Toyota HiAce LWB 2019 Review

The new Toyota HiAce for 2019 has been released in nine variants with six of those being offered in turbo-diesel form. However, if your preference is for petrol power there are only three to choose from: the LWB manual, LWB auto and SLWB auto.

So the focus of this review is the only petrol manual in the range, the Toyota HiAce LWB Van petrol manual – and it’s also the least expensive of the bunch with a list price of $38,640.

The V6 engine replaces the tired and asthmatic four-cylinder that used to power the HiAce. However, the new petrol engine features Toyota’s latest technology including dual variable valve timing (VVT-iW), double overhead cams and D-4S direct and port fuel injection.

The six-cylinder petrol engine provides a huge increase in power and torque compared to the previous model’s four with power boosted by 89kW to 207kW at 6000rpm. Peak torque jumps by 108Nm to 351Nm at 4600rpm.

In manual LWB models, the combined cycle fuel consumption is quoted at 12.4l/100km with CO2 emissions of 283g/km. That fuel figure was pretty much what we got in combined city/freeway driving but it dropped significantly on purely freeway runs.

With this model, Toyota has fitted its Toyota Safety Sense package across the range. The package includes some really modern tech including a pre-collision safety system (PCS) with pedestrian detection (day and night) and cyclist detection (day only), lane departure alert, road sign assist (certain speed signs only), and automatic high beam.

The PCS uses a camera and the vehicle’s radar and is designed to detect vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. If it does detect something, it will trigger visual and audible warnings and kick in the autonomous emergency braking if the driver ignores the warnings.

The lane departure will alert the driver if the vehicle leaves its lane without indicating. It will also use the brakes to bring the vehicle back into the lane. Personally, I found it to be too intrusive and tended to come on when the vehicle ‘thought’ I was leaving my lane even though I wasn’t.

The road sign assist I found handy and a couple of times I was told by the vehicle to obey the road rules – clearly she thought I was over exceeding the prescribed speed limit.

I didn’t get to use the auto-dimming high beam, but I’m sure that’s handy too.

I used the HiAce as a commuter and a weekend runaround and found it to be powerful and comfortable. The gear stick pokes out of the dash and is well placed, close to the driver and about a hand span from the wheel.

Getting in and out of the cab is easy with a wide step and a handy grab handle on the A pillar. The seat is pretty good and not a problem to sit in for a couple of hours straight. But there’s no arm rest on the left-hand side of the driver’s seat and I found that a real pain. If I was using one of these vehicles for work on a day-to-day basis, I’d have one fitted.

And while we’re whingeing, I found the audio system with its two puny speakers to be under-spec for a $38k vehicle. It sounds tinny and has no tone – and you have to turn it up at highway speeds to counteract the road noise.

On the plus side, the gearing is great and gear change positive. Fourth is 1:1 and makes for really good round-town top gear while fifth and sixth are tall freeway gears that have the HiAce cruising at 100km/h at just under 2000rpm. The gears are all well spaced with no apparent ‘holes’ in the ratios. That said, if you’re unladen, you can easily take off in second and skip-change up and down at will.

The MacPherson strut front/leaf-spring rear suspension although old-fashioned, is great. It’s obvious that Toyota has done a lot of work since the last model both in terms of load hauling and comfort.

We loaded up the HiAce with our usual 650kg and the van loved it. I took the van for a good long run with the load in and it soaked up whatever I threw at it. Semi-rural roads, city driving in stop-start traffic, freeway driving, even speed bumps where in the mix.

Over that time, we found that we had plenty of suspension travel left and we never hit the bump-stops. The HiAce was comfortable whether we had the load in or not. Was it more comfortable with the load in? Maybe.

The engine/gearbox combo handled the load admirably and I thought we were up and down the ‘box a bit more, but neither hills nor traffic fazed it.

Obviously, fuel economy increased with the added load and I managed an average of 15.6 litres/100kms with the load on. It dropped down on the freeway sections and raised on the traffic sections to around 17 which is pretty high for a medium van, but not out of control considering we were carrying 650kg and a full tank of fuel.

The twin sliding doors made loading and unloading a breeze and as we found in our recent medium van comparo, the HiAce has the largest rear door in the business. Tie-down points are plentiful but I found them to be a bit light for securing heavy loads like our two 325kg weights.

The HiAce petrol manual tips the scales at 2135kg and has a claimed payload of 1080kg for a GVM of 3215kg and there’s a useful 6.2 cubic metres of volume in the cargo area.

We didn’t get to tow with the HiAce manual petrol like colleague Matt Brogan did with the diesel version, but from what I learned lugging a load around town, I reckon it’d be well suited to towing. This model has a recommended maximum tow weight of only 1400kg and I reckon it could stand all of that if the clutch is up to it.

The 2019 HiAce LWB petrol in manual form is a far cry from the old cab-over HiAces.

Admittedly, the jury is still out on the slab-sided styling of the front-end, but they’ve done a good job shoe-horning the V6 into the little engine bay.

I was impressed by the smoothness of the engine and the gearbox. The suspension works extremely well and the brakes (even though this model gets rear drums) are powerful with good feel and work well with or without a load.

Although the HiAce didn’t win our recent van comparison which was done with diesel vehicles, if you’re looking for a petrol manual van, this one is hard to go past.

How much does the 2019 Toyota HiAce LWB Petrol Manual cost?
Price: $38,640 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.5-litre DOHC V6 petrol
Output: 207kW/351Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 12.4L/100km (ADR Combined); 12.3L/100km (as tested)
CO2: 283g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP (2019)