As the name suggests, everything about the Toyota Kluger Grande we drove is SUPER-SIZED! Including the cup holders!! It is an enormous vehicle that feels unwieldy and inflated like it has severe water retention!! It’s more swollen than my legs after my caesarean!!
Everything is enormous, the seats, the glove box, the space, it is just a really BIG car with ample everything! In terms of a BabyDrive I feel like they have covered nearly everything!!
It’s just not very comfortable!! I feel like I was bouncing around on top of the seats rather than sitting in them. On paper and in reality it has EVERYTHING a BabyDrive could possibly ask for but it’s like I’m bouncing around on a space hopper!
Storage in the Kluger was really good; it is ample in the front, with a shelf running around the dashboard that I LOVED!
It even had holes so you could pass a USB wire through to the sockets below for charging your phone and keeping the wire neat, tidy and out of the footwell. The front cup holders, central console storage box and glove box are all very generously sized but the door pockets I found shallow and impractical and things I put in them rattled in the plastic.
With eight cup holders throughout the car (two for the second row of seats and four in the third row), everyone would stay well refreshed! I actually found when the third-row seats were folded down that having cup holders in the boot was so useful! When I got to the car with all my child, bags and tea, I had somewhere to put my hot tea that was safe while I dealt with child and bags in the knowledge that it wouldn’t spill or fall over.
When it came to the boot there was enough space for our Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller and three shopping bags! This is the first seven-seater SUV that I have found big enough to hold the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle in the boot! Let alone with shopping too!
The Kluger could be a family five-seater car with an enormous boot, large enough for a really big dog. Or a seven-seater with some sensible boot space! With nothing else in the boot and all the seats up, seven bags fitted, which is very good.
The boot door has an extra window opening that I found a fantastic feature, it made popping a bag into the boot a simple thing rather than opening the full boot door.
The boot has a powered tailgate but it is REALLY slow to open and close and it beeped a warning alarm the whole way up and down so you would definitely not open it while your Bub was asleep!!
Surprisingly the other doors and the windows were quiet and you could use them without disturbing a sleeping baby!
There were plenty of other baby-waking and driver-harassing beeps in the Kluger!! The rear parking sensors could not be muted but the front ones could if you are quick enough!! The mute option only appears on the screen for a second and if you don’t catch it in time then you have to put up with the loud beeping!
The Kluger does not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto which is crazy for a $70,000 family car! I would definitely expect it for this price.
The road and engine noise is quite good for a car of this size but it grunts like a teenager when accelerating uphill.
There are seven seats in the Kluger; the two in the rear are very spacious and you could put two teenagers back there! The third-row seats were actually the most comfortable in the car!! Very spacious and supporting.
The second row had ISO Fix in the two outer seats and top tether for all three seats. There was just enough room for three child seats to fit. I fit two rear-facing ones on the outside seats; the Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule and the Infasecure Kompressor 4, and the Infasecure Foldaway booster in between. Installation was relatively simple, however the black leather seat surfaces were a problem. They are very flat, I think to allow for three child seats across, but this meant the child seats slid around even though they were anchored correctly. My daughter definitely protested about this and I had to drive in a way that compensated for it.
The second-row seats slide forward, allowing enough room to get through to the third-row seats so you don’t have to remove any second-row child seats, which is BRILLIANT!
Legroom was very good throughout the Kluger and even in the back, for thoe in the third row.
The front seats are also slippery! It’s not that they are uncomfortable. They adjust in a million ways with electric controls at the side of the seat but I just never found an ideal position during the whole week I was driving it! I felt I was bouncing around on top of the seats, rather than in them and with no support.
Serious BabyDrive points are won for the inbuilt window shades in the rear doors as well as the tinted glass. Combined these are fantastic for keeping little ones shaded from the Australian sun!
There are air conditioning vents throughout the Kluger and the rear passengers have individual controls on them, as well as master controls on the dashboard for the driver to set them. This is a FANTASTIC BabyDrive feature, so you can keep each of your little passengers happy, in theory!!
In reality, I did find there was too much custom ability on the dashboard, a spattering of different buttons, dials and digital displays. As a Mum I just find I need simplicity, as there is sooo much else to deal with.
