Prius vs. Yaris

[YarisHybrid2016]

Hi,

Suffering from shiny-new-things syndrome, and wanting some sanity!

I currently have a Gen. 3 Yaris Hybrid (specs in profile) which is a great car, but I keep looking at the Prius.

Is there much (any?) point in changing, aside from "want to"?

The Yaris economy is around 58 MPG at the moment (winter, mixed driving though mostly highway). I achieved a tank MPG of 64 last summer, so fuel economy isn't the problem! I also never find it a problem to drive, and it's the most reliable car I've known. There is, in short, no rational reason for changing.

For what it would cost me to change, it is nearly completely unjustifiable from every angle, but I keep looking. Am I crazy??

[aCactus]

Big difference is Prius dashboard and gear lever. Yaris looks fairly conventional with "normal" looking automatic gear shift. Prius has simple switch for drive/reverse and digital instruments. Biggest difference for me was the handbrake/parking brake, the Prius was my car (now swapped for C-HR) so when I drive the Yaris and parking my left leg does a little dance as I try and operate the parking brake instead of pulling on the handbrake.

[barrycoll]

As someone who has sold a mint low mileage Gen 3 Prius sale to spend silly money buying a new Gen 4, I am with you Aaaa.....somehow it seems justifiable, but probably not at 3 am in the morning.

The Prius will have a big car feel and ride compared with the Yaris, and will make any longer trip more enjoyable......but the best way to know whether it is all worth the effort is o go to several dealerships, and have several test drives......making them as long as poss.

Good luck with the 'dilemma '

[Duffryn]

This decision is really down to your personal transport requirements - not something that a complete stranger can easily advise on. I've never driven a Yaris Hybrid, or even an auto-box one, only manuals, however my preference would certainly be for the Prius if only for more space and longer distance comfort, as Barry says. If you take a test drive try and find some rough surfaced road to check out any possible squeaks and rattles etc.

FWIW my cars' readout showed 66.9mpg for a 21.2 mile journey last week using a mix of A roads, a B road, and country lanes. Very happy with that, computer (in)accuracy notwithstanding of course. Don't know if a Yaris would improve much on that.

[PeteB]

TBH, from the driver's seat, the Hybrid Yaris feels just as good a drive to me as any Prius (and I've driven several), BUT I absolutely cannot live with 1940's style dials (I know from expensive experience - I had a 2011 Yaris for 1 year and sold it with £8,000 depreciation - they'd sneaked in analogue dials instead of the brilliant reflected displays that surpass even Prius displays IMHO).  And it can't match the Gen 4 Prius for the latest gizmos, especially the radar cruise control that I would have upgraded for on it's own.

However, apart from the instruments,  there are things about the Yaris that don't work for me personally:

1. the smallest glovebox I've ever seen - makes the vastly reduced storage in the Gen 4 Prius look positively generous!
2. the rear accommodation is no good for larger/taller people like me - I struggle to get in at all, can't sit remotely upright, and my knees dig into the front seat - starnge as all previous generations of Yaris had amazingly flexible rear space, with split rears seats that slid and reclined separately
3. I like the 500-600 miles range of the various generations of Prius I've owned - the Yaris Hybrid has a smaller tank than even the petrol version - it would have to do over 80 mpg to work for me
4. I've always said I don't care what a car looks like as long as it's good in every other respect - now taste is a personal thing, but the Yaris with it's whale mouth puts me off more than any car I've ever seen (TBF many other cars have this type of look, like some Lexus, Audis and Citroens - but IMHO the Yaris is the worst)

I think it unlikely the Yaris Hybrid would match a Prius from the same generation for mpg, partly because it's nowhere near as aerodynamically advanced.

[Anthony Poli]

We have an Auris and Yaris, both are similar and different. When I bought the Auris, I was originally after a Prius. It helped was there wasn't any 2nd hand ones in my price range in stock and the Auris didn't look like hybrid.

Since it was my first hybrid and a gamble I opted for the Auris.

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[johalareewi]

I had a gen3 prius (now have a plugin prius) and my OH has a hybrid yaris (gen1).  With the yaris, you don't really notice it is a hybrid. It is more like an automatic yaris but without the engine noise.  My gen3 prius although a bigger car, had better mpg than the yaris.  A large part of that being aerodynamics, but also the instruments (and HUD) were easy to see so you could drive and make use of the HSI to optimise the mpg.  The yaris instruments are down behind the steering wheel and out of sight so using the HSI is not an option.

As to 'should I change'?  If the yaris is working for you, why not stick with it?

[YarisHybrid2016]

Some good points, and the dose of reality I was looking for.

The longest journey I've done so far was 2 hours, and I didn't feel I wanted to get out after that time.

In terms of seeing the instrument cluster, I don't have any problem there, though it would have been nice if it was like the Auris. That said, I don't dislike it - they nicely balanced the normal indications so they're mostly symmetrical. My only complaint would be it is too bright at night even at min setting (as great as the blue lighting is, it's not a good color for night driving).

I thought it strange that the tank was smaller, but I have got 430 miles out of a tank so it isn't range limiting (my last car only went 300 miles on a tank so a near 50% improvement in range on 25% less fuel is huge!). Maybe it was a marketing strategy so it didn't make the Hybrid range generally look too similar?

It's mostly me on my own so things like rear seat space aren't a priority.

The Prius will need to wait a little longer!

@PeteB: I've seen the display you speak of, and I agree - it seems strange to abandon it, and a shame they did.

Despite the above, you couldn't take the Yaris off me for anything (except a Prius)!

@Duffryn: I've had a computer reported 71 MPG over 12 miles (mostly A road and about a mile town driving), but that was pretty exceptional (owing to great luck with traffic, and traffic lights). The journey back was 62 MPG, which is typical.

