FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2018 TOYOTA HILUX ROGUE DUAL CAB

There are four cup holders in the front of the Toyota HiLux Rogue. Two moulded plastic ones are in the central console, in front of the gear lever, which fit a disposable and reusable coffee cup but they rattle around a little. I found a large refillable water bottle fits well in there too.

There another two cup holders that pop out at either end of the dashboard and are perfectly sized for a disposable coffee cup. I like the way they are completely away from the central console so no wandering little hands from the back can access them and accidentally get burnt! Talking of burnt, the fact these cup holders are right below the air vents mean they can cool my hot tea to drinking temperature in no time!

The door pockets were not as big as I had expected from a vehicle of this size. They did hold a large refillable water bottle and my wallet or iPad but they were very narrow so no room for extras and they weren’t lined like they are in the Amarok so the contents rattled when the doors are opened or closed.

The handles in the doors were good sized wells, great for storing the keys etc while putting Tulsi in and out of her child seat.

Behind the two central cup holders is a large well that was well positioned to hold my phone, as the USB point is above it. It is big enough for my wallet or glasses or phone. You have to be careful when putting things in and out of there not to knock the heated seats on as I did without knowing the Rogue had them and when I started roasting on a hot Queensland day I had no idea how to turn them off!!

There is another storage well behind the gear lever and the small central console storage box has a three-prong 220V plug socket inside so you can plug in things that don't have a USB or 12V car charger, and it has a padded armrest lid too.

There were two glove boxes in the HiLux, one in the usual position and another directly above it. The lower of the two is a good size; holding three manuals, my wallet, iPad and phone.
The one above has an air vent in it that you can slide open or closed to allow air into the compartment… it is an air-conditioned cooler-box. I thought this was a fantastic BabyDrive feature and would be really handy for putting bottles of milk or lunch items in to keep them cold in the summer sun!

There is a single glasses case in the ceiling, positioned with the front interior lights.

Back seat passengers have 1/3 size map pockets that would definitely not be big enough to conceal an iPad. Above them is a fold out plastic hook which can each hold a 4kg load. These hooks are really useful when using the footwells in the back instead of the tray to carry bags, shopping etc and being able to secure things to these hooks meant they didn’t slide around. My daughter loved them for hanging her backpack on for daycare drop offs.
I found the footwells would hold two shopping bags each, so you could get four across the back floor.

The door pockets in the back are just like the front ones and will hold a large refillable water bottle, an iPad and a wallet.

There is a fold-down armrest with two cup holders in the middle back seat. They would hold a disposable or reusable coffee cup but they rattled around in them.

The tray of the HiLux Rogue will hold 29 shopping bags.

There is plenty of storage space in the tray to fit any size dog, pram, stroller and a good week or two's family shop. It is more the accessing it that I found to be a problem. The tray is not easily accessible for someone of my height (162cm). I found I had to hop up into the tray to use anything more than the first one or two shopping bags deep, which was fine if I wasn’t wearing a skirt and the great thing about the Rogue is the carpeted floor because it covers the surface of the tailgate, which saves your knees a lot of pain when climbing up into the tray!

Posting things into the tray was easier than reaching over the depth of the tailgate to pull things out. I could not reach over the sides of the tray at all, so anything I positioned there I had to climb into the tray to access.

I found I could access the first two to three rows of the tray and could easily get the Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller in there with seven bags beside it.

Or the Britax Flexx tandem stroller with ten shopping bags beside it.

Or the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle single stroller with nine shopping bags beside it.

Or the Mountain Buggy Nano compact stroller with 16 shopping bags beside it.

I found I used the tray more with the Rogue than I did with the regular Hilux because the tray lid was easy to use and the floor was carpeted.

There are no power sockets in the tray. Emergency nappy changes could be done on the tray floor of the Rogue with the carpet although they could easily roll out also so it is better to use the back seats!

The Toyota HiLux Rogue I drove was a relatively quiet BabyDrive in terms of beeps and buzzers. There really were none! With no lane departure warning or parking sensors and just a reversing camera, it made a refreshing change from the usual cacophony of alarms!

The reversing camera view is quite narrow, the image is really dark and blue and you can't rely on it when maneuvering.

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.

The sat-nav is not straightforward to use, the voice could not be muted but deep within the media screen settings you can change its volume between 1-7 and you can change the verbosity. 1 was almost silent so I used that setting for the majority of my journey and turned it up to 4 when I got to the part of the journey that I needed guidance.

The media home screen is split with the sat-nav on the right and audio and phone information on the left. This bugged me in previous Toyotas I have driven, but I realised the beauty of it in the HiLux that you can multi-task!! Having the split home screen allowed me to switch between the three systems easily whilst I was driving and provided all the information at-a-glance and if I wanted to change songs, for example, I just pressed on the top left of the screen and then the audio went to full screen.
For most of the journey, I knew the way so didn’t need a full screen of sat-nav so the basic visual was enough. I think it took me four Toyotas to get used to this system but it was a feature I really liked by the end of my time with the previous model HiLux.