For me, the seats and the size of the car were the downsides. The Kluger pitched and rolled, causing the people on board to be bobbing about.
The windows were rounded at the corners and it had a fish-eye lens effect looking out of them that felt like tunnel vision. I think this with the bobbing motion while driving made all passengers feel quite travel sick.
The Kluger model we drove has a 360-degree view camera! In theory, this is great because you can check all around you before moving off. In reality, as a mum, you do not have time to be selecting camera views and zooming in etc. Mum life is too demanding of your time. You need to be able to see that the coast is clear and drive off, which is another problem with the Kluger and I am sure why they have the 360-degree camera! Visibility is shocking! I really struggled to know the extremities of the Kluger; it seemed that where I could see the end of the vehicle there was then 30cm of bulbous car bodywork beyond it!
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
The storage in the front of the Kluger is Grande!! There is ample storage for everything, so much, in fact, that I don’t know where to start!!!
I’ll begin with the two super-sized cup holders in the central console. They are surely where this model got its name?! I'm sure the largest Starbucks size coffee is called the Grande, and one of those monster mochas would definitely fit in these cup holders!! They are soooo big they have to come with an attachment to make them smaller and more usable for the Australian market!! My big refillable water bottle fitted in with ease. Coffee cups of all sizes and a 600ml bottle fitted in using the insert to grip smaller vessels.
The door pockets were very plasticky and not lined so anything put in there did rattle. They weren’t actually very user-friendly, I think because they weren’t deep enough. My iPad and wallet did fit in together but on their ends and 600ml bottles would fit but not much else!
The handles in the doors were not enclosed wells, which was a shame as I prefer it when handles are enclosed as I often use them to hold keys when putting Bub in her child seat.
The central console storage box was enormous! It doubled as an armrest which was plenty big enough for both the driver and front passengers arms. The lid had a two-way slide mechanism which I found unnecessarily difficult to use. Inside there is a removable shelf which had no real purpose and was annoying to position or move around. Stored in here were three sets of wireless headphones for the DVD player!
The gargantuan dash of the Kluger had an inset shelf running the length from the drivers left knee to the door on the passenger side. It is lined with brown leather making it a great place to put things, as they didn’t slide around, it looked great and was very convenient. BUT I would warn you: After just a week it was clear this would be the dumping ground for every child nick-nack, dummy, flyer, tissue, half-eaten teething rusk and anything else that will fit!!
This aside it is a very cleverly designed space for your mobile phone. There is a 12V socket, a headphone socket and USB port positioned behind the gear lever. Above the USB socket is a hole with a plastic insert that you could post the USB wire through to the inset shelf, which is a fantastic feature for keeping your mobile phone on the shelf and the wire neatly out of the way and not dangling into the footwell.
There is a single glasses case in the ceiling which doubled as a conversation mirror; this is fabulous for being able to keep an eye on all the little passengers in the back without having to turn your head, so you can keep your eyes on the road!
As you have probably guessed the glove box was enormous too! I had the manuals, my wallet, iPad, keys and glasses case in there and there was plenty more room still. Initially, it didn’t seem it would hold much but it is surprisingly deep.
For the second row of passengers, there are generous map pockets in the back of the front seats which would fully conceal an iPad.
Although the cup holders in the front were enormous, storage in the second row was a little more lean. The door pockets were small with just space for a sippy cup and baby bottle but nothing else and again they were not very deep. There was also a fold down armrest in the central seat with two moulded plastic cup holders, which were the perfect size for medium size take away coffee cups, not Grande like in the front!!
For the third row of seats, there were two cup holders on either side wheel arch, which similarly to the central row they were perfect for medium size take away coffee cups or popcorn when watching the DVD player!!!
These were also REALLY useful when the third-row seats were down and I was loading it up as a boot space.
When I head out on a journey with Tulsi I usually take a travel cup of tea with me! Mainly because I’m tired and need the caffeine like most new mums! Also in case she falls asleep so I pull over and have a few minutes still time with a cuppa! Or I have water bottles that although they all say they don’t leak inevitably after they have been dropped a few times they all leak so it is a juggle to keep vessels upright and away from bubs or interested toddlers!
