FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2017 TOYOTA PRADO

In the front, there are two cup holders in the central console. They are awkwardly positioned and rather small for a car of this size! They would hold a disposable or re-usable coffee cup or 600ml water bottle but larger vessels would not fit.

The door pockets in the front have two areas for holding bottles, they would hold a 600ml and a Pigeon baby bottle but they are not big enough to hold my large refillable water bottle. They are not lined so they do rattle anything you put in them. I could fit either my wallet or iPad in them alongside the drinks vessels.

The central storage box lid is a nicely padded armrest that extends forward and the storage box on the model we drove is a fridge. I found this a fantastic BabyDrive feature for putting snacks, milk bottles, water etc in especially as we had it during the summer! It was also the only place my refillable water bottle would fit so it meant I got nice cold water!! It was really convenient when visiting family and friends to put cold foods in for the journey and held a coffee cup well too when delivering a new mum in need an iced latte!

There is a small L shaped hole in the central console in front of this box, which was the only place you could put a mobile phone, next to it was a USB port. I found it irritating though as anything you put in there knocked backwards and forwards as you drove along and the noise was disturbing for sleeping baby!

There is a recess with a cover in the dashboard, although this is not lined so anything you put in there slides around making a plastic sliding/scraping noise and can be disturbing for sleeping baby!

The glove box is a good size, it easily holds the manual, an iPad and a wallet with room to the side of them for more things too.

There is a glasses case in the ceiling with a conversation mirror which is another great BabyDrive feature as it allows you to look at and bub and other passengers to look at you if they are forward facing or in their headrest mirror if they are rear facing.

I have discovered over time and trialling all these cars that our daughter finds it really comforting to be able to see our faces whilst we are driving along when there is a conversation mirror. As a mum I find them really handy too, to be able to see when/if they have fallen asleep or if you are trying to keep them awake on a journey so you can get them home and into bed for their nap you can engage them in eye contact etc. Or just to check on them. I have pulled over many times to check my baby was still breathing as she has just gone quiet when a nap was not due!!

For second-row passengers in the Prado, there are net map pockets. They are stretchy so would hold a large tub of sun cream etc. however the net exposes anything you leave in them and I find wears quickly over time.

The rear door pockets are the same as the front. There is a two cup holder in a fold down in the central seat. They would hold a disposable coffee cup or a 600ml water bottle or Pigeon baby bottle.

For third-row passengers in the Prado, there is a large cup holder on the right-hand side. This cup holder is a good size, the largest in the car and it would hold my large refillable water bottle.

With the boot empty and the third row of seats down, you can get 15 bags in the boot of the Prado.

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 twin stroller in the boot, I could get three shopping bags in beside it.

With the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle in the boot, I can get seven shopping bags in beside it.

With the basic stroller in the boot, you can get 10 shopping bags in with it. The basic stroller only fits across the width of the boot it won’t fit lengthways so you do not have the flexibility to put it either way.

With the third row of seats up there is hardly any boot space at all, I could just get four shopping bags across, but it’s very narrow so you need to be careful the bags don’t tip out. The basic stroller would not fit in with all seven seats up.

With nothing in the boot, you could fit a very large dog in there or with the Mountain Buggy pram in the boot you can get a medium size dog in there with it.

The parcel shelf is a retractable roller blind that fits across the boot when the third row of seats is not in use. The Prado has no storage space for the roller blind under the boot floor so if you’re using the third-row seats you have to remove the roller blind and leave it at home.

The retractable blind covers the majority of the boot space but there is a gap between its bar and the backrest of the second row of seats. So Toyota has provided you with two large flaps of fabric that connect to the posts of the headrests in the second row of seats! They attach with flimsy plastic clips on the end of straps that extend with poppers! The two large flaps of fabric hang down into the boot and are really annoying when you’re trying to load things in and out of the boot. I found them especially in the way when putting the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller in and out.

