Toyota Avensis 2.2 D-4D 150 T4 review

Your say

Toyota Avensis 2.2 D-4D 150 T4 Road Test

Test date 28 January 2009 Price as tested £23,500

For Strong performance, good fuel economy, feels well assembled

Against Lacks dynamic flair, boomy engine, dour cabin, needs better seats

A few years ago the large family car sector, dominated by sales to business users, was packed with cars like the outgoing Toyota Avensis: staid, reliable transport as utterly forgettable as it was trustworthy, practical and efficient.

Today, things are different. Customers, no longer impressed by transport that’s merely spacious and durable, and realising they can find all the practicality they need in the more desirable form of a small SUV or compact executive car instead, have prompted makers of D-segment cars to attempt to turn up the style and prestige wicks.

With some success. The Ford Mondeo is all but the measure of an Audi A4 inside, the Vauxhall Insignia has the measure of most saloons from the outside, and Nissan neatly bypassed the whole D-segment thing altogether with the Qashqai.

And so to the new Avensis. Is it as worthy as ever, or has Toyota managed to inject the substance and style it wants – needs – to have added to one of the market’s traditionally less imaginative contenders? We’re using a mid-range D-4D to find out.

The Avensis name first appeared on Toyota’s large family saloon, hatch and estate in 1998, when it replaced the Carina E (then, as now, built at Toyota’s Burnaston plant in Derbyshire) .

The name and engineering changed in ’98, but the Carina/Avensis ethos, and the reputation it has established as a conservative, refined and reliable D-segment car, has remained steady throughout its generations since.