So I go to the boot of the car with bub, bags, drinks, snacks and I hope the boot has automatic opening as I don’t have a hand free and basically dump everything in there whilst I strap bub into her seat and organise everything. Having drinks holders in the boot helps so much as you can just pop your drinks hot and cold in there out of the way. Knowing they are not going to spill or fall over or burn anyone!
Storage space in the boot was fantastic too! With the third row of seats down you can get 16 bags of shopping in there. (Five across, three deep and one bag in the nook on the left).
With the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle, you can fit eight bags in with it.
There is a recess to the left of the boot that would hold one bag and I found this really good for putting either the bag with breakables or frozen food in, or Tulsi's lunch box for example. It was great for separating something from the rest of the contents of the boot.
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
With the third row up and all seven seats in use, without anything else in the boot, I could fit seven shopping bags across.
The boot also had room for the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle and three shopping bags!! This is AMAZING!!! I haven’t driven a seven-seat SUV to date that would hold the Mountain Buggy while all seven seats were up!
I did have to put the Mountain Buggy wrist strap around the back seat headrest to hold it in place whilst I closed the boot door, but you could ask the back passenger to hold it whilst you close it. Just remember to make sure it is secured when you open the door when you reach your destination as it fell out when I had not secured it sufficiently!
The Steelecraft Holiday 2 umbrella stroller fitted with five shopping bags.
The backrests of the third-row seats are adjustable. The above measurements are with them in a slightly reclined and comfortable position. If you put them in their most upright position you can actually get shopping bags two deep in the boot. However, I don’t think any passengers would be comfortable sitting for a long journey like that. The third row of seats is manoeuvred using a wide woven strap on either side of the shoulders of the backrests and one on each side at the back. The straps feel like good quality that shouldn’t break or fray easily.
You could easily get any size dog in the Kluger with the third row of seats down.
The boot space and seats are really versatile in terms of configuration in the Kluger. If you need six seats you can put just one of the third row of seats up and use the boot space of having the seventh seat down. Or you can put two of the second row of seats down and one of the third row of seats, giving you five seats still and a long boot space. (If you need to carry something home from IKEA!!!)
The cargo blind is stored in a compartment in the floor of the boot, in the same way as those of the Isuzu M-UX and Holden Trailblazer. The space in the compartment also doubles as a handy area to put sandy shoes, wet and muddy gear to keep it separate from everything else in the boot. Also being a plastic compartment it is much easier to clean out than the carpet on the boot floor so even more reason to use it to store mucky things.
I am yet to find an SUV cargo blind that actually fits the task. The Kluger's is 85% there and fixes the mistakes of the M-UXs and the Trailblazers.
The cargo blind feels like a well designed and high-quality product. It is lightweight, making it easy to handle, but feels solid. You position the long bar behind the second row of seats and press the thumb buttons on either end. The springs then pop out securing it in place. Then pull the blind out and secure in place.
It gets full marks up until this point, then you realise there is a big gap between the second row of seats and the cargo blind. Those in the M-UX and Trailblazer also extend forward to cover this gap but the Trailblazer's is far too heavy and difficult to handle and the M-UX's is more like a loose tarp!
The Kluger also loses points as the blind is only usable in this position there is no option for covering the boot when the third row of seats is in use.
The height of the boot floor and its flat level is comfortable for lifting things in and out; there is no bending down and in like in a sedan. Which also makes it great for an emergency nappy change! There is no lip on the edge of the boot though, so babies could easily roll out! The floor of the boot is a nice, soft, moleskin like, velvety surface which feels lovely but it really traps crumbs, sand, grit and fluff etc off the stroller wheels and bottoms of bags and shoes. After just a week of our use it had loads in it already and it gets ingrained in there and becomes really hard to vacuum out of it.
The back windscreen also doubles as a flip-up glass hatch, you can press a small black button on the outside of the boot and it opens just the window. You can lift that up and pop just a bag over into it rather than waiting for the full boot door to open and close. It’s much quicker! I did find with the full boot door, the automatic tailgate is good to have but it is soooo noisy and very slow to open and close.
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
The Kluger comes with a beeping quartet of its own!
The touchscreen has a beep with each press, which could thankfully be turned off in the settings, as it would have driven me mad!!
