Whats a Toyota Yaris like then?

[momentofmadness]

Southpaw in nearly sensible-first-car-thread-shocker!

Sorry Christian

[southpaw]

tvrbob said:

I have a Yaris Blue. I acquired it because the deal was too good to pass up. The car was £9.3k new (it had some extras) it was 8 months old with 1,300 miles and I paid £5k. The build quality is excellent but then that's what Toyota is renowned for. I quite like the dash, something a bit different and dare I say 'cool'. The only way to know is to drive it and see how it feels to you. You will find the clutch very light and the engine has very little torque at low revs so until you get the hang of it you may well stall a few times. This happened to me at first but once you get used to it, no problem.

Thanks for the input. Can I ask what the Blue edition has over the normal version? Sounds like it might be a good idea for 6 months/my first years driving
ETA: Thanks for the email, hopefully see you on Sunday!

momentofmadness said:

Southpaw in nearly sensible-first-car-thread-shocker! Sorry Christian

I know, I've become all sensible all of a sudden! Must be because its exam time and my brains working overtime Don't worry, I'll be back looking at Caterhams in about 2 weeks time

>> Edited by southpaw on Tuesday 23 May 20:52

[dougc]

www.carpages.co.uk/toyota/toyota_yaris_blue_25_03_04.asp

[johnnymaestro]

Southpaw(christian)

I had a 1.2 clio mate had a 1.0 Yaris in blue

Good little car for what it was made to do and fun to play with round country lanes

I was like you at 17 and wanted something different with a bit of grunt but unles yo are related to a millionarie isurance will kill you.

Now 20 i have a 1.6 and the insurance is the same as when i was 17 in the clio

just accept you may have to drive a mundane car for a while and build up your NCB but at least you won't loose your license since the car only does 96

Just wait a couple of years, save some cash and then get something you desire, GTM maybe

you have many years of motoring ahead of you so start small and get alot bigger

HTH

johnny

>> Edited by johnnymaestro on Tuesday 23 May 21:03

[tvrbob]

southpaw said:

Can I ask what the Blue edition has over the normal version?

I believe it is level of trim. When I compare mine to standard vvti's the enhancements are, kick plates, leather steering wheel and gear knob, sliding rear seats. The leather is very high quality too, better than my TVR.

[southpaw]

Thanks for all the help so far guys. I just wish it wasn;t in that gay blue colour Do you think I could wrap it in vinyl or something?

[SamHH]

southpaw said:

Thanks for all the help so far guys. I just wish it wasn;t in that gay blue colour Do you think I could wrap it in vinyl or something?

Seems like a pretty inoffensive colour to me. And anyway, if you're going to be making a profit on the car surely you can put up with a colour you don't like for a year?

>> Edited by SamHH on Tuesday 23 May 21:30

[SamHH]

BTW, got your bike fixed yet?

[southpaw]

SamHH said:

BTW, got your bike fixed yet?

Not completely Still got damage to the centre stand, front fairing, headlight from my off a few months ago, and not had a chance to sort the fuel pump/engine problem out yet! It'll be sored out soon - after tomorrow I havn't got an exam for 2 weeks so I will have plenty of time to get stuff sorted. I havn't actually ridden it for about 3 weeks now

Hows your scooter? Probably far fewer problems than mine, bloody Italian piece of crap

>> Edited by southpaw on Tuesday 23 May 21:35

[sadako]

I rented one of these, almost brand new at the time.

I found the warning lights small and hard to see, being out of line of sight. Combine this with a really quiet indicator tick and you end up finding it really easy to accidentally leave it running for miles. The foglight switch is wired the wrong way round and you cannot turn the rear ones on without turning the front ones on first. The suspention rolls like a student on payday and the car is unstable at motorway speed. The car simply refuses to go in a straight line at 70. The car does not corner well and the engine is athsmatic. The steering is that stupid electric power steering that is really light and has no feel at slow speed and suddenly turns to porridge over 60 mph.

The seats are comfy and the car seems well put together inside.

I rented a new shape micra, It was a hoot to drive by comparison

I advise you get something older, cheap but more fun. Your premiums will also be better.

>> Edited by sadako on Tuesday 23 May 22:08

[DennisTheMenace]

Balmoral Green said:

warren is that a verso at the back , one to the left looks like the D4D

[tvrbob]

Just to respond to sadako's comments. I disagree with the unstable at motorway speeds comment. Sure it's not a sports car and the steering is light. This is to meet the needs of the target market. I use mine on the motorway often and find that it's OK all the way to 100 (which is the limit for this car). The tall side profile and soft suspension does cause it to move unpredictably in side winds at speed. Perhaps it was windy when you hired yours.

