The Car Connection Expert Review
Likes
- Fuel economy ratings
- Peppy Hybrid Max system
- Spacious
- Premium feel
Dislikes
- Oddball styling
- Awkward crossover lines
- Not sporty
- Mediocre acceleration with base engine
Buying tip
features & specs
For 2024, the Toyota Crown draws inspiration from crossover styling, but doesn’t drive as well as a large sedan.
What kind of vehicle is the 2024 Toyota Crown? What does it compare to?
The Toyota Crown replaced the Toyota Avalon as the brand’s large sedan, though it boasts a choice of hybrid powertrains and crossover influences. It competes with cars like the Subaru Legacy and Volvo S90.
Is the 2024 Toyota Crown a good car?
The Toyota Crown’s crossover inspiration influences its design and driving dynamics, but not all in its favor. It’s less sporty than its predecessor, the upscale Avalon, and the high seating position compromises head room. It’s efficient, spacious, and can be optioned with Toyota’s Hybrid Max powertrain. It earns a TCC Rating of 6.7 out of 10. (Read more about how we rate cars.)
What's new for the 2024 Toyota Crown?
The Toyota Crown was new for the U.S. last year and is expected to carry over unchanged for 2024.
The Crown cuts a fastback profile, but the lower body cladding adds SUV-like cues. There's nothing trail-ready here; in terms of ground clearance it's definitely a car. The exterior is almost elegant based on the sculpted sides, but a bit awkward from the tall roof and high shoulder line. The nose gets a wide grille, inspired by the Toyota Venza’s face but as if burdened with an overbite. Notably, the original Venza presented as a high-riding wagon, and now the Crown presents as a raised sedan—with a seating position 4.0 inches higher than the Camry with a roofline to match. In top trim, two-tone paint adds an elegant touch.
The inside gets a slightly upscale look, but front and rear headroom are compromised. Front seats are comfy, rear seats have decent leg room, and the trunk has a small opening but decent overall capacity.
The Crown debuts Toyota’s two latest hybrid systems, most notably the Hybrid Max that balances fuel economy and power in the top model. A 2.4-liter turbo-4 combines with front and rear motors to yield 340 hp and all-wheel drive. The power feeds through a direct-shift 6-speed transmission with paddle shifters. It claims a 5.9-second 0-60 mph time and gets 30 mpg combined.
The other two Crown grades feature the Toyota Hybrid System (THS) used elsewhere in the brand’s lineup, which teams a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine with two motors, front and rear, for all-wheel drive, 236 hp, and 41 mpg combined.
The tall driver positioning lends a crossover driving character, perfectly pleasant though with more body lean than an average sedan. It doesn’t attack corners, but rides smoothly.
How much does the 2024 Toyota Crown cost?
The Crown comes in XLE, Limited, and Platinum trims. The XLE starts at about $41,000 with a $1,095 destination fee, and includes cloth and synthetic suede upholstery, 8-way power-adjustable front seats, a 12.3-inch digital instrument panel, a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen, infotainment over-the-air-update capability, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, navigation, wireless device charging, and 19-inch wheels. The top-end Platinum starts at about $54,000.
Standard safety tech includes adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian and cross-traffic detection, active lane control, automatic high beams, blind-spot monitors, road sign recognition, and a rear-seat reminder system.
Where is the 2024 Toyota Crown made?
In Japan.
2024 Toyota Crown Styling
A fastback body, crossover SUV cues…things get awkward quickly here.
Is the Toyota Crown a good-looking car?
There’s a lot going on with the Crown, given its bent to blend the drama of a fastback sedan with the utility of a high-riding crossover. Yet it’s still a Toyota, which still means a degree of inoffensiveness that carries this car to an average styling score of 5.
Toyota offset the Crown’s four inches of additional seat height with a low roofline, then swaddled it all with a high shoulder line and lots of fillips and cutlines, not to mention wheel-well cladding that gives it an element of crossover-SUV style without the performance. It wears a wide-mouth grille framed by scowling LED eyeliner and skinny headlights. Down its flanks, the rear fenders rise into muscled haunches, with a patch of black trim on the lower part of the doors. It culminates with a rounded rear end.
The interior doesn’t have the high luster of the old Avalon, but the Crown offers a smartly organized set of controls grouped along a horizontal line that spans the interior. A 12.3-inch central touchscreen caps a console that flows into a saddle-style shift housing, while the touchscreen itself blends in with the standard digital gauge cluster. A wireless smartphone charging sleeve sits vertically in the console, along with a good-sized bin and twin cupholders. It’s all done well, but where the Avalon read as a junior Lexus, the Crown reads as Camry-plus.
2024 Toyota Crown Performance
The Crown doesn’t pretend to a sporting throne.
With decent acceleration and lumbering road manners, the Crown earns a single performance point here for its calm and cool ride. It’s a 6 for performance.