The HiLux does not have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and I found it really difficult to pair my phone with the car. Overall the system is very basic and old-fashioned.  It didn’t play the nursery rhymes I had playing on my phone the first time I plugged it in. I had to select Audio and then select my phone, which all takes a little time to work out. After that first time it was simple and when I plugged my phone in music would play straight away if audio was selected.

Toyota's media system doesn’t have a welcome tune, so there is no baby waking there. However the volume settings are remembered, from the previous journey, so when I had been listening to the radio blaring on a journey on my own I then got the radio blaring at me when I next got into the HiLux with Tulsi!

The indicators on the HiLux are quiet and not disturbing for little passengers.

The HiLux windows have quite loud mechanisms and a slight thud as they come to a close, which could disturb a sleeping baby. You can lock all the windows and doors from the driver's door to stop the rear passengers playing with them, but neither lock automatically.

Also, the doors are fairly quiet to open but closing them is a bit of a slam and anything in the door pocket gets rattled about.

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!

The driver can remove their seatbelt and open the door without an alarm sounding, but an alarm does sound if you try to manoeuvre the vehicle with your seatbelt off. If you select anything other than park then an alarm sounds, but being the only alarms we came across they are forgiven!

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 HiLux engine has a loud idling noise and vibration. It has a definite truck sound and feel about it. The engine is especially noisy when accelerating up hills. On motorways both the road noise and the engine noise when accelerating really disturbed Tulsi and woke her up when she was sleeping. I found the road noise to be much better around town at slower speeds.

There is a small screen on the dashboard that shows you in lights which seatbelts are fastened in the back but there is an alarm if rear passengers undo their seatbelts.

I drove the dual cab HiLux Rogue and you can only install two child seats in the back of the Hilux, one in each of the outer seats. But there is room between them for an adult to sit.

The two outer seats in the back both have ISOFix, which are not within plastic guides, but are a breeze to connect to in comparison to the top tethers!

The back seats have a really flat seat base and there is little fuss in the seating in terms of shaping and stitching, which I think helps allow for the child seats to be installed.

There is only one metal top tether point in the HiLux, located on the car frame just behind the headrest of the central seat.

Both child seats anchor to this top tether point. The two outer seats have a woven loop strap behind their headrests that you pass the top tether strap through, then between the prongs of the headrest and along the back of the seats to connect to the single top tether point.

There is no evidence as to how a single top tether point bares under the strain of both child seats on it. Or what happens to a child seat that is tethered from the side like that in the event of an accident. I found it extremely difficult to correctly tighten the top tether strap when it was connected because of the loop being in the way, I would LOVE Toyota to change their top tether attachments to be A LOT more user-friendly!

It would not be legal to have a single top tether anchor point like this in a car and my initial concern would be that it is a great load on the prongs of the headrest.

At the moment utility vehicles do not come under the same laws as cars because they are deemed to be for work purposes and so do not have to comply with the same testing and laws. It is surely common sense if they are the best selling car in all of Australia in 2016, 2017 and 2018, that they are being used as family cars and need to be treated in the same way for safety testing and have the same laws.

Being 162cm, I thought it would be too high for me to reach up into the HiLux for posting Tulsi into her child seat, but it was fine from both outside and inside the car was no trouble and found it nice to be able to reach in at standing height rather than bending down into the car to put Tulsi in.

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!

With only one child seat installed you have room to feed Bub in the back, the HiLux lacks headroom, which did make it feel a little small. Feeding in the front would be trickier due to there being little room in the front when you have rear-facing child seats installed in the back.

In the HiLux model I drove, the seats were wipe-clean leather and there was little stitching for crumbs etc to get trapped in.

The front seats of the HiLux are comfortable and easy to adjust with the electric controls at the side of the seat, although the headrests do not allow for a ponytail!

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

The backrests in the back row are quite straight and upright but I found them comfortable.

The HiLux definitely compromises when it comes to legroom. At 162cm it was fine for me to sit in either front seat with a rear-facing child seat behind me. However there wasn’t enough legroom in the front for my husband who is 184cm, with a rear facing child seat behind him, so he had to travel in the back instead! So it is really not very well thought-out in that sense. For such a big vehicle, space has clearly been given to the tray rather than legroom in the cab!

In the back, I found the seats comfortable too, but the visibility was my main complaint as a passenger.

The steering wheel in the HiLux is fully adjustable, in/out and up/down, which competitors such as the Isuzu D-Max and Holden Colorado don’t have.

The cruise control is on a stalk behind the steering wheel, it was really simple to use and the accuracy was good. There is no digital display at all for the speed in the HiLux so you have to solely use the speedo which felt quite old school!

There are two slim central air-conditioning vents in the front of the HiLux and a larger vent at either end of the dashboard.

There are also two vents for people in the rear seats, that I could reach and control while driving.