[bikerbabe18]

i have only ever driven an automatic yaris and i hated it, too many blind spots for my likin. for my first car i got a mk6 1.8TD escort, and for fully comp insurance i paid a grand. ok so it's nothin special, but it gets about AND it beats a few of the cars round here (not that i race or nething), if u go for something as a first car that not many others go for (i.e. not a 106 or saxo, etc)then it confuses the insurance companies, their not sure wot to quote so tend to be a bit lower, as long as u don't go stupid!

[killer2005]

Never driven one, but I had one following me one the motorway a few weeks ago and it seemed to keep up quite well

[Gandahar]

southpaw said:

Ok, I've been offered a car. Its a great deal. In budget, low insurance costs as its only a 1.0 , full Toyota service history, 2 years old and only 10,000 miles.

Yeh, its a Toyota Yaris Blue. To be honest it sounds very boring to me, with a max speed on 96mph (not that I'd be doing more than that of course ). It ticks all the boxes for a first car, but it just sounds so boring. So what do they drive like? Are they fun? Am I asking too much for it to be reasonably fun around country roads?

I hope you didn't "plump" for it. Having bought a 2008 diesel in 2009 I find out, much to my cost, that the person at Toyota who put the unlock button on the key was not very good at his job, unlike the person who put the lock key on, see below for our 2 ( TWO ) sets of keys, both of which have failed in exactly the same way 10 years later.



And they say Toyota's are reliable. I could have bought something made in France if I had known.

I did ask Mrs Gandahar if she had been using the unlock button more than the lock button for the last few years and she is adamant that she tends to use them both roughly the same amount of times. I concur. So it's not us to blame. There should of been at least a recall that I could have ignored, like for the drivers electric window switch which could malfunction after using something to clean it that was too sticky.

And we know how sticky the interior a Yaris can get, especially if you have offspring. Hence why the box of Man sized on the rear parcel shelf ...

Getting back to the question "Is a Yaris fun?" Well that new certainly is. But the first one actually had quite a good sense of balance, if you can pick one up then they are fun to drive at the limit, as the limit is not too high. The mark 2 that I have, the one that looks like a guinea pig, has a hopeless chassis, but that in itself can be a st load of fun as the car goes from understeer to very sloppy oversteer quite quickly and you have to be like the Captain of the titanic in your reactiions to keep it keel side up.

The below is a true story.

My diesel 88bhp mark 2 yaris, got a Superchips upgrade to 112bhp 9 years back so I fitted some 16 inch wheels 205 Michelin PS3's to it and took it around Brands for 3 outings and about 150 laps. Super , smashing. Then a year or so later found that I had some old wheels with Yokohama Parada spec 2 tyres on them in the garage with a protective cocoon of spiders webs wrapped over. They are still probably the best sounding tyre name ever and a funky tread pattern to boot





That tyre embodied the 1990s apart from the Yokohama A520 which was the track day tyre for the road before track day tyres for the road where even invented yet ... feck yeah. I digress.

So I have the Yaris and the new Michelin PS3 205/40 on the front, and my old 205 Yoko's out of the garage on the back and of course decided to take it to the garden center to buy a bag of dung. Pop that in the back of the Yaris and drive home. My favourite roundabout was on the way back, the sort of roundabout you barrel into hoping nobody would be on, you go wide then cut in, thinking thought of Scandinavians and their flicks

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3040669,0.1527411,...

Of course they have changed it since then .. put some sort of nice kerbing stones in to make it look pretty whilst confusing everyone and causing motorcyclists to get an anus clenched like a vice when seeing it in the wet.

So I went into it full tilt at about 25-35mph. not too sure, it's still just a blur, but there was a small car with two ladies waiting for me to transgress and exit and guess what?

Tip it in ... 32milliseconds later I have done a 90 degree spin and am looking at the centre of the roundabout. The 90 degree spin is the worst ever. A 360 means you can drive on as if nothing has happened. heart pounding like a mofo but the eyes still steely. The 180 spin is the yobs choice, you can pretend you wanted to do that all along and then stick 2 fingers up at society. The 90 degree spin means you have to reverse 5 feet to get your car pointed in the right direction in front of two old ladies who you know will castigate you forever.

I got home. I wondered if it was a the large bag of dung in the boot which had suddenly turned my humble Yaris into a 1980's Porsche 911 Turbo but have to concede "Tyres matter" I drove it for a few months after that and it was always like poking the dragons tail with such mismatched rubber. I still have fonder memories of Yokohama than Michelin though.


What's was the original question again? Too late I'm afraid, the care home worker is rolling down the tea trolley towards me. In a straight line ... I wonder what boots it is wearing ?