One month in and as hoped, my motoring joie de vivre has returned.
It’s not the nicest cabin in which to sit, the forward vision between the rear view mirror and touch screen is very restricted ( mods are available to increase the field of vision by 2cm) and the rear seats are only really suitable for a pair of malnourished pygmies.
That aside, in my circumstances, for a daily driver it’s pretty much perfect. On day two I put the rear seats down to create an almost flat rear load space, and that’s where they’ll stay. Sufficiently practical for me....several trips to the tip with builders bags full of garden rubbish, easy to load in my petrol mower and tools and no inconvenience to date.
On the road it’s as expected. Great fun with huge levels of grip should you wish to make progress. Three adjustable drive modes...60/40 front/rear in Normal, Sport has 30/70 front/rear and Track mode 50/50. Most of the time I just trundle around with everyone else on my local lightly trafficked roads. The GR doesn’t have adjustable suspension, but is amazingly compliant over potholes and poorer road surfaces. No jarring shocks enter the cabin whatsoever.
Perfectly acceptable on the motorway...traffic allowing, I normally cruise at an indicated 80, at which point there is some wind noise but nothing of significance.
The GR has the Convenience Pack, whereas most GRs have the Circuit Pack. All the motoring journalists say to get the latter, but as I won’t be taking it on any circuits or driving it in a manner where I’d likely lose my licence, the extra differentials and upgraded suspension mods makes no difference to me. The JBL sound system is good to my ears, although I haven’t compared it to the standard system, and as per my previous Focus, I find the line of sight Head Up Display a feature I find really useful. Especially when the font showing my speed changes from white to red should I exceed the speed limit...I know it’s no excuse but when driving in a strange urban area it does help.
The Convenience Pack includes SatNav. I don’t use it...Apple Car Play every time for me, so a wasted feature, and the reversing camera is very low resolution. And the Lane Departure has to be turned off every time you press Start...easy enough with a 5 second hold on a button, but irritating nonetheless. I’ll investigate further...
MPG showing 35....plenty of short stop/start journeys at the moment...they’ll stop once I get my new hip, plus some motorway trips....6th is very low geared. It’s a hugely impressive 1.6 3 cylinder power unit....265 hp with 270 lb ft of torque in a car weighing 1280 kgs. Dropping into 4th gear is more than sufficient for most safe overtaking manoeuvres. Dropping into 3rd and flooring it ....things can happen rather too fast on the public road and we don’t want that at my age.
Nothing unexpected has reared its head to date. It performs as well as I had hoped, and way beyond my capabilities as I don’t expect to drive it anywhere near its limits. But it handles like a dream, bags of overtaking power and I continue to like the black colour...doesn’t show off the black carbon fibre composite roof but that’s ok. And I can live with the much reduced people carrying capacity and cargo space.
Glad I don’t have any regrets...and had the courage of my convictions not to go down the ‘safer’ road of buying a more practical Puma ST.
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Toyota - GR Yaris initial thoughts new
Toyota - GR Yaris initial thoughts new