2026 Toyota RAV4 LE vs XLE Premium: I Compare & You Decide!

LE or XLE premium? We're comparing two trim levels of the 2026 rav4 that people will surely be wanting to compare. Meet the LE, it's in meteor shower color. And meet the XLE premium, it's also in meteor shower color. We're going to compare everything about these two, including outside features, inside features, pricing, powertrain options, so that you can make the best choice for you and your family. Which one's the best value for your money? Which one's available in front-wheel drive, all-wheel drive? Are they both only available in hybrid, or is one a plug-in hybrid? Hmm, the answer's no. We've got LE, XLE premium, limited. Then you can pick the woodland, and then the SE, the XSE, and the GR sport. Lastfit floor liners, you can now pre-order liners for the floor and for the cargo area in your 2026 rav4. Lastfit provides full coverage, every corner, every seam is ensured a tight fit because of 3D scanning technology. We look at the cargo mat, they're safe for kids, for pets, and sensitive groups. They're made out of 100% eco-friendly TPE materials, so they're non-toxic. These are excellent. These grooves right here in the tall walls, they trap in those things that might annoy you and get your vehicle dirty. I put a factory OEM mat here on top, more coverage on the bottom, that's Lastfit, all the way up to the top, so choose more coverage, better protection. Find the product link and my discount code in the description section. We're going to do a first look on the LE. Notice the seating materials. There might be features that are missing on the LE that you'll find in the XLE premium. Maybe they'll both have them, maybe they'll both be missing. We're about to find that out. And this is our friend XLE premium. Notice that the seating material has changed. Did it go up or did it go down? That's up to your personal opinions on if you like cloth interior, fabric interior, or if you like something like a synthetic leather. Very interesting. I can't wait to tell these apart. These are both only available in hybrid. They're not available in the plug-in hybrid, the PHEV, but you do get the choice between front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive. Both of these are all-wheel drive. If you get front-wheel drive and if you get all-wheel drive, you're going to have a 2.5 liter four-cylinder engine. If you get front-wheel drive, that'll be two electric motors. All-wheel drive, three electric motors. Front-wheel drive, 226 horsepower. All-wheel drive, 236 horsepower. This is going to be electronically controlled, continuous variable transmission, so an ECVT. And then if you get the all-wheel drive, that'll be electronic on-demand all-wheel drive. Fuel facts, it's starting to rain. It's raining, Jeff. Hallelujah, it's raining, Jeff. If you get the LE all-wheel drive, that's going to be 46 in the city, 39 on the highway, 42 combined. It goes down just a little bit for XLE Premium. That is going to be 45 in the city, 38 on the highway, 41 combined. Either way, it's better than last generation, which is pretty fantastic. They both have four-wheel disc brakes and multi-link rear suspension. Let's compare the front ends now. This right here is going to be the LE. We're going to see color-coded honeycomb grille. Has matte black here. The LED headlights sweep around. And then matte black right here. It has Toyota Safety Sense 4.0. And then when we come over to here, this one's going to have front parking sensors, rear parking sensors in the back. We'll see those. Don't worry, it's got the matte black there. That's going to be about the main difference. That's how you tell them apart from the front. Toyota Safety Sense 4.0. This one has the optional windblown leaf package. So we're going to see this one. And what they do is Toyota scatters it all the way around the vehicle. And that's a way to get just kind of a different look. You can have that for really all seasons. It's an extra $752 for those leaves. When we're comparing the side profiles, the things that I would look for are the wheels. And then I would look for the turn signal indicators. Those would be things that we want to see. So let's start with the wheels. The LE is going to have 17-inch gray wheels. Nice thick five pattern. Call it the old five pattern, the five spoke pattern. This one is multi-spoke and it's 18 inches. So instead of 17, it goes up to 18 inches on the XLE Premium. Notice how this one has right here, it's got gloss black on the side mirrors, turn signal indicator, blind spot monitor, gloss black, no standard moonroof. And then we come over to the LE and we're going to see matte black on the side mirrors. It's not going to have the turn signal indicator. But it will have the blind spot monitor right there. This is gloss black as well. And it's got no moonroof as you would expect. So I see matte black around the fenders. And then I see a little bit of gloss right there. And it comes out to a point right here with the color keyed. And then this changes to that. LE has auto lock and unlock on