Thanks everyone!

[PeteB]

2 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

...I thought it strange that the tank was smaller, but I have got 430 miles out of a tank so it isn't range limiting...

I think it was to make room for the HV Battery.

After being used to often 600+ range since 2002, I would find it a right pain personally

[YarisHybrid2016]

16 hours ago, PeteB said:

I think it was to make room for the HV battery.

Ahh - that would make sense.

[Anthony Poli]

6 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

Ahh - that would make sense.

The Battery pack is smaller and hides under the rear seat, yet it still is upto the job.

[YarisHybrid2016]

On 3/8/2017 at 8:11 AM, Anthony Poli said:

The battery pack is smaller and hides under the rear seat, yet it still is upto the job.

It certainly is! :D

[Anthony Poli]

The battery pack is smaller and hides under the rear seat, yet it still is upto the job.

It certainly is! :D

Actually the ev performance is better than my Auris. As in it will accelerate faster to 30mph, the only complaint would be normal automatic gear lever.

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[YarisHybrid2016]

I think that is because the Yaris is a lighter car.

[Anthony Poli]

6 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

I think that is because the Yaris is a lighter car.

So they could get away with the smaller engine.

[PeteB]

2 hours ago, Anthony Poli said:

So they could get away with the smaller engine.

and possibly would have found it harder to fit the larger engine in a Yaris engine bay!

[YarisHybrid2016]

On 3/27/2017 at 10:08 AM, PeteB said:

and possibly would have found it harder to fit the larger engine in a Yaris engine bay!

I read something recently that said the engine is the same found in the Prius C (the small - original? - Prius). That had a 1.5L powerplant, too.

[PeteB]

4 minutes ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

I read something recently that said the engine is the same found in the Prius C (the small - original? - Prius). That had a 1.5L powerplant, too.

No, the Prius C is a Yaris size Hybrid available on the US.  To me, it looks exactly like the Yaris, but with Prius (Gen 3) type digital dash, steering wheel etc.

I strongly suspect the Prius C and Yaris Hybrid share the same body-shell and power unit.

The original Prius was 1.5L, but had a less advanced engine and electric systems compared to the Gen 3/4 Hybrids.

[YarisHybrid2016]

Ahh! I didn't realize that. Might be why I confused it.

[PeteB]

You can see the latest version here:  

https://www.toyota.com/priusc/

https://www.toyota.com/priusc/interior/

[Anthony Poli]

The engine might be only a 1.5l, but it definitely is up to the job. Might try driving up a road named sheer brow, just to see how it handles it. ;-)

 

 

 

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[PeteB]

41 minutes ago, Anthony Poli said:

The engine might be only a 1.5l, but it definitely is up to the job. Might try driving up a road named sheer brow, just to see how it handles it. ;-)

Indeed - in fact the first two generations were 1.5, and the Gen 1 was the least powerful, but still more than adequate (except for motoring journalists!).

My Gen 1 Prius went up 1 in 5 (20%) hills 5 or 6 miles long in Scotland effortlessly, without drawing from the HV Battery.  [Going down the other side often completely filled it so Regen stopped and B Mode became useful for the first time in my experience].

[Anthony Poli]

The engine might be only a 1.5l, but it definitely is up to the job. Might try driving up a road named sheer brow, just to see how it handles it. ;-)

Indeed - in fact the first two generations were 1.5, and the Gen 1 was the least powerful, but still more than adequate (except for motoring journalists!).

My Gen 1 Prius went up 1 in 5 (20%) hills 5 or 6 miles long in Scotland effortlessly, without drawing from the HV Battery.  [Going down the other side often completely filled it so Regen stopped and B Mode became useful for the first time in my experience].

 

 

Since the Yaris is smaller and lighter, that must make the 1.5l engine efficiency even better.

 

During the week I drive the Auris and at the weekends the Yaris. So I can compare the 1.5 against the 1.8. The only difference is the acceleration from a standing start, but other than that, no real difference.

 

 

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[Cyker]

You say that but that 1.5L in the Mk1 and Mk2 is probably responsible for the rep the Prius got for being bad on the motorway! Personally i think the switch to a 1.8 was a good idea as it can run at lower rpms at motorway speeds just because it has more baseline torque. The Mk3 is so much nicer on the motorway than the Mk2!

The thing with the engines is their CC is very misleading - While they are e.g. 1.5 and 1.8, they actually use much less than 1.5 or 1.8's worth of fuel air mix, which is why they are are very underpowered compared to what their CC suggests. Their efficiency is because while they may take, say, 1.0's worth of fuel-air mix, they extract 1.5's worth of expansion from it so more energy goes into moving the cylinder and doing work rather than just being blown out the exhaust as heat like in most petrols.
 

[PeteB]

Another part of the equation is that most of the time most engines in 'ordinary' cars are only using a very small proportion of the power theay are capable of producing.  The Hybrid system scores because the electric motor can augment power when extra is needed, which is not a big percentage of the time the car is being driven.  

The system also takes advantage of the fact that each type of motor is efficient under different circumstances, and petrol/electric systems augment each other quite well.  This is one reason some of the diesel hybrid cars have less of an advantage compared to a non-hybrid diesel, since their relative efficiencies overlap more than augment.

Personally, I found the 1.5 Gen 1 & 2 Prius more than adequate for my needs, and was happy to drive hours on end at motorway speeds.  Yes each version has got better, but I for one would still be quite content to drive a version with the same performance as a Gen 1, if it had the updated safety and convenience equipment of my Gen 4.

Indeed, if they'd dropped the 1.5 Yaris Hybrid system into a 2009 spec Yaris, with it's digital dash, amazing class-beating accommodation and world leading interior storage, and added the safety aids of the Gen 4 Prius, I'd have been over the moon.