The reversing and parking sensors come with a shrill beep that you can only mute when in drive not when reversing. When driving forward and the beep has been activated, the mite button appears on the touchscreen, but only momentarily, so you have to be very quick to mute it! For example, driving into my driveway the sensor was activated by some tree fronds and the button appeared, but unless I instantly pressed it, the screen moved on and the button disappeared. I found this really frustrating as nine times out of ten I couldn’t press it fast enough and if Tulsi was asleep in the back she would be woken up by the shrill beeping.
To turn the parking sensors off altogether there is a button by your right knee. Along with a VIEW button. This is where the 360-degree camera magic happens with the Kluger!!
The lane departure warning was equally vocal and rather sensitive, but it could be turned off altogether with a button on the steering wheel. I also found the Kluger was quite forceful with its steering when the lane departure was activated.
The indicator volume is not adjustable but it is a nice flat sound, nothing intrusive or alarming that would wake a sleeping baby!
Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!
That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.
If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?
It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?
A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
You can alter the sat-nav voice in the screen settings on a scale of 1-7, as well as being able to alter the verbosity of the instructions. You can’t mute it until you need it though.
I find on most journeys when I use sat nav I only need directions for the last part of the journey. I know how to get to the area I am going and then it’s just the exact address I need help with. Because I need to input the address before I head off I found myself on most occasions when you can’t mute the sat nav voice having to listen to all the directions, which disturbs your concentration, any conversation in the car at the time or more importantly my sleeping baby! So being able to mute the sat nav voice until you reach the part where you actually need it is gold!
The opening and closing of the doors and windows in the Kluger is especially quiet, which I found surprising for such a big vehicle as most seven-seaters I have driven the doors and windows are one of the worst features, especially in the Holden Trailblazer. Quiet doors are good so you can hop out or open the window when you park up with a sleeping baby in the car without waking them up. This is if one of the other alarms hasn’t already done it!!
The doors close quite easily with a gentle close, which was surprising for a car of this size. With baby asleep you can get in and out without worrying the doors will be too noisy. The same for the windows their mechanism is not too noisy and I didn’t notice them having a loud opening or closing sound.
With baby asleep you want to be able to get in and out without worrying the doors will be too noisy and wake Bub up!I reversing style beep, beep, beep while it very slowly opens and closes will not only drive you mad but definitely wake your child!! I sat through a whole nap while my phone and book were in the boot and didn’t dare try and get it!! (you would think I would have known better by 18months old!!)
Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of opening the boot while your child is asleep! It makes a parking sensor style beep, beep, beep while it very slowly opens and closes will not only drive you mad but definitely wake your child!! I sat through a whole nap while my phone and book were in the boot and didn’t dare try and get them (you would think I would have known better by the time my daughter was 18months old, but no!!)
A visual display on your dash along with an alarm sounds if you drive off with a door still open or if you open the door while you still have the car in drive but not if you have it in park.
The seatbelt alarm is activated if you drive off without it on but only once you reach a certain speed.
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
The doors and windows can be locked from the driver's door control panel, but they do not automatically lock.
The Kluger's Audio system remembers the last thing it was doing, which was great if the last thing I did was travel with Tulsi listening to nursery rhymes with my phone connected via the USB. Then when I plugged it in next time it remembered where we’d left off and continued. Not so good if the last thing I did was drive on my own with the radio blaring!! The Kluger doesn’t have Apple CarPlay, which is something I’d not only expect but would want to use in a $70,000 family car!
The Kluger wasn’t a silent car to drive and you wouldn’t expect it for a vehicle of this size. It had a revving grunt up hills but was surprisingly quiet on the flat around town and out on the open roads.
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
The Kluger is a generous seven seater; two at the front, the three seats across the second row and two in the third row. The third row is very spacious, so if you tend to put your bickering teens in these seats they will have space between them!
There are three top tether points situated about 2/3 of the way down the back of the backrests of the second-row seats. I could access the two outer ones without having to bring the backrest forward by sliding my arm through the gap at the side of the seats. To access the central one you do have to bring the backrest forward.
The ISO Fix points are very conveniently located in the two outer seats between the backrest and base of the seats. They are clearly visible and although they were not in plastic casing they were prominent and easy to connect to.
