Toyota Venza, We Hardly Knew Ye: It’ll Be Replaced by Crown Signia
Toyota Venza is in its last year on the market, to be replaced by the 2025 Crown Signia.
Venza sales last year were at just under 30,000, while sales of the just-slightly-larger RAV4 were over 400,000, one of the best-selling crossovers made.
Venza prices start at just over $36,000. Our loaded Limited was $46,169.
I have always been a fan of odd-sized family haulers ever since I first laid eyes on an original Fiat Multipla. That first of family microvans was built in Italy from 1956 to 1967, as Italy was still recovering from lost industrial production after WWII. The Multipla had a convertible interior that would fold flat for cargo then flip up for passengers. And it was cute!
My love lasted until I actually drove one and found it couldn’t produce a 0-60 mph time because it couldn’t get to 60, ever.
Other weird-sized practical people movers followed. When I lived in Germany I got a Subaru microvan as a press car and took it on the autobahn. It was terrifying yet highly efficient at the same time.
More practical microvan lust—but not purchase—came after that: the Nissan Axxess, Mitsubishi Expo LRV, Opel Zafira, Mazda5, the Ford C-Max. I found myself telling executives, “This is what the people want,” even though none of them sold particularly well.
I spent an entire F1 weekend in the ‘80s living in a field outside the Austrian GP in a Mitsubishi Space Wagon. All the seats folded flat to make a very comfortable bed. A few years ago I was in Germany and got a Mazda5 diesel with manual transmission for two weeks and was in love.
All of which explains why, when scanning the list of press loan options for a trip to Seattle, I saw the Toyota Venza and figured I had to give it a try.
The Venza started life in 2009 as a space-filler between the Camry sedan and the Highlander SUV. That one lasted until 2015 before Toyota threw in the towel because sales had fallen by more than half to 21,351, only to bring it back in 2021 on the new TNGA-K platform with a strut front and multilink rear suspension.
Unfortunately, death comes again for the Venza at the end of this model year as Toyota’s going to pull the plug once more to replace it with the 2025 Crown Signia crossover. Venza was going away and I would never have driven it, so I signed up for one.
Mine was the classy Venza Limited, which has a 12.3-inch Multi-Information Display, a 10-inch head-up display, and a nine-speaker JBL audio system.
Underhood is a 2.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid with two electric motors sending torque to a CVT and from thence to Toyota’s electronic on-demand all-wheel drive.
Normally a CVT eats up all the fun in any drivetrain, but I found this one worked quite well “downshifting” down steep mountain roads, assisting the Electronically Controlled Brake system with integrated regenerative braking and the 12.0-inch power-assisted ventilated front discs and the 11.1-inch solid rears.
The rest of the time, unless you were really hammering on it, you couldn’t feel the lag that tends to hinder CVTs. It even had four drive modes: EV (for all-electric propulsion), Eco, Normal, and Sport. I couldn’t feel a lot of difference in Sport.
Inside it holds five passengers in its 98.3 cubic feet of passenger volume, and 55.1 cubic feet of SAE Cargo Volume (w/ the rear seats down). Actually, ours had the somewhat odd Star Gaze Fixed Pano Roof, which ate into that volume a little.
By pressing a button, you can change the opacity of the Star Gaze Fixed Pano Roof to dim the glare of the sun. It will still filter white light into the cabin, but not as much. I’m not really a fan of sunroofs, even high-tech units like this.
I put about 500 miles on the Venza over the course of a week and got 31.1 mpg. That number might have gone up with more city driving. It was still less than the 40/37/39 the EPA says you’ll get. I wasn’t driving very fast, but there were a lot of winding mountain roads. Your mileage will vary.
Should you get a Venza for your family? There is a sea of vehicles like this one, though most try a little more to look like rugged SUVs. Instead, the Venza, along with the Crown Signia that will soon replace it, are geared for urban and suburban customers.
The Venza leans a little more toward the luxury side of midsize crossovers. But really, there are so many different choices out there. Maybe go with the Fiat Multipla from 1956.
