Toyota Yaris – Review | Everyday Grinder!
Toyota Yaris
When it comes to Toyota vehicles, it is known for its long term reliability and customer satisfaction, and yes, their Diesel engines. However, this time Toyota has made its way in the sedan industry with petrol engine fleet of the Yaris, surprisingly, at a stage where all other car manufacturers have already established their foothold in the segment. How well does the Yaris perform, let’s find out?
How does it drive?
Looking at the specs sheet, it isn’t big on numbers like the Verna or the City, but the engine does have that feeling of refinement. It is not peppy in the lower revs and when you try to put your foot down, it struggles for power, and post 4,000rpm the engine gets noisy. The boy racer in you would always be asleep when driving the Yaris. It is safe to say that the Yaris is precisely cut out for sedate drives around the city and cruising along the highway. Talking about cruising, there’s cruise control on offer in the V and VX variants. The electric power steering is light, and becomes slightly heavy post-triple-digit speeds but doesn’t inspire confidence to throw it around a corner. This reminds you of its limitations. However, the NVH levels are managed so well that it cuts through outside traffic noise easily.
Safety
Passenger ride comfort and safety have been taken into consideration and with 7 airbags as standard in the Yaris, Toyota has single-handedly walked over all of its competition in this particular aspect. The 7 airbags are spread across the car with 2 at the front, 1 around the Knee, 2 again at the front passenger seat, and 2 side curtain airbags from the A-pillar to C-pillar. You even get better braking power in the V and VX trim with disc brakes at the front as well as rear along with ABS+EBD+EA being standard in all variant. Hill start assist and Tyre Pressure monitoring system are only available in the top variant. There’s also an option for switching the parking sensors on and off but it is only available in the V and VX trim. When you get too close to a vehicle in front of you, the sonar will alert you by beeping and show up on the MID screen. The reverse parking camera has a decent resolution but its positioning was a bit awkward for my liking, also it misses out on adaptive guidelines.
Comfort
At the back seat, only two people can sit comfortably, the third one in the middle will have to be shorter than 5 feet to sit comfortably as the hump in the middle seat is higher, and the armrest’s design is also one of the reasons to make the middle passenger uncomfortable. Having said that, the leg room, head room, and thigh support for the other two passengers are decent. This also adds up to the passenger’s ride comfort by absorbing pothole jerks, bad roads, and speed breakers quite well as the unladen ground clearance is about 175mm.
Interiors
Coming to its interiors, for the V trim, they are wrapped in fabric, and only the VX trim gets leather upholstery treatment. The beige and black dashboard accents are nice but miss out on the soft touching areas. The 7-inch infotainment screen has a smooth user interface, sadly, there is no Android Auto and AppleCarplay on offer. The audio output from the speakers is good. Also, it gets HDMI and wifi support at the top level. Another quality feature which is worth highlighting in the Yaris is the rear Air-con vents design. It is situated on the roof and has an ambient blue light illumination. It is also easy for the rear passengers to adjust the air flow and its direction. Due to this addition, Toyota has had to do away with the sunroof option. The driver’s side seating positioning is a bit higher than the passenger side and can be manually adjusted in the V variant, as compared to the electrically adjustable seats that are offered only in the VX variant. I’d have liked if Toyota would have considered adding the dead pedal, apart from that the driver’s seat has a good outside viewing angle.
Engine: 1.5L Dual VVT-i Engine
Power: 106 Bhp
Torque: 140 Nm
Transmission: 6-speed Manual
Price: ₹11.7 Lakh (ex-showroom, India)
Verdict: Yaris comes in four trims, all offer options of Manual and CVT, which is a really good thing but comes only in petrol. To sum it up, the Yaris is a mundane C Segment car, which can do most of the tasks efficiently, but there is nothing exciting about it.