Because of the easy access to the top tethers, in the two outer seats, I found installing the child seats quite simple. I could attach the ISO Fix first and then the top tethers afterwards. If you do need to bring the seatbacks forward, there are big plastic handles on the side of the seats that make it really easy to control the speed and distance it comes forward.
It was still a surprisingly snug fit to install three child seats across the second row of seats, given the size of the vehicle and its family SUV purpose. I installed a rear facing Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule on one side and the Infasecure Kompressor4 Â (rear facing) on the other side, with an Infasecure Foldaway booster seat in the central seat. I was expecting there to be plenty of space between them but it was actually rather tight!
The Kluger is the only car I have driven (since recording this information for BabyDrive) where the central seatbelt comes from the right shoulder rather than the left. This seemed to make accessing the seatbelt clip of the central seat much easier. I think because it is positioned where the seats divide rather than coming from the seat base it has much more extension and flexibility. Although the child seats are touching like in most cars, the seatbelt clip is not underneath the booster seat at all and you have easy access.
There is always the same dilemma with seven-seaters that to access the third row of seats you need to bring the second row of seats forward in order for the passengers to climb through. The second row of the Kluger slides so far forward it touches the front seats, which I think would allow room for your third-row passengers to climb through without disturbing the child seats installed in your second row.
The third row of seats had no top tether or ISO Fix but were very spacious so you would easily fit two booster seats in there that don't use top tethers.
Posting children into the child seats was simple with the nice open doorways and from the inside too with the Kluger being so spacious.
Australia being a country of weather extremes- blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!
There is plenty of room to feed Bub in either back rows of seats. In the second row, it would be more comfortable with only one child seat installed.
The seats were black leather, which is wipe cleanable, but the front seats are heated and cooled so they are perforated and the outer second-row seats are perforated too to match. (although they are not heated and cooled). The perforations are dirt traps and can be hard to get the kiddie crumbs, sand and detritus out of.
The seat bases of both of the back rows were very flat so I found the child seats sat on top of them and not in the seats, this combined with the black leather made them slippery and the child seats slid around on them. Tulsi protested, even more than normal, every time she was put into the Kluger because of this and we had to drive the car with this in mind.
We'd go very slowly around corners and roundabouts otherwise we could feel the car and seats pitching and rolling about.
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
The front seats of the Kluger adjust in every single way you can imagine! There is even an electric button to adjust the length of the seat base, which was good because I couldn’t reach the pedals when I first got in!! You can tilt the seat base or pump it up for height, recline the back rest, change the lumbar support! Strangely even with all that adjustment, I did not find it comfortable?! I think the one thing you can’t change about the seat is the actual shape of it and how bubbly it is. I felt like I slid around on top of the seat rather than sitting IN it. There are the controls on the door to save two driving positions which is brilliant because if I ever did find a comfortable combination from altering all the switches, levers and buttons I would definitely want it remembered!!
Also with a small child, I don’t have time to spend ten minutes finding the right driving position and playing with all those switches etc. Tulsi would be hyperventilating in the back by this point and that’s before we’d even left the driveway!!!! One thing I didn’t need to adjust was the headrest!!! I could happily sport my ponytail without its interference!!
I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!
The second row of seats is ponytail friendly too! I felt the same as the front seats, as though I was sitting on them rather than in them, and sliding around on their smooth leather surface. The outside seats were most comfortable, the middle seat the backrest is very firm because there is a fold-down armrest with a double cup holder in it, and you can really feel this with your back.
There is a lot of leg room and the seat base slides and adjusts a lot it slides all the way forward to almost meet the front seats! Even with the seat base on the most forward setting, I had plenty of leg room.
The backrests are adjustable too; they can recline really nice and far back, but as the seats are divided 60/40 two of the seats have to recline together. The two mechanisms for this are encased in plastic in the seat backs. These didn’t interfere when sitting in the seats but the seatbelt clips were sunk into the seat bases and did stick into my bottom, especially in the central seat.