Is the Toyota Crown 4WD?
All models have all-wheel drive. In the base hybrid system, 80% of the power can be sent to the rear wheels when traction loss calls for it. With the more powerful hybrid system, the system varies from a split of 70:30 front to back, to a maximum torque split of 20:80 biased to the rear wheels.
How fast is the Toyota Crown?
Powerful or efficient: the Crown demands you have a take. In the base versions, a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder pairs with front and rear electric motors to net 236 hp. Like the similar Camry hybrid system, this Crown can shuttle to 60 mph in about eight seconds. A CVT blurs the power demands from the throttle pedal, resulting in a less responsive but more efficient drivetrain.
The “Hybrid Max” powertrain couples a 2.4-liter turbo-4 with front and rear motors for a grand total of 340 hp. Its 0-60 mph time drops to 5.9 seconds. Power moves to the four corners via a 6-speed direct-shift transmission, with steering-wheel-mounted shift paddles that give its power delivery the same feel as that of a conventional automatic. It offers great highway passing power to go with its strong low-end acceleration.
On the lower-end model, a set of drive modes—Eco, Normal, Sport—are joined by a low-speed EV electric drive mode, good for only very short distances. Crown Hybrid Max editions don’t have that EV mode but offer Sport+, Comfort, and Custom drive modes. Power dawdles in Eco mode, predictably, while the sport modes tap its considerable torque without importing a high-strung attitude.
The Crown ties its body down to the ground through a system of MacPherson struts in front and a multilink rear. With its raised seating position and low-ambition tuning, the Crown can feel more like a crossover SUV than a car. It leans into corners, and can’t always damp out all the bumps and ruts of the road. It’s anything but sporty, but at least the smooth ride gets even better with the available adaptive dampers, even when snicked into their Sport setting. It could be better buttoned-down—like the notably soft Avalon which it replaced.
2024 Toyota Crown Comfort & Quality
The Crown doesn’t meet the Avalon’s high standards.
Five people will fit in the Crown in due comfort and its cargo space delivers the goods, but the air of refinement that surrounded its predecessor isn’t here. We miss that Avalon, though we give the Crown a 7 for trying hard to please.
Interior space has been compromised in the translation from Avalon to Crown. The new kid in town has a high seating position that clashes with the sloped roof. That limits headroom in front and back for anyone more than 6 feet tall. Legroom makes up for some of that loss, and the Crown’s front thrones earn that description with 8-way power adjustment, and heating and cooling on most versions.
The rear seat copes with the lower roofline by boosting the bottom cushion for good support. The bench seat can hold three across, or can be folded down along a 60:40 split to expand the Crown sedan’s trunk space upward from its basic 15.2-cubic-foot configuration.
Fit and finish falls shy of the Avalon’s high-water mark. The Crown has more hard-touch surfaces and a less lush look overall, but it does have acoustic glass and other sound-damping material to block out some road noise.
2024 Toyota Crown Safety
The Crown fills up on safety technology.
How safe is the Toyota Crown?
It’s a Top Safety Pick+ according to the IIHS, but the NHTSA hasn’t offered any data yet. That score, plus its wealth of standard and available safety features, nets an 8 in this category.
All Crown cars have automatic emergency braking, active lane control, adaptive cruise control, automatic high beams, blind-spot monitors, and a rear-seat reminder system. Crown Platinum models add on automatic parking assist.
2024 Toyota Crown Features
Toyota simplifies the Crown family into three well-equipped versions.
All versions of the Crown have ample standard equipment and a fairly long list of options. Infotainment earns a point as well, and the Crown overall nets an 8 for features.
The $41,445 XLE has cloth and synthetic suede upholstery, a 12.3-inch digital gauge display, a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen with navigation and wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, wireless smartphone charging, heated front seats with 8-way power adjustment, and 19-inch wheels.
Which Toyota Crown should I buy?
Spend $47,045 for the Crown Limited, which gains leather upholstery, a panoramic sunroof, cooled front seats, heated front and rear seats and a heated steering wheel, as well as a JBL 11-speaker sound system.
How much is a fully loaded Toyota Crown?
The $54,465 Platinum has the more powerful hybrid drivetrain as well as 21-inch wheels, adaptive dampers, and a surround-view camera system.
All Crowns come with an average 3-year/36,000-mile warranty that also covers the hybrid drivetrain for 8 years/100,000 miles—typical stuff—but Toyota also covers all scheduled service for 2 years or 25,000 miles.
2024 Toyota Crown Fuel Economy
Power or gas mileage? Crown drivers have a choice.
Is the Toyota Crown good on gas?
It’s admirably efficient in base trim, where it earns EPA ratings of 42 mpg city, 41 highway, 41 combined. We call that a 6 here. However, drivers who want the more powerful hybrid system in the Crown Platinum will only see 29/32/30 mpg, which would settle the Crown in at a 4.