The boot door opens outwards, rather than a regular tailgate that lifts up. It does give you a nice big, wide boot opening making it easy to post things in and out of the boot, however, it is a large and heavy door that is quite difficult to manage when parked on a gradient. It either swings open quickly or you have to heave it and it tries to shut depending on the angle!

The door opens with an arm like lever mechanism at the bottom of it that you can twist into the lock position to keep it open. The door has to be fully open in order to lock the mechanism and I was very nervous about my little girl around it the whole time I had the Prado. It worries me that the child could trap a finger or hand in there very easily. The mechanism you twist to lock does not have any kind of convincing click or anything to show it is locked and it is at the height that little hands could so easily grab onto it and unlock it with a simple twist while you are turned to the boot!

I found putting things in and out of the boot was trickier for my height 162cm than for taller people. The boot has a large step in order for third-row passengers to enter through the boot door as well and I found reaching over the step and the height of the boot floor that I actually struggled to reach across the full depth of the boot. I had to climb into the boot to remove the retractable blind that was unwieldy and difficult to handle.

There is definitely enough room to change a baby’s bum on the boot floor of the Prado when the third row of seats is down, however, when they are up there is no space to do it.

When the third row of seats are down their cup holder, on the right, is in the boot so you can use the cup holder whilst loading and unloading the boot! I loved this feature! It was also the only cup/bottle holder in the car that holds large vessels like my refillable water bottle.

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!

The Prado has front and rear parking sensors. The rear sensors have a loud beeping sound that would definitely wake a sleeping child and cannot be muted, they can be turned off with a button by your left knee, they do not automatically come on the next time you put the car in reverse within the same journey. The sensor visual is displayed on the digital display in front of the steering wheel as well as on the large media screen. When you turn the sensor off you no longer get the visual or sound of the sensors, but on the media screen, you still get the rear and overhead camera visuals.

When you are in ‘drive’ the front parking sensor volume can be turned off once the screen for the sensors comes on and they have already beeped! Which defeats the point of muting it! The media screen displays a warning image of the car and in the corner of this screen is a mute button! However, it has to have been set off and beeped and wailed at you once loud enough to wake a sleeping infant before you can mute it!!

The cameras on the Prado are quite a low resolution, so the images are quite fuzzy as if the lenses are smeared with Vaseline! You get a lot of camera angles in the Prado making the visibility easier but their quality is not the best.

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.

There is lane departure warning in the Prado that we drove, the button for turning this on and off is on the steering wheel, it alerts you with a very loud warning alarm that I could not mute or turn down the volume of each time you stray out of the line marking.

The indicator volume is not adjustable but it is not too louder noise so wouldn't disturb sleeping passengers.

Frustratingly Toyotas do not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto so you have to use their media system which I found frustrating!

Toyotas Sat-nav in the Prado did not have adjustable volume settings. There was the option to adjust the verbosity level but I could not adjust the volume of the Sat-nav voice.

I found connecting my phone to the Prado was not easy. I tried my nursery rhyme test of having nursery rhymes playing on my phone and plugging it into the car and seeing how easily the music starts playing out of the car speakers however with the Prado it kind of didn’t! It took a fair bit of fiddling around to get it to work! I also found with the Prado that the blue tooth connected perfectly first time I connected it and then it really struggled to connect following that. It seemed hit-and-miss as to whether the Bluetooth or USB would connect each time.

The windows and doors of the Prado opened and closed extremely quietly for a car of this size. So, in theory, I could come to a complete stop once Tulsi had fallen asleep leaving the engine running, take off my seatbelt and get out of the car and as long as I left the keys inside the vehicle no alarm would sound. Or not! The driver's door had a ‘dong, dong’ noise to it that I just could not work out what set it off. So it was difficult to know when and why it would dong! It definitely woke our sleeping daughter!

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!!(ps I only stand outside the car I am not a bad mother!!)

The doors and windows can be locked from the control panel of switches on the driver's door.

The seatbelt removal alarm sounds if you try to drive off without your seatbelt fastened or a seat belt is removed. There is also a red seatbelt warning light on the driver's digital display that lights up to warn you too.

