 mpg
Volkswagen Touareg TDI - 20/29 mpg
Audi Q7 TDI - 19/28 mpg
Porsche Cayenne Diesel - 20/29 mpg
Mercedes-Benz ML350 Bluetec - 20/28 mpg
The standard Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot gets even CLOSE to those mpg numbers. Yes these vehicles cost a lot more…but they’re all high-end vehicles to begin with. Their non diesel version counter parts (if they have one) are also very expensive. Start putting a diesel in the Pathfinder (like they currently have in Europe and South America) into the rest of the SUV lineup…Far better choice then a hybrid…At least for those of us who use our SUV besides just driving kids to soccer.
You tell me that a diesel is the ideal motor for ANY SUV, then list as eexamples, SUVs that cost 35 to 50 grand…that “is nonsense” to use your words. . The addition of a diesel alone would make a 23000 CRV, RAV and all the other compacts SUVs , too expensive for most of their buyers along with most of the intermediates, Highlander and Pilot. The price alone makes gas motors ideal for’their purpose. If you think I or anyone in my income level is going to spend, many thousands more for a diesel without using it for plowing, towing and heavy use to warrant having one just for a few more miles per gallon, you need to look in a parking lot to realize that compact SUVs and mid price intermediates dominate the SUV market. They would no longer be mid price with diesels.
Pathfinders, 4 Runners etc with diesels would be so much more expensive, they would not sell…that’s why THEY DON’t offer them. The representaives at the dealerships that my relatives own tell me that…THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE given the polution requirements AND WOULD NOT SELL.
The better motor is an electric only but no one will pay $10s of thousands more for the lithium battery to give it a decent driving range. Diesels suffer from a similar expense problem…that’s why they are not ideal and gas motors are.
I thought the reason diesel was so popular in the UK, and other countries, was that the tax on gasoline is so high that diesel is cheaper to run. Add to that the congestion tax; where you pay a fee based on the size of your engine…
The EU has eliminated the cheap diesel tax, bringing it up to gas tax levels, so now diesel sales are expected to drop some.
@Whitey
"there are car based SUV s (although they are rare…)"
Whitey. I thought truck based SUVs were becoming rare and car based SUVs were the norm. Cross overs is just another name, introduced by manufacturers to confuse those who didn’t 't want a truck but a more car like SUV…and still wanted raised ride height and options like Awd and a little more capacity while not wanting a van. I have this crazy mind set that I call cars whatever the manufacturer wants them and the govt. agrees and those who test and rank them tend to call them.
Heck, even the govt. is confused and is coming up with another way of ranking cars as SUVs.
I call mine a tall hatchback 
We probably see the market differently, but here is what I mean by that:
What I call car-based SUVs are SUVs that share the same platform with a car, like the first generation Honda CR-V (built on the Civic platform), the first generation Toyota RAV4 (built on the Corolla platform), and the Chrysler PT Cruiser (built on the Neon platform). If you look under the hood of a first generation Honda CR-V and compare it to a 5th-6th generation Honda Civic, things will look very familiar. These FWD vehicles might be able to tow 1,000 pounds, but they’re not made for hauling a lot of weight.
Over the last two generations of the CR-V and the RAV4, they have been redesigned to be less like the cars with which they formerly shared a platform. Now, they are crossover vehicles - a term I use for cars that have the front end of an SUV and the back end of a minivan. They are designed for paved roads, not off-roading. Like a minivan, these FWD vehicles can usually tow up to 3,800 pounds, so it’s not rare to see one with a class III trailer hitch. Being FWD vehicles, they need a weight distribution trailer hitch with a sway control bar to tow anything of moderate size.
What I call truck-based SUVs are large RWD (or 4WD) vehicles that have a body-on-frame design like a full-sized pickup truck, like Chevy Suburban, Ford Expedition, Jeep Wrangler, Nissan Armada, and Toyota Sequoia. These are designed to be true off-road vehicles. These are the vehicles you want if you have a family of 6, a boat, and a remote cabin in the snowy mountains.
When you say truck-based SUVs are rare, I tend to agree. Thanks to recent spikes in fuel prices, they aren’t as popular as they used to be.
SUVs that cost 35 to 50 grand...that "is nonsense" to use your words.
Have you seen the cost of a new pathfinder or 4runner these days? Fully loaded is over $40k.
The diesel pathfinder is already selling in Europe. Cost difference is about the same as gas and diesel versions of vehicles sold here.
I’m not the one painting a wide brush and covering ALL SUV’s. You are. Yes you can find some SUV’s that wouldn’t benefit from a diesel…but that doesn’t mean that some wouldn’t. The mid-size SUV’s (4runner and pathfinder) would do fine. Yes the cost would be more…So the decision to buy one would be the same as the people who buy hybrids. I the diesel would be a far better choice then a hybrid for mid-size SUV.
Test drive the Audi, Cadillac SRX, BMW X3, Volvo XC60, and Acura RDX. See if you like any on them enough to pay the high purchase cost.
Mike…focus. Our discussion only centers on diesels being the ideal motor for an SUV which I disagree with as a patent general statement. They are only ideal if the vehicle is truck based and they are used for intended heavy use or used in specific ways to take advantage of them…which is few vehicles . They donot deliver the economy to justify thier high price in truck based or car based SUVs when not use for towing and plowing here in the US, and especially in remote areas where disel is less available…
Finally. Here is the proof they are not the ideal motor for the vast majority of SUVs on the road…are you ready…,THEY DON’T make them available… If they were the ideal motor, they would be selling like hot cakes. Neither is the hybrid the ideal motor. It’s so obvious neither is the ideal motor. Smarter people then You and I have determined that. When I talk to Toyota executives, I don’t tell them they are FOS and they should put diesels in all their SUVs. They will not sell here !!! I find that easy to understand. You can’t conflate Europe sales of diesels when their govt. has subsidized their use or years. They aren’t smarter then we because they buy diesels. It’s economics. When and if they stop this subsidy, gas motors will sell like hot cakes.
@Whitey
I think we agree 100% on what a car based SUV is. If the model comes in a 2 wd variant, and it’s fwd from one of the makers car lines, It’s obviously a car based SUV. If the basic running gear comes from a rwd truck, it isn’t . I hope you get my point that when I look at the sales figures for SUVs, car based SUVs dominate the market. The govt. recognizes car based SUVs as SUVs and does not recognize the term crossover. That’s just a term coined by manufacturers to obscure the SUV so customers who don’t want an SUV, more because of their overall reputation stemming from the truck based, can think they are buying a car like model.
For me, SUVs require body on frame, plus a few exceptions (old Cherokee and all Grand Cherokee), CUV is unit construction, frequently with a fwd model.
So what do folks think about the German models? Several Benzes are unit/rwd based, as are BMWs, while most Audi/VWs are fwd based. The first ML350 was BOF, even…
I worked at a Benz dealer as a tech for many years.
The first and second generation ML class (163 and 164, for you Benz guys) were high maintenance vehicles.
The first generation ML (163) had independent suspension front and rear, but it rode like a truck.
The engineS (112 and 113)and trans (722.6) were okay for the most part. But the car itself wasn’t particularly well constructed. Not exactly a real Benz.
The second generation ML (164) was a nice handling unibody SUV. But it had FAR too many problems. The vehicle, the engine, and the transmission.
The ML272 V6 engine was a TOTAL POS, IMO. The 722.9 7-speed automatic trans was a TOTAL POS, IMO. I did plenty of mechanical repairs on both. Benz really f . . . . d up on the engine AND trans. The sad thing was that they were the bread and butter engines and transmissions, which were used on every single model they had. I once replaced 7 cylinder heads in one year.