This week I say goodbye to something that has been with me for over half my life. My 2001 Toyota Rav4 Edge 3-Door.
First purchased in November 2001 for $24,000 AUD ex-fleet and with around 40k kilometres already on the odometer, we are now 25 years older and have just a touch over 239k kilometres on the odometer.
I was at university when I first obtained the Rav, replacing a 1970 VW Superbug. In those first couple of weeks of ownership, just after uni exams, myself and a couple of friends would regularly go out in the car each night, go get a cheap meal, and just hang out and chat while driving around.
I did my first Wifi wardriving in the Rav, when 802.11b wifi was new. My friends and I had Enterasys Roamabout PCMCIA cards plugged into laptops with an aluminium waveguide antenna attached, often running Kismac on a Mac or Kismet on Linux. It was how we discovered the StarNet wifi network, and met some amateur radio operators that I am still friends with today.
We used to go out providing communications support for rallies, and I am proud to have been involved with both the Subaru Southern Safari and Targa Tasmania for a number of years, travelling around the state, even though by the end of the event week I may have been just a bit over the 3.3am morning starts and getting soaked while setting up the repeater equipment.
Being an AWD vehicle, I wasn’t afraid of going off the sealed surfaces, and one of my favourite travelling areas was the southern forests roads south of Huonville. I’ve watched those trails go from being challenging, rutted trails used by fishermen and campers to being carefully maintained four-lane gravel roads as the Southwood processing mill came online (and destroyed a family campsite, but that’s another story).
From 2011, I have been entering fuel data into an app called Roadtrip, and it provides these statistics:
Between 2011-12-30 and 2026-06-24:
- 109,512km Driven
- $17,500.73 AUD in fuel purchased, averaging $3.31/day
- Cheapest fuel was $1.18/L AUD, Most Expensive $2.72/L AUD
- Overall, Averaging 7560km/year, though earlier on I was averaging over 10,000km per year, and in the last few years averaging around 3000km per year
- Averaged 9.87 L/100km in fuel, with that average number starting to increase in the past two years
We’ve had a great run together, but after 25 years I am facing a number of expensive servicing needs:
- Clutch is worn and needs replacing
- Timing chain is reaching the end of life
- Rocker cover gasket needs replacing
- Tyres need replacing
- Wheel Bearings need replacing
- Rubber seals around windows need replacing
- Paintwork has deteriorated
- Battery needs replacing.
With repairs quoted at prices upwards of $8000 AUD, and with the Rav worth a fraction of and an increasing risk of more failures in the future, I knew it was the end of the road for my Rav4 ownership.
This week will see me dropping off the RAV and picking up a new Kia EV3. It will be the first time I have owned a “new new” car, and having access to a novated lease through my employer allowed for some compelling tax breaks. With the current geopolitical unrest affecting petrol prices, it also seems a good time to switch to electric.
The Rav has been a fantastic car to me and has been extremely reliable in my 25 years, with the only failure I have ever experienced being a radiator leak. I would have gone for a Rav4 again, if it weren’t for the fact that the only PHEV model is almost double the price of the EV3.
As one journey ends and a new one begins.
Thanks Rav 🙂