the front doors. Really cool lines on this one. It just kind of, I think that's neat. So we're going to come over here to the XLE Premium. Again, we're not going to see much difference, but it's worth pointing out that this one has mudguards added to it. That's an option. So you can get that at the port level. You can get that at the dealership level. It just really depends on what you're looking for here. Got the color keyed spoiler, just like this. What do you think? Who has the better side profile? Another difference is the LE does not have heated side view mirrors, but the XLE Premium does have heated side view mirrors. You might not be able to tell these apart except for one says LE and one says XLE. It doesn't say XLE Premium. Notice that. So LE detail lights right here. Very cool wrapping around. RAV4 in chrome. Small black Toyota badge. LE in the house. There's the backup camera and you lift the gate like that. It's not a power gate. Tells you if it's all wheel drive. If it's front wheel drive, it'll just say no front wheel drive. Notice how this one does not have parking sensors, but it looks really, really good. This one over here does have the backup sensors. See those right here? They're kind of hidden in. This one has the backup camera, the same badging, the same taillights. XLE. Excellent. Now look at a difference here. LE right here. This one does not have controls for power lift gate. You do have the handles on either side. That's great. This one over here, XLE Premium, this is how you can tell. Plus it would operate by power, but this one has the close and open and then this is the close and lock. So power lift gate or no power lift gate. Does that mean anything to you? Now we'll look at the cargo areas. They're the same with the seats up. It's going to be 37.8. That's a little bit more than last time, which was 37.5. You'll find that it has storage room there, 12 volt circular, a light, tie down, tie down. Those are all things nice to see. And it has top tethers, three of them for child safety seats. Lock in our tonneau cover. Oh, I didn't do that very good with one hand, did I? There we go. So we got the tonneau cover hiding our things. I'm going to be using this in Florida. The tonneau cover, when I go this week, I want to hide my stuff. So it does have a spare tire on the LE and then you can put the tonneau cover under here all the way across, fitting in here. If you want the XLE Premium, this one here is going to be about the same, but it's going to have the seats down. In this case, 70.4 cubic feet of space, which is a little bit more than 69.8 that it had in the 2025 or the previous generation. Still has the tie downs, the top tethers. We'll look at child safety seats and find out how those operate. It's still got the light, the 12 volt circular, the storage, and it definitely has a spare tire. Let's start our interior tour with the LE. Go to the driver's side. This is not soft touch. This is not soft touch. This little panel here is, and then it does not have power side mirrors. It has a big bottle opening right here and a long place to put a map, maybe. It does not have a power driver's seat. We'll see that's different on the XLE Premium, and it does have the pump that can raise and lower your seat, which I think is really cool. These seats, by the way, are very comfortable. See that? Quite nice. Nice bolstering. I like the pattern. It's not a boring interior at all, even though it's the base entry level. Does not have a heated steering wheel. Does not have a leather-wrapped steering wheel. There's the horn. Controls are real easy to figure out here. Has a 12.3 inch screen across. We can open these up this way, that way, or you can open them both up by pushing this button and this button at the same time, and you would get a nice hard surface. Does not have any drive modes down here. I'll show you where those are. Electronic parking brake, brake hold, cup holders right here. Does not have wireless charging, but it has a place for two different phones, so that's nice. It's not grippy surface. This is a little bit, well, still slippery, but it has some texture to it. Has three USB-C's. This is the side right here where you can store things if you're the co-pilot. Wallet, phone, keys. So USB-C, USB-C, and then we'll see another USB-C there. We're going to see more in the XLE Premium. So the drive modes can be things like eco mode, sport mode, custom mode, trail and snow, normal. 