The road noise in the Prado is surprisingly good, the engine noise, however, does have a tractor like droning sound to it! We found the wind to be a noise problem in the Prado, especially on motorways at higher speeds the wind around the sides of the windscreen was very noise.

There are three top tether points in the Prado, on all the middle row seat backs, but none for the third row of seats.

There are two ISO Fix fitments, one in each of the middle row’s outer seats. In the Prado, the ISO Fix are concealed behind a Velcro leather flap and then tucked down inside a slit in some fabric. I found them harder to connect to when fitting the child seats because you are fighting with the fabrics to get to the bar. I always think Velcro in cars collects crumbs and dust too over time and it won’t age well, it also can mark clothes if you sit on it.

There are handles on the shoulders of the middle row seats to bring the backrests forward to connect the top tether points. This is really useful as reaching from the boot is very difficult as the boot is so deep, I had to climb up into the boot to do it that way.

We could easily install two child seats into the Prado’s middle row with lots of legroom. I did manage to get three child seats across the middle row too. A rear facing Mountain Buggy Protect infant capsule, a forward facing Infasecure Kompressor 4 and an Infasecure Foldaway booster seat. The central booster seat, in reality, would be very difficult to use as you can not access the seatbelt clip easily. The middle row seat base is flat making it easier to fit three child seats across the width of it.

The seats would be hard to clean in the Prado, they are leather and this would clean easily however the majority is perforated to match the front cooled and heated seats. The perforations collect crumbs and sand etc making them much harder to clean.

There is plenty of room to feed Bub in the back of the Prado, the rear and front seats are spacious enough you would have room to do it.

The spaciousness and high ceiling make putting Bub into their rear-facing child seat from inside the car easy, as do the large open doorways really help putting bub in from outside.

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!

I found the third row of seats very difficult to put up. The levers are situated in the back of the seat rests in the boot floor, I found them hard to reach and I’m 162cm tall. You have to pull the lever away from yourself and yank the extremely heavy seat back up, I found it impossible and had to get help.

The seat bases did not come out automatically with them, you have to then go around to the second-row seating and collapse one of their backrests down to get into the third row to pull the seat bases out of the floor.
I found all the seat mechanisms very stiff and extremely heavy in the Prado. They feel like they are built to last but you will have extremely strong arm muscles by the time your children have grown up!! They are all so heavy that you couldn’t really do them one handed with a bub in the other hand!
Packing the seats away is even harder and you have to do that from the second-row seats as well. The instructions for the third row of seats is on the wall in the boot which is really needed as it is not a simple system and people will need the instructions at hand. This is the most complex seating I have come across in a seven-seater car!

Getting into the third row of seats you have to either climb in from the boot, I think Toyota has designed it to be an entry as there is a lock and handle on the inside of the back door. It is not as simple as it sounds as you would need to erect one seat, two people climb in and then erect the other seat which as I previously described is a heavy handed job! Or you can access the third row of seats from the second row however you would have to remove any child seat that was installed there and fold a second-row seat backrest down and climbing through.
The second-row seat on the passenger side has a lever in the backrest that allows that seat alone to fold and slid independently forwards. It would also be the kerbside in Australia so the best one for getting third-row passengers in and out. You would still have to uninstall any child seat in that position in the second row though, which would be a handful when loading and unloading the car each time. Especially if you needed a 7seater there would be a lot to contend with!

You do need to watch little hands and feet with the sliding seat system as it doesn’t lock when folded down and brought forward, so it can slide back onto any feet or hands in its path, especially if parked on an incline.

The second row of seats slides to adjust for legroom, which is fantastic, and we found we could sit a 184cm adult in all three seats behind themselves, and have just enough legroom!

The front seats in the model we drove are heated and cooled which were fantastic for our very hot Queensland summer! I found them quite comfortable; they were fully adjustable with electronic controls on the side of the seat base and had adjustable lumbar support also.