However, I didn't find the air conditioning very effective! The temperature seemed a little out, so when I wanted to cool the cab I found it best to set it a couple of degrees less than I normally would and the same to warm the cab a couple of degrees higher than I’d expect. But the controls were simple and easy to use and reach.

The windows in the HiLux I drove were tinted but I found I had to add window shades to the window next to my little girl as the sun was really strong through them. The back windscreen was especially bad for rear-facing passengers as it was flat but I couldn’t get a shade to stick there.

Visibility out of the back windscreen for the driver is terrible, especially with the child seats installed. Using the rear-view mirror I could see the sky but no road at all! I had the same problem with the side windows, which I found made changing lanes on the motorway very difficult. Blind spot warning would have been very welcome in the HiLux!

You also have to really rely on the reversing camera when manoeuvring and parking as you can not see below head height out of the back at all. This made it difficult to trust judgement through the camera alone as I like to be able to double check with my own eyes too.

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!!

The HiLux has quite an old-school feel; it has no parking sensors, but I admit I thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet! Visibility was very poor and I found parking front-in much easier than reverse parking with the camera as my guide, and even then sensors wouldn’t have helped because they probably would have just made the situation more stressful by waking my child!!

When the sun wasn’t in her eyes, Tulsi had a good view out of the windows.

There is only a vanity mirror for the front passenger and there is no light. There are two interior lights in the front that can be pressed on and off or you can set them to come on with the doors. They are positioned with the single glasses holder.

The rear light is well-positioned for the driver to reach from the front as it is located in the ceiling between the two front seats. However, I needed to turn the light on when I was putting Tulsi into her child seat and it was really difficult to reach from the back doors, especially when you have child seats installed. This has added a new item to my wishlist for my ultimate BabyDrive, interior lights also above the back door handles! A car I drove recently did have those in and they were a great feature.

I have found Tulsi does not like travelling in the dark in the car so if it gets dark whilst travelling then I reach back and turn the interior light on for her. So it’s really important for me that I can reach the rear ceiling light.
Also if I am traveling home and it is getting near to bed time and I DEFINITELY DON’T want her to fall asleep in the car as even a 5minute nap in the car means bed time is all over!!!! I lean back and pop the light on so it’s not dark and try to keep her awake!! Along with screaming/singing at the top of my voice!!!
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.

The HiLux is much better to drive around town than out on the motorway. On the motorway it is noisy and you can really feel all the lumps and joins in the road through the suspension.

Visibility when parking is poor, especially reverse parking, as you have to rely mainly on the camera. Which luckily comes as standard in all models, although in the Rogue I drove it was very dim and weirdly blue tinged making it hard to see properly.

There are handles above every door in the HiLux and handles on the door pillars to help you climb up into the vehicle.
There are hooks in the back of the front seats for securing bags to and there are two hooks in the back above the headrests where you could hang a couple of baby toys for rear-facing babies to look at.

There are two 12V sockets in the central dashboard below the air-conditioning controls and there is a 220V three-prong plug socket in the central console box. There are no sockets in the tray or in the back of the cab.

The interior of the HiLux is simple and has pleasant general aesthetics. It is a medley of black plastic and leather in the Rogue edition, that would all wipe clean.
The floor mats throughout the cab of the HiLux Rogue were carpet, unfortunately! Rubber would wash clean much easier!

There is keyless entry to the cab of the HiLux, which always makes life easier when you have arms full of children and their stuff! I did find opening the tailgate was a two-handed job though, which was definitely not practical with arms full of baby and bags!

The whole Toyota HiLux range comes with a five-star ANCAP safety rating and seven airbags as standard, including a drivers knee airbag, driver and front passenger front and side airbags and curtain airbags for the front and rear side passengers.

The HiLux doesn’t have all the usual array of beeping sensors and whistles (that drive me crazy!!) but it does have important safety features working away in the background. Anti-lock braking system (ABS), brake assist (BA),  electronic brake-force distribution (EBD), traction control (TRC) and electronic stability control (ESC). All help you to stop more quickly and safely, help prevent skidding and loss of control on slippery surfaces. Also, trailer sway control to help you stay straight when you are pulling a trailer.

There was nothing that felt unsafe about driving the HiLux, although it is top heavy so being more careful around corners was important.

My main concern was the top tether anchor point baring the load of the two child seats and not knowing the effect of being tethered from that side angle would have in a crash. Also, how the metal prong of the headrest would cope under that weight and force.

We had a HiLux test car when we came to bring our daughter home from the hospital after she was born and we couldn’t use it because I couldn’t step up into it after having a caesarean. I am glad now as I wouldn’t have wanted my newborn to be in a car seat using that top tether system.

It made a refreshing change to not have the cacophony of beeps and alarms I am usually having to listen to and I definitely felt much calmer driving without it all. I felt I could actually get on with driving and concentrate more, rather than looking at or responding to a screen or alarm.