10.5 inch screen right here. So what we can do is go through information on the LE right here. Going across, you can set up your settings. Get rid of that, and then we'll click on settings, vehicle settings. You can make adjustments to a few things right here. Most of the safety settings you can set up in the multimedia screen, but we can go through some information right here as well, which is really cool. It has the adaptive cruise, the lane centering, and then you can change the distance between you and cars in front of you that I'm showing over here on the right panel right now. On this screen here, it has the new ARENE software. Hey, I'm stepping into the twilight zone. So we can adjust our climate right here. I'll show you some more things that you can do on the XLE Premium. I just don't want to steal its thunder. Just like this, up, down, and these are some commonly used apps. We'll look at that a little bit more, but that's for temperature up, temperature down. Same thing over here. It does not have an auto-dimming rearview mirror, does not have heated seats, does not have soft tech seats. A little spoiler alert for our friend XLE Premium, like that and like that. And then this one does not have the slider function and it covers that much. The visibility is very good in this particular vehicle. Let's check out XLE Premium front row. Get a premium front row seat. So this is not soft touch. This is soft touch in the XLE Premium. Oh, see, that's the upgrade. And that's why I showed you the LE panel, because I knew it would be different. I know some things. I can't tell you it all at once. All at once, I'm drifting on a lonely sea, wishing you come back to me. Anybody know who sings that one? This one goes really quick. It's an eight-way power adjustable seat, two-way lumbar support. So that's a huge upgrade on the XLE Premium. You'll also have the ability to have soft tech seats, heated seats as well. So those are all things. These seats are very comfortable, by the way. All things that you might look forward to. It has a leather-wrapped steering wheel. Here's the horn. Oh, excellent. I love it. This one has the same ability to move that and then park, hold. And it has the wireless charger right here. Whoa, that's different. This one has five USB-C's. Five times, Mrs. Buehler. Five times. I know it's nine times, but I had to make something that worked. Still got the tray. It's got the screen right here, the 10.5-inch screen. And this screen right here, like I said, you just go through and scroll and scroll. And then when you get a piece of information that you think you might want to see and change, well, then you do like Michael says. You make that change. Gonna make that change. Come on. Drive modes. Got eco, sport, custom. And I will show, even though it's on the LE also over here, trail mode and snow mode. That's trail mode and that's snow mode. Excellent. Eco in the house. And temperature up, temperature down. Scroll through. Isn't it nice to have the ability to adjust your temperature with the physical buttons here. You can just slide it like this. That's super simple, you guys. It's super easy. Heated seats are right there. If it had cooled seats, that one just came on. If it had cooled seats, you push the heated seat icon right here and it would open up for cooled seats, for heated steering wheel, maybe. I can make climate options customized just like that. Make your adjustments. Very cool stuff. Hey, Toyota, change my driver temperature to 75. Now we'll come over to this side. Hey, Toyota, adjust my temperature to 65. Okay, setting to 65. Isn't that cool? So it can tell whether you have the passenger making that command and it makes the adjustment there or the driver and it does it individually because it has microphones. And look at the fast processing time. This is incredible what it can do. It really is. It's quite remarkable the new changes that you can see on this particular one. I just think that's amazing. Touch to turn the screen on and then let's do this one. Hey, Toyota, help. It plays a Beatles song. Help. I need somebody. Help. Not just anybody. Help. You know I need someone. Help. Yeah, I know I can't sing. How much range do I have? What is my fuel consumption? What's my traveling time? Those are all things that you could do. Isn't that neat? Let's try this one. Hey, Toyota, I'm a little hot. Did you see how fast that worked? That was crazy cool. Wicked cool. It has the manual dimmer right here and then the sunglass holder with the light, light, light, just like that. And then this one does have a slider. So that's new. I think that's really cool. That's an upgrade. I like having that so you can block it out. It helps the passenger, I think. So are these upgrades important to you on the XLE Premium or do you not need them? And the LE would be plenty sufficient. That would be the best value. I'm not going to sit in this one because it's been raining outside. I don't want to get the back seats wet and I've done plenty of videos where I have sat in the back seat. So I'll put a link to some of those videos in my RAV4 playlist. That'll be there. This is the LE second row and it's not soft touch. This is soft touch. I wonder if it's going to be the same with the XLE Premium. We'll find that out. It has a seat pocket and a seat pocket. So it's got two. It's got rear air right here. No USB-C's. It does say RAV4 so you remembered which car you're getting into. Very cool. I like this pattern right here. Oh, oh, oh, we got a plane. Plane Southwest in the house. It's going like this. It's wings. It's windy out. It's so cool. So soft right here. Soft right here. RAV4 is a huge improvement versus the previous generation. The only thing you