The third row of seats I found to be the most comfortable in the whole car!! Each passenger can adjust the backrest angle individually. And there is so much room back there!! These seats are also split 60:40, the 60 is the right-hand seat and it is big enough for two really!! Two adults could comfortably travel in the third row seats and I found (and I am just 162cm  tall) that with the second row on the farthest back setting that my knees were just off touching the seats in front, but if you slide the second row seats forward slightly so the third row have leg room then there would be plenty of room for grown adults or lanky teenagers!!
The second-row seats slide so far forward that you can access the third-row seats without having to bring the backrest forward. This is a FANTASTIC BabyDrive feature! Very few seven-seater SUVs have this option. It means your third-row passengers can get in and out of the car without you having to uninstall the child seats in the second row!
The steering wheel is fully adjustable up, down and in and out. The cruise control is very simple to use and relatively accurate, set on a stick behind the steering wheel.
The fuel light comes up on the digital display of the Kluger at 20km left in the tank. I think this is a little late. Most car fuel lights come on at 50km and this is great for giving you enough warning to get fuel.
The distance to empty display becomes extra important as a mum because getting fuel with a baby is a whole new world of difficult. If they are screaming in the car you definitely do not want your journey prolonged with a fuel stop! If they are asleep the turning off of the engine, doors opening and locking and unlocking, then re-opening the doors and closing, starting the engine again, beepers going off because you haven’t got your seatbelt on when you start the car or because you blink in the wrong direction, do you take them out of the car when you go in to pay? If you do will you get them back in the seat again or will they have a complete meltdown and you’ll be stuck on the fuel station forecourt with a screaming baby!! Hopefully you are starting to gather the anxiety that what was once a simple fuel stop can be for a mum!!!!
For this reason the distance to empty display can let you know if you have enough fuel to make it home with bub and then go out and get fuel another time when you will not have to take bub with you.
There are four air conditioning vents in the front cab, two in the centre and one at either end of the dash. They are all very large, like most things in the Kluger! And are ample to cool the vast cabin! I did find it hard to turn them off fully though.
In the back, each row of seats has two narrow strip air vents with touch on and off lights, on either side of the car in the ceiling.
They can be shut off individually and there is a control panel on the back of the central console box as well as there being controls on the front dash. This is a really good feature as the adult driver needs to be able to have the ability to control the temperature and flow of the air to younger passengers in the back who may not be able to reach the controls or vents and also if there are any disagreements between passengers then you have the ability to take charge from the front!!
The system is relatively easy to use. I found the buttons are a little spread around across different types of control; there were round dials with buttons and digital display with other buttons. With the addition of the rear controls also it is a bit of a mish-mash and you do just need to get used to it.
The flow was ample and auto was good for cooling the front of the cab down quickly. There are also heated and cooled front seats, which were LOVELY! They are controlled by small wheel like dials you roll round to select the hot or cold. They were very welcome in winter, but the only thing to be aware is because they are a dial they stay in the position you leave them so the next time you get in the car they will remember your setting and go back to the same. Great for playing a trick on the front passenger by discreetly switching there’s to full heat and waiting for them to think they have wet themselves!!!
One of my favourite BabyDrive features in the Kluger is the inbuilt window shades in the second-row doors. BRILLIANT!!! You simply pull them up and they hook at either side and they retract away into the door when you put them down. So no need for ugly window socks or stick on shades that fall off and get trodden on in the footwells! The windows are all tinted too, which helps to keep the back cool.
Visibility in the Kluger is varied, as the driver I felt like I sat high on the road and my vision out was good but my vision of the car's extremities was not.
The windows give a fisheye lens or tunnel vision effect, as though everything is very rounded, especially out of the front and rear windscreens. I think the windows' rounded corners increase this effect and as the driver using the rear view mirror to look behind you, as your eyes are drawn down to this long narrow, bulbous back window.
I think the fisheye lens effect is unpleasant for the rear passengers too. Making them feel so removed from the outside world with a distant tunnel-vision view had a kind of seasickness effect. This is especially bad in the second and third row when looking forward but at least they do have nice, big side windows that are better to look out of. For a rear-facing baby, it must be awful and may be another reason why Tulsi really hated travelling in the Kluger.
You don’t even need to wear sunglasses when you drive the Kluger. You sit so far back in the cab from the actual windscreen that you’re shaded from the sun from all directions.
