It's not often that a car company is confident enough about its product to send out a base model as the press car. Usually, press cars have all the bells and whistles on them, since nearly 80% of consumers buy at the top or close to the top of the model range. My Yaris LE, four-door sedan did have one trim package, so it really wasn't "bare bones", but the convenience package for the five-speed manual gearbox version doesn't add much. It adds air conditioning, ABS brakes and keyless remote entry among other things.
Interior Basics
Toyota advertises that the Yaris has comfort for five adults, but I would suggest that if all five were my size, someone isn't going to be very happy. If all five wear an off-the-rack medium jacket, then there will be room to spare. Possibly you could get a couple of larges in the mix, but to have five XL occupants, that's cramming them in a bit more than I would want to.
Those who sit in the front have nothing to worry about since the basic cloth-covered buckets are still very comfortable with well-shaped side and leg bolsters. The manual adjustments may take a bit of fiddling to get you that last bit of long-distance comfort, but even at that, you might need thirty seconds or so out of your day to find that sweet spot.
As manually-adjustable passenger seats go, my wife thought this one was quite comfortable. That turned out to be a very good thing. Over the years I've found out that if the side-seat cruise control is comfortable, I'm usually good for an extra 15 km/h on the speedometer before I hear about it!
Instrument Location
That brings up the next point, the Yaris instrument cluster! Toyota has chosen to put the it in the middle of the car. Corporate reasoning for this is more along the lines of cost saving for worldwide sales. One dash fits all, sort of speak.
There are a couple of concerns that go with this type of arrangement. At the top of the list is that when the driver looks at the speedometer, the reading may be off a bit. My experience with this system tells me that the error is only one maybe two km/h and that the reading will be high. In effect, you will see 100 km/h and only be doing 98.
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| The Toyota Yaris is a car that can zip around town and fit into nearly every parking space in the city. |
Interior Basics
Toyota advertises that the Yaris has comfort for five adults, but I would suggest that if all five were my size, someone isn't going to be very happy. If all five wear an off-the-rack medium jacket, then there will be room to spare. Possibly you could get a couple of larges in the mix, but to have five XL occupants, that's cramming them in a bit more than I would want to.
Those who sit in the front have nothing to worry about since the basic cloth-covered buckets are still very comfortable with well-shaped side and leg bolsters. The manual adjustments may take a bit of fiddling to get you that last bit of long-distance comfort, but even at that, you might need thirty seconds or so out of your day to find that sweet spot.
As manually-adjustable passenger seats go, my wife thought this one was quite comfortable. That turned out to be a very good thing. Over the years I've found out that if the side-seat cruise control is comfortable, I'm usually good for an extra 15 km/h on the speedometer before I hear about it!
Instrument Location
That brings up the next point, the Yaris instrument cluster! Toyota has chosen to put the it in the middle of the car. Corporate reasoning for this is more along the lines of cost saving for worldwide sales. One dash fits all, sort of speak.
There are a couple of concerns that go with this type of arrangement. At the top of the list is that when the driver looks at the speedometer, the reading may be off a bit. My experience with this system tells me that the error is only one maybe two km/h and that the reading will be high. In effect, you will see 100 km/h and only be doing 98.
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| One dash fits all, sort of speak. |