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By
EWAN KENNEDY
7 January 2008
Toyota's new Aurion has done well for itself in the sales
race. Only a little over 12 months on the new-car scene has seen it rise
to around 2000 sales per month. Sold only with a V6 engine, the Aurion
is considerably less conservative in appearance than its twin brother,
the Camry four-cylinder.
Aurion is built in Melbourne and has quite a few changes to
alter its appearance and on-road dynamics from the
Japanese/American original. Thus making it a real driver’s car
in the way that Aussies like them.
Aurion has good interior space, an important feature in the
Australian family-car market. The front seats are well-shaped and
provide good support.
There's good rear-seat legroom, though the back seat can’t
really transport three large adults without them rubbing against
one another. Three children up to their mid teens will be fine.
Though the seats are set relatively high to maximise legroom, the
headroom within Aurion is good in all seating positions.
Oddments stowage spaces are plentiful, with a good sized centre
console that can swallow a lot of bulky stuff. However, the door
pockets are relatively slim and may not be able to cope with
bulging wallets, let alone slim handbags.
Toyota Aurion's boot is well shaped and can carry a lot of
gear, partly because the car is a front-wheel drive so there's no
space consuming differential underneath. The stubby tail means the
boot opening will limit the size of boxy items so have a good look
as part of your pre-purchase inspection to make sure it suits your
needs.
Toyota Australian engineers, working with their Japanese
counterparts, have refined the Aurion's ‘chassis’ following a
lot of local testing on rough country roads. Ride comfort is good,
though some surfaces can catch it out at times, resulting in a
slightly jittery ride.
Handling is precise and predictable in virtually all
circumstances. Slight understeer comes in as the limits are
approached to wash off speed and bring the car back onto line
again. The transition from one bend to another is coped with in a
competent manner, even if you’re taken by surprise by a corner
that suddenly tightens. ESP is there to assist should the driver
do something silly.
Toyota Aurion is driven by a 3.5-litre, twin-cam, V6 engine
with good power and torque. While the top torque comes in too high
in the rev range, there's good pulling power from relatively low
revs so the on-paper numbers don’t tell the real-world story.
Having said that, few drivers will ever have the engine revving at
the 4700 rpm needed to generate the peak torque so that number is
somewhat academic.
Aurion's engine is smooth, strong and nicely responsive. Using
a six-speed automatic in all variants gives it a marketing edge
over Ford and Holden, the former only offering six ratios in more
expensive models, and the latter not having one at all at this
stage.
The Toyota transmission is a real beauty, gear changes are
barely noticeable and it seems to be in the right ratio pretty
well all the time. There's a tiptronic-type setup to give
semi-manual changes.
On the road, most Aurion drivers are likely to use ten to
eleven litres per hundred kilometres in suburban and city running.
This will typically drop to eight to nine litres on motorways and
moderately paced country driving.
All-in-all a highly competent car that’s making a name for
itself in the Australian large car scheme of things. Sales numbers
are still a fair way behind those of the new Commodore and aging
Falcon, but are much higher than those for the failed Avalon that
was replaced by the Aurion late in 2006.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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