Ownership So Far

[Jimota]

Since joining the forum and collecting my Yaris Cross Design in December 2022, I promised that I would submit a 6 month review on my ownership experiences in June 2023.  Well, for various reasons I have not had the chance to do so and now that I’m confined to the house over the next few days on doctors orders, this would be an opportune time to do so.

As my loyalty to VW/Audi came to an end because neither company had a smallish self charging hybrid in their range that would suit my individual needs, I was drawn to the Yaris Cross Design with it’s good looks and having the famous Toyota reliability Badge of honour and excellent customer reviews. Here’s what I found.

The Design model was my choice as it had a range of features and equipment that I was generally looking for.  The car’s appearance and exterior design is very sleek, modern and has a real purposeful look about it.  The interior is well thought out and the ergonomics of the dash area really impresses me.  The cabin is light, spacious for the driver and front seat passengers but it can get a little cramped for rear seat passengers on the odd occasion that I have transported them.  For me, the drivers seat lacks sufficient support on the left lateral cushion but my wife has no problems with it.  Other than that, the interior is a very pleasant environment with excellent all round vision and it’s as good as any car that I’ve driven.  Boot space is more than sufficient for my needs and there’s nothing more than I can add to this.

I thought that moving from cars with DSG gearboxes to an ECVT system might be a bit of a challenge never really arose.  The Yaris box really is good but I know some people who poo poo it as they still compare it to the old 70s Daf cars with the big rubber bands in the engine bay.  One of my neighbours has now been enlightened and ordered a Yaris Cross Design model over the weekend.  The 1.5 engine has plenty of oomph and I’ve never felt it lacking in power or stamina over the very hilly area where I reside.  It’s not the quietist of engines but the radio has a handy little volume button to address this phenomenon.  Surprisingly, despite it’s relatively tall stance, the Yaris is more than capable of remaining stable and sure footed with very little body roll over the country roads surrounding me.

Some folk on the forum have raised issues relating to the Battery losing it’s charge but I’ve never experienced this.  In fact, I left my car exposed to the horrible Scottish weather for a six week period in January/February while I was visiting my daughter in Australia.  Despite strict instructions to my youngest son to put the car into READY mode every week, he felt that a one off “boost” would be sufficient.  Turns out he was correct as the car started first time on my return.  However, the brake discs were covered in rust which required a slow drive with my left foot on the brake pedal while accelerating on a quiet road nearby.  Worked a treat and brought the discs back to showroom condition.  I’m off to Australia again in November but this time I’ll be there for 3 months and I’m a little more apprehensive and doubtful whether my previous actions will be sufficient to keep the Battery in a useable condition.  I’d be more than happy to receive any advice on this matter.  My Yaris is parked in a residents car park which is nearly always in shadow.

 

Where this car really excels is it’s incredible fuel consumption.  My last 3 fuel top ups have shown over 70 mpg on every occasion.  It really is amazing when you consider that most of my journeys are quite short in a semi rural environment.  On the odd occasion that I’ve ventured onto motorways fuel consumption does suffer once you reach the 70mph limit so I’m wondering if it’s the best car for this type of driving.  Nevertheless, the Yaris Cross has been an excellent purchase for me and I now nominate it as the best car I’ve owned so far.

 

[Xerapin]

4 minutes ago, Jimota said:

My last 3 fuel top ups have shown over 70 mpg on every occasion.  It really is amazing when you consider that most of my journeys are quite short in a semi rural environment

I Do quite a bit of mixed driving, with Motorway driving to/from work once a week (100mile round trip). Sticking to 65-72mph (traffic pending) you get around 62-65MPG, you are correct in where this car excels is in the 30-50mph range of cross-country roads and if the EV Battery is charged anything sub 30mph. Weird owning a car that is officially more fuel efficient in traffic than cruising at 65 on the motorway! I'm not quite regularly hitting over 70mpg but 65-67 is about where I'm at with the mixe driving.

7 minutes ago, Jimota said:

The 1.5 engine has plenty of oomph and I’ve never felt it lacking in power

Replacing my 1.6 Turbo Diesel (albeit 10 years old) and 100% haven't missed it. That thing flew in 2nd to 3rd gear but the yaris just Glides!

 

Appreciate the read! I've had mine for a few months now and can echo much of the same too (also not had any Battery issues so far but I've only left mine to rest for 1 week). Look forward to hearing how you get on after your longer trip!