can't get is an all gasoline option, but so many companies are going that way now where I think it really won't make that much difference. It's really up to you, but the gas mileage is great. The power is better. The drive is better. So it's just really going to be a matter of what's better for you. Everything is better on this RAV4 though. It really is such a huge improvement and you can trust the hybrid system. It will work very well for you. Do you like the pattern here? I think it's great. Okay, I caved. I am going to sit in the backseat here. This is the XLE Premium. Solid sounding, right? That sounds good. And then we've got, oh, soft touch in the panels. Hmm, interesting. I got a handle right here. The seating is good. I like the recline function. You can move it a little bit forward and then back a little bit, depending on what you want to do. This one also has the all weather mats. So I'm not worried about water droplets getting on this one. That'll be totally fine. But the seats are very comfortable and that, how do I say it? That's right. Whether you get the fabric or the soft text, let's go in the XLE Premium backseat. What amenities do we get? I like to stay for a week. What will I get in this hotel, this RAV4 hotel? Soft touch, soft touch. The linens are so soft, Jeff. When you lay down in it, it would be wonderful. Got a pocket, pocket. This is new, USB-C's. It also comes with the Dexter plastic package. That's an extra $17. Have not been used or should I say gently used. Sounds like one of those ads for like clothing for sale. By the way, Dexter Resurrection is fantastic. If any of you have seen that, I love Dexter Original Sin. I have binged the original Dexter four times now and I never do that with shows. It's just that good. I'm excited for Dexter Resurrection season two coming out. So very soft right here. Very comfortable. We got the handles, the light, even a handle for the driver. Got a couple of window stickers here. Let's try the LE first to see what's standard. Pretty much everything on here is standard. These are both going to be Canada vehicles. See the two in the VIN number? That means it's Ontario, Canada. If it was a four, it would be Georgetown, Kentucky. If it was a J, it would be Japan. Here's the fuel mileage. This all wheel drive is going to be a little bit better than the XLE Premium. And I attribute that to the fact that it's going to have more equipment on it. Maybe like a power driver's seat, which is going to lower the fuel projections just a little bit. So just stop the videos when you want to learn a little bit more. This is $33,300. Let's compare that real quick to $37,500. So it's $4,200 more for the XLE Premium all wheel drive than it is for the LE all wheel drive. Go over here, but we do have a lot of options on it. So $33,000, it just has the mud guards for a port option. This is at Fred Anderson Toyota. Check out FredAndersonToyota.com. And we come over here to XLE Premium, also made in Canada. The gas mileage went down from $42,000, $46,000, $39,000 to what you see there. WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get. Toyota Safety Sense 4.0 on all these. This one has more features than the LE. Is it enough to swing you in that direction? Just a matter of what you're looking for. This one has more options, and it's a great example to show you that every regional port in the entire United States, I think there are maybe 13 of them or 11, and they all add options to finish off your vehicle with value and things like that. Options, accessories, upgrades. Some have a lot, some have none, some have some, or some somewhere on the spectrum. This one's $41,300. FredAndersonToyota.com. Remember to buy Last Fit Liners. These are great for RAV4 model year 2019 through 2025. Plus, you can find them on other popular Toyota models as well. Look for the product link to these mats and also my discount code. You want to save money, right? That'll be in the description and the first pin comment. Thanks for watching, everybody. Who wins this battle? Is it the LE? Is it the XLE Premium? Would you get front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive? Or maybe you'd get the Limited, the Woodland, the SE, XSE, or GR Sport. Which ones in your mind? Are you going hybrid or plug-in hybrid? I can't decide. Maybe you're going to keep the previous generation. I don't know. I'd love you to tell me what you think about the RAV4. I love it all. I love everything about it. I really do. It's fantastic, and it drives great. It does drive better than the previous generation. If you don't believe me, test it out for yourself and leave a comment. All right, I'm at Toyota Jeff Reviews, and my second channel is Auto Jeff Reviews. Toyota Jeff looks at Toyotas. Auto Jeff looks at Toyotas, Lexus, and all brands. Same fun, thorough reviews, and I hope you guys enjoy being here. See you next time. Peace. If you want more RAV4 content, including a comparison of every trim level side-by-side, then click on the suggested videos and playlists. I'm so glad you guys are here. Thanks for subscribing. Bye.