More Car For Less Pennies (Toyota Yaris in general)

Name: kenjohn

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Product:	Toyota Yaris in general
Date:	16/09/01 (2316 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent value for money

Disadvantages: STILL a 'small' car

~ ~ I’ve a fair few mates and colleagues who have bought the Toyota Yaris over the past while, some as run-arounds, and others as ‘second’ cars.
This car competes in the same lucrative sector as the Ford Ka, the Seat Arosa, and the Volkswagen Lupo, but in my honest opinion beats them all into a cocked hat.

~ ~ The biggest drawback with cars in this “sub-supermini” bracket is their size.
No matter how hard they try, manufacturers simply cannot make a BIG car out of a small one.
By their very nature they’re small, sometimes very small.
Most don’t have 5 doors, and their main advantages are low fuel consumption, easy parking, cheap insurance, and, off course, a lower than usual purchase price.

~ ~ The Yaris however tries its hardest to give you the best of both worlds.
It has many of the benefits of a larger and faster car like the Ford Fiesta, but still manages to hang onto the pluses of a smaller vehicle.
Maybe this is the reason it was voted European Car of the Year in 2000.

~ ~ When you first see the car its interior size is not immediately apparent.
It’s overall length and exterior body shell is still smaller than a Fiesta sized vehicle, and hardly any larger than your average, run off the mill, city runabout.
But it’s when you get INSIDE the car that you realise the small miracle that Toyota has managed to achieve.
Thanks to an innovative sliding rear bench seat, there is FAR more head and leg room than you would expect both in both the back and the front seats. So much so, you could almost be fooled into thinking you were sitting in a much larger car altogether, like the Ford Focus or the Vauxhall Astra.
The body is also deceptively wide, which again has the effect of giving front seat passengers in particular far more room than they could in fairness expect from such a small vehicle.

~ ~ The boot is on the small side, but Toyota ev
en have this covered.
If boot space and carrying capacity is a must, then you can opt for the Yaris Versio, which is based on the standard car, but with an extended platform, that actually gives it more interior space than even the far pricier Renault Scenic MPV. And with all the seats folded down, it has more luggage space than even a Mercedes E-Class!!!
Mind you, the Versio doesn’t win any awards in the styling department, looking almost as peculiar as the ‘Italian frog’. (Fiat Multipla)
It also has a lot of really useful storage space dotted all around the cabin – more than 15 litres in total. There’s cubbyholes for everything from your mobile phone to your tape cassettes, and even though most models boast a passenger airbag, there’s also a good-sized, split-level glovebox.

~ ~ It also compares very favourably in many other respects with larger (and more expensive) models.
The price for the base 1-litre model starts at only £10,320 (Irish Punts) or, in the UK, £6,995 Sterling.
But with the option of five doors, and the highly impressive equipment levels, this means you get real value for your buck.
When it was first introduced it only came in the basic 1-litre, 67bhp model, but now you can opt for the more powerful 1.3-litre, 85bhp, version of the same unit, or even the 1.5-litre turbo model that is now available. (that is if you really want to take on the ‘boy racers’ at their own game; 0 to 60mph in nine seconds!!)

~ ~ But whatever model you eventually go for, from the moment you ease yourself into the driver’s seat, it’s immediately obvious that this is no ‘ordinary’ little car.
For starters, there’s no traditional dashboard as such, and you’re left wondering just what the h*ll they’ve done with all the instruments until you actually turn on the ignition. Then everything suddenly lights up in a central console something like
the digital display you would expect on a Formula One racing car.
This is unique in a car of this class, (as far as I’m aware, anyway) and is, in fact, seen on very few road cars.
The console itself is angled slightly towards the driver so that it can be read more easily, and shows both the speed and the revs in numbers.
The whole model range has a very useful trip computer that shows info like your average fuel consumption, your average speed on a trip, how many more miles before you run out of petrol, and the outside air temperature.

~ ~ As if all these benefits weren’t enough, the Yaris also boasts Toyota’s award-winning Variable Valve Timing with intelligence (VVTi) technology.
This engine uses a sophisticated computer to vary the air intake to the engine to suit different driving conditions and different driving loads, which put simply means that the engine can deliver extra torque (pulling power) right throughout the different gears whenever you need it.
This not only gives you better acceleration, but better fuel economy as well, and less exhaust emissions, when you compare it to a more conventional engine.
Talking about acceleration, the new gutsier 1.3-litre engine should broaden the appeal of the Yaris considerably. The 0 to 60 mph time is improved from 14.1 seconds (the 1-litre) to a very respectable 11.7 seconds, and the top speed from 96mph to 109mph.
Yet at the same time it doesn’t cost too much in extra fuel consumption, still managing to return an average 47.8mpg across the board. (50.4mpg for the 1-litre)
The larger engine also allows Toyota to offer the option of an automatic gearbox for the very first time.

~ ~ More car for less pennies; that just about sums up the Yaris for me.

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