[Gray86]

A tip that I learned from @TonyHSD to keep the brake disk clear of rust is to occasionally drop the car into neutral with the gear selector and then apply the brakes. In neutral you don’t get ANY regenerative braking so you get 100% pad on disk braking which clears the disks nicely. Pop it back into drive after to accelerate (and charge both hybrid Battery and 12v battery) 

[Primus1]

One thing I have found with the cross is, after a wash, or when it’s raining, the discs and pads don’t tend to stick on as much as my Ford did, sometimes they would release with a loud bang when I reversed out of my garage…

[anchorman]

10 hours ago, Gray86 said:

A tip that I learned from @TonyHSD to keep the brake disk clear of rust is to occasionally drop the car into neutral with the gear selector and then apply the brakes. In neutral you don’t get ANY regenerative braking so you get 100% pad on disk braking which clears the disks nicely. Pop it back into drive after to accelerate (and charge both hybrid battery and 12v battery) 

Be careful doing that, most gearboxes rely on the shafts turning to lubricate the gearbox and you can seize the gearbox by coasting.  In my my mechanicing days, we’d pull one apart and find it all blue from heat inside knowing the driver had it in “silent sixth”.  I dread to think how much a hybrid transmission costs so I would never recommend coasting.

[YarisHybrid2016]

I've never heard of driving in neutral with manuals to be a problem? It's illegal though as you're not considered to be in full control of the vehicle (I never established if that is actually true though).

I'd avoid neutral in a hybrid if it is moving, as it can cause arcing in the motor/generators. When towing, they require the drive wheels to be lifted off the road for this reason, so don't do it.

Most cars will be less efficient at 70 MPH. Over the years I found 50-52 MPH to be most efficient.

Given these newer hybrids can run EV mode to higher speeds, I'm going to see what effect driving at 60 MPH has. My wife found an increase in efficiency at this speed (mixed motorway/city driving on her commute) in the Cross (one night she got a reported 90 MPG after a 40 mile journey), so will be interesting to see what happens with mine.

[Jimota]

I’ve found that driving between 60-65mph, the Yaris still gives excellent fuel results.  As you touch 70mph the efficiency figure reduces somewhat.  I’ve not had a chance to go on a really long motorway drive and it would be helpful for some comments from anyone who regularly drives at the maximum speed limit for extended periods.  Obviously, driving at 70mph uses more fuel but is the Yaris any better than a non hybrid at this speed?

[Roy124]

I certainly cruise at 50-52 on the A roads.  Pushing for 60 is a waste of energy.

On dual carriage ways I aim for 62-63 which is fractionally faster than the lorrys limited to 60.  Problem is the truck doing less than 60.

Today I was tucked in behind such a truck.  The Dutchman behind me thought I was going too slowly so squeezed into the 2-bar gap.  The result was i had to jump on the brake to avoid being swiped and he gained 12 feet.  I pulled off a 100 yards later.

[CPN]

1 hour ago, Jimota said:

 Obviously, driving at 70mph uses more fuel but is the Yaris any better than a non hybrid at this speed?

I would argue a resounding yes to that question. In the past few months, we have had reason to repeatedly do a circa 200-mile round trip a couple of times a month which is, I'd say, circa 80% motorway or dual carriageway running at the national limit of 70mph.

For most of the journey, I make use of the adaptive cruise control set to 73mph (a true 70 in our car) and I can still manage to get 62-63mpg average at those kinds of speeds for the whole journey (neck-to-neck calculated fuelling).

[Jimota]

That’s very good mpg Colin.  As I’m now retired and thankfully don’t venture onto the motorway very often, it was difficult for me to calculate an accurate figure.

Cheers

[CPN]

Yes, it is James and I am also retired so, like you, long journeys are not "the norm" in our life either. The Mk4 continues to surprise me with its frugal use of petrol even after 3 years of ownership! 🙂

[Primus1]

We drove down to the new forest in June for our holiday, at that time I was driving my puma mild hybrid, cc was set at 66mph, plenty fast enough and did most of the journey at this speed, ( roadworks ect permitting) I achieved 61 mpg, which was excellent, so I’m hoping next year’s holiday to Scotland will be even better if I can keep to this speed as a maximum in the cross..

