2013 Toyota Yaris

I would like to preface this rant by saying that there is only one reason that I have come back from an extended hiatus from this blog: I felt obligated to. Because I was recently rear-ended, a local car rental service dropped this pile of misery off at my house. It is computer paper white on the outside, and completely black on the inside. Think of it as a reverse Oreo, which sounds much better than anything this car could ever hope to be.

This is a public service message to the good people of Colorado.

You can call it "Max,"As in OfficeMax. (sorry OfficeMax)

The Toyota Yaris began its life mostly because Toyota engineers discovered that the Corolla isn't technically a "small" car anymore. So they were then given the rather daunting task of fitting 28 airbags into an economy car. It's been given more airbags than speakers, which is somewhat ironic, because usually an airbag deploys after the car is hit, which would normally require the car to have moved. This is an extremely hard thing for the Yaris to do, because it only has a 1.5L I4 engine fitted with a 4 speed (yes 4) automatic. You have to mash the throttle down in order to force the gerbils to power the engine, but by the time you get up to speed, you've missed the green light, so you're going to have to try again.

Then we come to the rather unfortunate part of the review where we must consider the mind of the man who actually arranged the interior. The first thing you'll notice, of course, is that the dashboard is centered, instead of directly in front of the driver. They did this to make the Yaris seem more "unique," I'm sure, but really when driving it, it's just annoying. Secondly they've given it A/C, power windows, power locks, and electric power steering; which all seems nice, but they've left out some important features:

• Coolant gauge
• Cruise control
• Powered mirrors

The lack of coolant gauge really threw me off. It's got a little light on the dash that comes on when you first start it, that indicates the engine is "Cool" but after that, there's nothing. Presumably, there is another light that says when the engine is "Hot," but what if that sensor fails? You won't know until the radiator cap bursts and then you're screwed. Which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Enter Snoozeville 

Plus they've included a button for turning the traction control off, which also doesn't really make much sense. Why on Earth would you want to do that in a front wheel drive, 4 speed, automatic, economy car? You can have the odometer or the trip computer, but not both at the same time, and they've given it a rather vague fuel gauge which is hard to figure out. It is a system of horizontal bars, and when you get to the second-to-the-last bar on the gauge it's a normal bar, but once you hit the last bar, it starts flashing on and off. This is a worry because you don't actually know how long you have on the last bar. What is the bar/gallon figure? We just don't know. And there's no way to find out, either. So you immediately start to panic and trying to figure out where the nearest gas station is. I was on the last bar for 20 miles, but how much farther could I have gone?

They've also given it a TPS (Tire Pressure Sensor), which is great, but it came on while I was driving it, and then I realized immediately that it doesn't tell you which tire is low on pressure. I got out to look at the tires, and they all looked perfectly fine, so I just continued on. This is particularly annoying because if it's cold out, like it was at the time, I don't want to then have to pull over to check all four tires and see which one is low. It's cold. Go away, light.

They have also added a light on the dashboard to indicate that the lights are turned on, for whatever reason. Excuse me, but I KNOW when the lights are on, I turned them on! There are also two cup-holders on either side of the cabin for the front two occupants. However, they're located directly in front of the vents, which means that you have to make a choice between having warm/cool air, a warm/cool drink, or a warm/cool lap.

Really the biggest problem with the Yaris is that it doesn't seem to be particularly well-made. Unusual indeed for a company like Toyota, This car has been on the road now for about a year and already the weatherstripping around the windows is beginning to fade, which makes an awful lot of wind-noise while driving. Not to mention
the suspension seemed very incapable of handling the immense body-roll, surprising for a car this small.

Note the small battery which offers a cattle-prod like shock to the gerbils hidden underneath the manifold cover. 

The seat height can be adjusted, but if you're anywhere over 6', you're better off just driving from on top of the car, you'd certainly have a better view of the road. Which is another concern: the Yaris is extremely hard to park. You can't see out of the back very well, you can't see the front end of the car at all, and there is an enormous blind-spot on the driver's side. The viewing angles are truly terrible, and frankly a little dangerous, which may better explain the huge amount of airbags included as standard.

All in all, the Yaris is underpowered, completely nonsensical, and so dull that it may as well close down it's E-Harmony profile right now. Nobody is interested, and frankly I'm not the only one starting to chant: "jump! jump! jump!"


It really is then, the perfect rental car: I could not care less about it.