How to stop the Toyota welcome screen, and whether you need to link your RAV4

Quick picks

What the welcome screen actually is

So the screen you keep seeing when you start the car is the setup for a driver profile. Basically, a profile saves your settings, like your radio, volume and navigation, and it's tied to a Toyota account. The 2025 RAV4 manual says "an active Toyota account is required to use a profile," so the screen sends you to the Toyota app to set one up.

And linking the profile is also how the car gets enrolled in Toyota's Connected Services. That's why the app walks you through the trials and the paid plans right after. I go through all of those in my Toyota app guide.

The three choices on the screen

So the welcome screen gives you three choices, and each one does something a bit different.

• Scanning the QR code is how you link the car. You scan it with your phone's camera, or you can show an 8-digit code instead and type it into the app. Then you finish the trial setup in the app.
• "Set up later" just skips it for now. And if that's the one you've been tapping, that's why the screen keeps coming back every time you start the car.
• "Do not show setup again" is the one that makes it stop. The manual says that once you tap it, the profile linking screen won't be shown again.

And if you change your mind later, you can always start the setup again by going to Settings on the car's screen and tapping Get Started.

What you give up if you never link the car

Now this is the part that the screen doesn't really explain. Skipping the link is fine for driving, but a few free things only work once the car is enrolled through the app.

So basically, if you use CarPlay or Android Auto for maps and music, the main thing you'd lose is the safety stuff. And that's free for up to 10 years on a 2025 RAV4, so for most people I think it's worth the few minutes it takes to link.

Does skipping it keep Toyota from getting your data?

So no, and this is the part that surprised me. Toyota's Connected Services terms of use say the car's data module "is on/active when your vehicle is delivered and will remain on/active (and continue to collect data from you and your vehicle) until you contact us and request that it be deactivated."

So whether you link the car or not, it's sending data unless you ask Toyota to turn that off. And when you link the car, the app asks you to pick Activate or Deactivate. If you skip both, Toyota says it still uses your car's less precise location, driving and health data for its own research.

Now if you want it off, Toyota's privacy notice lists three ways to ask them to turn off data transmission:

• Press the SOS button in the car and ask the agent.
• Call Toyota at (800) 331-4331.
• Use the Toyota app. The Deactivate button shows up on the Vehicle Activation screen when you first link the car. But if you backed out of that screen without picking either button, the app may only offer Activate after that. So if you don't see Deactivate, the SOS button or the phone call is the sure way to do it.

But keep in mind that turning off data transmission also turns off every Connected Service, including the SOS button and crash call. So it's really a trade between privacy and those safety features, and it just depends on which one matters more to you.

Already linked it? Can you delete the app?

So yes, you can. The manual says that once you save a profile, "it will load on every drive until you sign out." So the profile lives in the car, and deleting the app from your phone doesn't bring the setup screen back.

• The free safety features keep working after you delete the app, as long as you tapped Activate when you linked the car. If you backed out of the Activate or Deactivate screen without picking one, the car isn't enrolled, so it's worth opening the app and tapping Activate first.
• You'd lose remote start from your phone, since that needs the app. But if you rarely use remote start, that's not much of a loss.
• If more than one person drives your RAV4, it uses each driver's phone and the Toyota app to tell them apart. So if you share the car, it's worth keeping the app.