The Kluger was an interesting car to drive. I found it best on motorways, but everywhere else, especially around town, I had to drive soooo carefully so as not to rock and roll the little passengers around. It is bouncy even when you come to a complete stop and have the handbrake on it still rocks to and fro for a few seconds.
So when going around any corners or roundabouts, the car really tips and the passengers roll around inside, made much worse because the seats are slippery leather and you sit on top of them rather than in them. Added to this is the visibility problem with the Kluger. Where the car ends in your sight, there is then inches of bulbous car that you can’t see so it is really hard to get a real sense of where your car ends, making parking very difficult!
There is a VIEW button by your right knee which gives you a 360-degree camera view around the car from two different angles: From above or from mid-door level. It is rather amazing actually and I can see from a safety point of view it is great as you can set it spanning the outside of the car and pause it on an area to take a longer look. With a child who is not keen on being in the car on board, I’m not sure how much I would actually use it in daily life as I’m certainly not going to extend the time she is in there by spending time looking at it. If a parking space required going to such lengths then I would park somewhere else, even without a screaming baby!
The door level camera may be helpful if parking somewhere with a post in the space for example, so you could see how close you were getting. The birdseye view is useful when parking, to see the position of the car in a space. I can see how these features would be useful with the Kluger as it is ENORMOUS and you really can’t see where the edges of the car are. It is like driving around in a sumo suit, you feel like you can see where the car ends but then you know there are a few more centimetres that you can’t see!
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
You can also change the view of the reversing camera by touching the button on the bottom of the camera screen. You can also change the reversing guidelines to a different option, such as distance, direction/angles etc.
These are all things to help with manoeuvring the Kluger at slow speed and it is good that they are included as it is a complete beast, especially in small spaces. It’s just how much time do you have in real life situations to use these things? People aren’t going to wait patiently behind you in a car park while you engage aerial view, then change reversing guidelines and 360-degree camera. You would have to be very fluent with the setting buttons for it not to be a lengthy process and I find now as a mum I just don’t have the time to dedicate to such tasks (except for BabyDrive research purposes of course!!!)
There is a vanity mirror with light for the driver and front passenger and a well-positioned handle in the ceiling for the second row of seats which is good for hanging a baby toy on.
There are two 12V sockets. One in the front dash, behind the gear lever, with the USB port. The second is in the back of the central console. It's a good position for the second row of seats to use for charging a portable DVD player, if the one in the ceiling is not showing their first choice!!! I was surprised to not find a third 12V socket in the boot for a family Esky to plug into.
The Kluger model I test drove had a nine-inch LCD screen that comes down from the ceiling to play your DVDs. It came with three sets of wireless headphones and a remote control in the back of the central console. I didn’t get time to put the DVD player through its paces as mum life got in the way, as it does sometimes!!
I did think the location of the screen meant that it was well positioned for the third row of seats, however if someone was sitting in the middle seat of the second row it would be pretty close to watch!
The Kluger was a very nice looking car inside and out, a lot of thought had gone into the comfort of the passengers throughout the vehicle and the car felt quite luxurious in that you had more than you need in terms of space, storage, cup holders etc. Even the local cat, Coco, liked the look of it and came to check it out!!
The interior surfaces were all wipe cleanable and the rubber floor mats were a great BabyDrive feature. The second row had one full rubber floor mat stretching from one side of the car to the other, the front had two individual ones and there wasn’t one in the third row. This is great for just hosing down. No dramas with spillages etc.
The model I drove had keyless entry and a powered tailgate. This is standard in the GXL and Grande models.
BabyDrive Indepth - Safety
The Kluger has a five-star ANCAP safety rating and seven airbags as standard. These are driver and front passenger airbags, a driver's knee airbag, side airbags for driver and front passenger and curtain airbags the length of the vehicle, including for the third-row seats.
All models come with anti-lock braking system ABS, brake assist, electronic brake-force distribution, vehicle stability control with traction control.
The Grande, the model I drove, also comes with active cruise control and Toyota Safety Sense that includes blind spot monitor, lane departure alert and sway control, pre-collision safety system, rear cross traffic alert and automatic high beam.
Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound.
I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!
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