The front seats are perforated for the cooling and heating and the second-row seats are perforated leather to match. This just makes them harder to clean as the perforations trap crumbs, sand and general child detritus!

The central seat in the second row is quite uncomfortable. The backrest contains a fold down armrest with cup holders in, so it is very hard, and you are pressed against the child seat installed next to you. It is uncomfortable too, having the central seats, buckle in the middle of your bum cheek, It really should have been moved further out, this would have made it more comfortable for anyone to sit there and allowed a third child seat to be used in the central seat too! There is plenty of legroom for the central seat and the hump in the foot well is very low so your legs do not have to straddle it.

The second row of seats does slide to adjust the legroom. This gives the Prado generous amounts of legroom in all three rows. We found we could have a 184cm driver with a 184cm passenger behind them and we could just fit a 180cm passenger in the third-row seats also, each having just enough legroom.

The air conditioning in the Prado was very effective and powerful. There are four vents on the front dashboard and ceiling vents above each of the rear windows. Our daughter did complain about the ceiling vents saying it was ‘too windy mummy’! So we had to shut them off. The ceiling mounted vents can be difficult for little passengers as they blow straight down on them.

The rear aircon controls are in the back of the central console storage box and cleverly there is a master switch on the dashboard so the driver can turn it on and off. This is a great BabyDrive feature! You can take over the controls from the front while driving if any little passengers are too hot or cold and if any bigger passengers are squabbling over it!

The Cruise control accuracy I found terrible in the Prado. It was best on flat, straight roads but really ran away with itself around town or on bendy or undulating roads at high or low speeds. Radar Ready was a huge problem for me in the Prado when trying to set my cruise control speed. I would turn the cruise control on and want to set my speed but the radar ready screen would come up and cover the digital speed display for minutes at a time! So I wouldn’t know what speed I was doing or be able to set it until it had gone. This was the most annoying thing in the car it drove me nuts over the time I had it!

My final favourite features are the rubber floor mats! Great for taking out and hosing down with off-roading and especially with kids!

The Prado was a very large vehicle and at first, I found it overwhelmingly large on the road and for visibility when driving and parking but it did become smaller the longer we had it!

With three child seats installed in the back you really couldn’t see much out of the side or rear window. Thankfully the 360degree cameras on the Prado come as standard in the latest models and so you have much greater visibility thanks to them. The quality of the footage is quite low resolution though which is a real shame as you really are relying on them especially when reversing and parking.

I find myself more often in car parks and areas with children more now than I used to so I am really aware when toddler height especially would not be visible in a cars mirrors and windows and for that reason on the Prado the cameras are essential and give you eyes in those areas.

There are lit vanity mirrors on both sides in the front and the visors are extendable for the side windows.

The Toyota Prado is equipped with seven SRS airbags as standard. Front and side airbags for both front passengers and a knee airbag for the driver, as well as curtain air-bags offering protection for the rear side passengers too.

The Toyota Prado has a 5star ANCAP safety rating, scoring 35.28 out of 37.

In the frontal offset test, the Prado scored 14.68 out of 16, with a perfect 16 points awarded in the side impact test and a maximum 2 points in the pole test. Whiplash protection was rated ‘good’ and pedestrian protection ‘acceptable’. It scored 2.6 out of 3 for seat belt reminders because they are not fitted to the optional third-row seats.

The introduction of 360degree cameras in all the latest models makes it feel safer when reversing and manoeuvring, especially in playground car parks, where you might not see little ones, as the vehicle is so big.

I was a little concerned by the Prado’s rear door. It hinges from the side rather than the top and is extremely heavy. My worry is that on slopes it is hard to keep it open. There is a locking arm, however, we found it could be pushed past the lock position very easily and the door would slam closed. There is also a bright yellow sticker on it that is just at toddler height, I was very worried about fingers getting trapped in the mechanism or the door just swinging into her.

The automatic models of the Prado range come with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, lane departure warning, automatic high beams and radar guided adaptive cruise control (ACC) as standard.

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!