Car Tech Blog
2021 Toyota Venza Limited
Enjoy watching our vids on this beautiful 2021 Toyota Venza Limited by clicking on the links below, or click on the link to our Youtube channel Two Guys And A Ride, and enjoy all our videos!
Toyota Venza or CRV Hybrid? I'm not saying!
2021 Toyota Venza Limited - Full Review
2021 Toyota Venza Limited- POV
2021 Toyota Venza Limited - Walk Around
2021 Toyota Venza Limited - How To - Drivers Information Screen plus Infotainment System
This past week I had the opportunity to drive the 2021 Toyota Venza Limited for the week. The handling was good, the steering responsive, and the throttle, well, pretty good for an SUV Hybrid. The interior fit and finish was excellent and other than the nose of the SUV, quite striking on the outside. I’m not a fan of the nose, I like the more squared off look rather than the huge curve it has. The seats were very comfortable and were heated and ventilated and had 12 way power on the drivers side and 8 way power on the front passengers side.
Drivers Information Screen (DIS)
The DIS had an analog tach and engine temp gauge on the left, an analog Speedometer and fuel gauge on the right with a 7” digital information screen in the middle. In that screen, the top 3/4 of an inch was dedicated to dummy lights, safety systems including LKA (Lane Keeping Assist) and LDA (Lane Departure Assist) as well as your adaptive cruise control. The bottom 3/4 of an inch of the screen showed the outside temp, your current gear selection and a clock.
The middle portion of the screen housed all the rest of the information which was controlled by 6 buttons on the left side of the steering wheel. I know that sounds like a lot however 4 of those buttons were curser arrows all on one button together, so really like 3 buttons. I like how Toyota lays this out in the dash with the main categories showing up always (they do not disappear like they do on some cars) on the left, and if there was multiple pages of info to be seen, Toyota put in dots, each representing another page of info that could be accessed using the left/right cursers arrows. TO toggle through the main categories was simply a much of the up/down cursers, so super simple and intuitive to operate. It would show Turn-by-Turn directions, as well as a larger picture of your safety systems, and multiple pages of vehicle info such as mpg, current and total or per tank, a power distribution graphic for seeing where power was coming from, the engine or battery or both. You could tell if the battery was being charged or expending energy. But everything was easy to access and change, if change was possible.
It also had a very nice HUD (Heads Up Display) which looked to be about 7-8” in size. You had controls to adjust the height, and angle of the display as well as what information showed up in the HUD. My only disappointment with the HUD was that it would not display Media info when playing via bluetooth, but did for every other type of Media. One thing that I was really pleased to see was the ability to adjust the HUD’s pitch or angle. Not all HUD’s include that. I think that GMC probably has the best HUD display I’ve ever seen as it is not only huge (15”) but has every control I’ve ever seen a HUD have plus a few more (for instance in the GMC HUD, you can also move the HUD picture left or right). The reason I like that, is because not everyone sites
straight in their seat, some sit at an angle. Well, if you sit at an angle, but you can’t adjust the angle of the HUD, it looks crooked, so super pleased to see Toyota included that adjustability on the Venza’s HUD.
Infotainment System
The screen itself is a large 12.3” and has Apple Car Play, Android Auto, Bluetooth, AM, FM and HD Radio, Sirius XM, Navigation and ability to hook to your Alexa. The layout is unique to Toyota in that there is a portion of the screen you can make flip sides (driver or passenger) so it is easier to reach, which I think was a nice nod to the passenger or the driver who is focus on the road and does not want to have to look over to change something. The other portion of the screen was customizable in terms of how many items showed up in it and what those specific items were. This way the driver can set it up with the things they most frequently use.
Since I had a week with the car, I took the time to download and set up the Toyota App which allowed me to remote start/stop, lock and unlock the car, plus a host of other features which I did not explore much. The thing that caught my attention though, was the fact that although it comes with about 3 months worth of free usage, after that you have to pay. And what Toyota has done, is charge per feature on the app. So for instance, if after 3 months I wanted to keep the remote start feature (as obviously I can lock and unlock from the key fob), it would cost me $8 a month, and then if I wanted to keep say the “Find Parking” portion, that too would be an additional $8 per month. Its not that it bothers me so much that they charge per month, it’s that they did not put the remote start button right on the Keyfob, that way it would cost you nothing as long as you owned it.
I liked it that all the extra settings you can customize were located under one icon called settings under the Menu button. So no hunting through various apps to find the thing you need to change, everything was under that “settings” so again, quite easy to find, navigate through, and change if desired.
The sound system itself was a 9 speaker Bose audio system and if you ask me it was perfect. It had a great sound overall, no matter what Media source was playing, without being to fancy (21 speakers, surround sound etc...)
So overall I really liked this SUV, and after having driving many vehicles lately whose buttons are all soft touch (meaning there really is no button, you just touch where the icon is) this had all physical buttons, and guess what, they work in any temperature, cold or hot, and they work with gloves on!
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