In
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| Salty roads, grime, and the bitter cold did not wither it. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
all the vehicles that I've driven over the past couple of years, there are few better city cars to navigate downtown Toronto than the Yaris. I'm a fan of its ultra-quick, lightweight steering, which still manages to have surprisingly good feedback, and little by the way of numbness and slack which is typical of cars with electrical power steering. It's quite chatty to your fingertips, letting you know just the kind of surfaces you're on, but without excessive tugging or pulling of the wheel. Then again, this comes as no surprise; the Echo was always a pretty good performing machine in the corners. The Yaris just takes the old car to a new level, with an all-new, more highly cambered front wheel setup, and faster, stronger power steering rack.
Good steering is one thing that can truly shine if the car's suspension
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| Small wheels and tires, but such a small car doesn't need anything more. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
is set up properly. With a compact car as with the Yaris, in order to maximize interior space, it uses space-saving struts up front, and a primitive, but effective torsion beam in back. But to frown upon this would be wrong; some of the best handling hot hatches ever made used this layout - what matters is how it's tuned. The suspension's tuning is reflective of its European birthplace; it has a soft, loping ride for absorbing stray potholes and speed humps. Yes, there's plenty of body roll, but it doesn't detract from the car's eager, fun-to-drive character. In fact, you might say that it builds character. And those standard 175-width, 14-inch tires? They might not be totally grippy, but they're all you need in the city, not to mention, they cut through snow and rain with the greatest of ease.
Ideally
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| Yaris' trunk isn't exactly big. Rather, it was just big enough to accommodate my junk. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
speaking, the LE B-Package tester I had features almost all the amenities one could ever want out of a small car. It had power windows, mirrors, a four-speaker CD stereo, keyless entry, air conditioning, ABS brakes and dual front airbags (but not side, curtain or knee airbags as you might get in Europe). But, if you move up, the Yaris gets a couple of curious, eyebrow-raising features. The RS model gets an MP3 CD player and a couple of other goodies, but the neatest part of the package is the rear split-fold bench, which is mounted on rails. Like the front seats, they can slide back and forth, varying the amount of legroom for the rear passengers, and the trunk volume. Seeing as I don't regularly carry people, I'd more or less always have the back seat moved forward to maximize what trunk space it does have. It would be nice to see this as a stand-alone option for lesser models.
For its masses of interior room, there is a price to be paid in cargo space. On its own, in the fixed-bench LE 5-door and CE 3-door, the trunk provides 228L (8.1 cu-ft) of space, which is quite a bit more than what the MINI Cooper, my other favourite city car offers, but it trails its competitors. My daily carry-on luggage, which usually consisted of a couple of laptop bags, a camera bag, and a backpack or two consumed the entirety of the space, which meant that if any of my friends were to come on board, additional baggage traveled in laps. Alternatively, there is a bit of extra space in the form of a faux trunk floor, which provides additional storage in the form of a shallow, plastic tray. The solution to cargo-carrying problems, though, is to get the Yaris four-door notchback sedan, which offers a more commodious 365 litres (12.9 cu-ft) of cargo space.
