2016 Toyota Fortuner Interior

The front doors open in a three stage fashion. While there is a side step provided which is fairly wide, getting in and out is not really a piece of cake. However, Toyota has provided grab handles on the A pillars which are helpful in getting inside. Another trick is to hold the steering wheel to pull yourself in.The cabin of the new Fortuner is extremely refreshing after the dated looking interiors of the previous gen model.  Our test car’s interiors featured a black and brown combo which we liked. There’s a very airy feel to the cabin and everything feels very well put together. The dashboard has soft touch leather at places while the centre console has aluminium inserts finished in silver while there are piano black surfaces at other places. The buttons are switches are of good quality and will surely be able to take a lot of abuse. On the other hand, some hard plastics don’t feel up to the mark like the lower glovebox and the cup holders on either side of the dash. The stitching all around has a neat finish to it. The leather wrapped steering feels grippy to hold and also gets thumb contours. The steering gets wooden trim on the top half and silver spokes on the bottom. Steering buttons are of good quality and the silver paddle shifters are nice too. The cruise control stalk is on the bottom right of the steering. Our fellow team member mentioned that this looks exactly the same as the one in a Camry of 2000 vintage that he drove in the United States. Guess some things at Toyota never change. The instrument cluster is easy to read with the tachometer with temperature gauge on the left and speedometer and fuel gauge on the right. The blue needles look classy and the MID is located in the centre between two vertical blue lines. The MID itself shows a whole lot of information including a unique ‘Eco Score’ that rates how you economically you drive giving scores out of 100.  There are two gloveboxes provided. The upper one gets the cooling feature, ideal to stow soft drink cans or chocolates. The foot well is spacious and there is an XL sized dead pedal as well. The Fortuner shockingly doesn’t get a sunroof and we are surprised as to how Toyota could give it a miss at this price point.

There is a 7 inch colour touch screen provided for the infotainment system and it is very easy to use. The buttons on either side use blue back lighting that adds a nice touch. The fonts on the touch buttons are large and pleasing to the eyes. The system is responsive but there is a slight lag at times. The screen also shows a host of information like distance to empty, trip info, real time fuel efficiency etc. You can also set the touch sensitivity level for the screen and also choose a custom start up image. Navigation is good too and pretty accurate and comes with support for Indian languages. The Fortuner comes with a 6 speaker sound system that includes two tweeters. The tweeters are mounted on the door in the inner side panel of the rear view mirror. There is no AppleCar Play or Android Auto. Toyota should have included this considering it is slowly becoming the norm across cars from various segments. The system gets USB, Bluetooth connectivity and a DVD player. Sound quality is decent but that’s about it. It really won’t satisfy the hardcore audiophiles.The in cabin lights are white LEDs and add a nice touch. There is a sunglasses holder as well. The Fortuner gets automatic climate control with a separate unit for the rear occupants. The rear AC can be operated individually and comes with 7 blower settings.  The AC cooled the cabin on a hot summer day in Mumbai.

The front seats in the new Fortuner are large and fairly wide. They are good to accommodate various body frames. The driver’s seat gets eight way electric adjust but adjust for lumbar support is missing. The range for height adjust is very good and will make short drivers feel right at home. The seat base can be tilted as well for better under thigh support. The front passenger gets manual adjust for the seat and also misses out on height adjust.

The rear seats are large and can accommodate three passengers comfortably. Legroom is adequate but under thigh support could be less for tall occupants. An average sized person will have no complaints. Head room is good too. The seat belt for the passenger sitting in the middle is mounted on the roof. The backrest of the seats can be reclined fully for extra comfort. The seats come with two levers. While one is used to adjust the back rest, the other one is used to flip the seat forward for access to the third row. The rear central arm rest gets two cup holders.Flip the rear seats forward to get into the third row. While there is enough space to get in, it is still a bit of a task. The third row is best to seat kids or medium sized adults. Tall people will find it uncomfortable. The good thing is that the backrests of the third row seats can be reclined as well.  The third row gets a power outlet too, convenient to charge cell phones on the go.The Fortuner comes with a powered tail gate that can be opened or closed via a button on the smart key. It also gets a memory function that lets you decide the maximum up position of the tail gate when you open it. There is decent amount of boot space even with all rows of seats up. Fold down the third and middle row and you get enough space to move your house around.

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