[Cyker]

2 hours ago, CPN said:

Yes, it is James and I am also retired so, like you, long journeys are not "the norm" in our life either. The Mk4 continues to surprise me with its frugal use of petrol even after 3 years of ownership! 🙂

Good grief I can't believe it's already 3 years!  I feel like I only got the car a little while ago!   

I agree with CPN tho' - You can challenge diesels for MPG in the newer hybrids, even at 70mph; When cruising at 70 my engine will only be around 2000rpm - Not many petrols can do that - and when going down a hill with enough charge it can even shut the engine off and hold the 70mph on MG2 alone for the duration of the descent!

The whole drivetrain is very good at extracting efficiency at any opportunity, that the non-hybrid would not be able to take advantage of.

My current tank average over 150 miles of mixed urban/fast driving is already at 83mpg, and that's with many 70 bursts!  (The trick is to coast down from that 70 as long as possible on only the electrics - You can get most of the mpg you dropped back  )

[Lawnmowerman]

5 hours ago, Jimota said:

That’s very good mpg Colin.  As I’m now retired and thankfully don’t venture onto the motorway very often, it was difficult for me to calculate an accurate figure.

Cheers

And we don't have many motorways and the ones we do are chokka - which helps economy 😂

[TonyHSD]

Hybrids are more efficient than petrol only even on motorways as the engine works at lower rpm and under less load, in some cases will be even completely off and the car will coast freely on Battery power alone.
 My car is older gen 3 hybrid and can’t maintain higher speeds only in ev like yours but when in similar low engine load situations the engine is running at 1000rpm and the car is still kind of free rolling using minimal fuel, where if it was a 1.6 petrol it would have been 2500rpm at these speeds. Electric motor helps a lot. 👍

[Serban]

On 9/3/2023 at 2:05 PM, Jimota said:

Since joining the forum and collecting my Yaris Cross Design in December 2022, I promised that I would submit a 6 month review on my ownership experiences in June 2023.  Well, for various reasons I have not had the chance to do so and now that I’m confined to the house over the next few days on doctors orders, this would be an opportune time to do so.

As my loyalty to VW/Audi came to an end because neither company had a smallish self charging hybrid in their range that would suit my individual needs, I was drawn to the Yaris Cross Design with it’s good looks and having the famous Toyota reliability badge of honour and excellent customer reviews. Here’s what I found.

The Design model was my choice as it had a range of features and equipment that I was generally looking for.  The car’s appearance and exterior design is very sleek, modern and has a real purposeful look about it.  The interior is well thought out and the ergonomics of the dash area really impresses me.  The cabin is light, spacious for the driver and front seat passengers but it can get a little cramped for rear seat passengers on the odd occasion that I have transported them.  For me, the drivers seat lacks sufficient support on the left lateral cushion but my wife has no problems with it.  Other than that, the interior is a very pleasant environment with excellent all round vision and it’s as good as any car that I’ve driven.  Boot space is more than sufficient for my needs and there’s nothing more than I can add to this.

I thought that moving from cars with DSG gearboxes to an ECVT system might be a bit of a challenge never really arose.  The Yaris box really is good but I know some people who poo poo it as they still compare it to the old 70s Daf cars with the big rubber bands in the engine bay.  One of my neighbours has now been enlightened and ordered a Yaris Cross Design model over the weekend.  The 1.5 engine has plenty of oomph and I’ve never felt it lacking in power or stamina over the very hilly area where I reside.  It’s not the quietist of engines but the radio has a handy little volume button to address this phenomenon.  Surprisingly, despite it’s relatively tall stance, the Yaris is more than capable of remaining stable and sure footed with very little body roll over the country roads surrounding me.

Some folk on the forum have raised issues relating to the battery losing it’s charge but I’ve never experienced this.  In fact, I left my car exposed to the horrible Scottish weather for a six week period in January/February while I was visiting my daughter in Australia.  Despite strict instructions to my youngest son to put the car into READY mode every week, he felt that a one off “boost” would be sufficient.  Turns out he was correct as the car started first time on my return.  However, the brake discs were covered in rust which required a slow drive with my left foot on the brake pedal while accelerating on a quiet road nearby.  Worked a treat and brought the discs back to showroom condition.  I’m off to Australia again in November but this time I’ll be there for 3 months and I’m a little more apprehensive and doubtful whether my previous actions will be sufficient to keep the battery in a useable condition.  I’d be more than happy to receive any advice on this matter.  My Yaris is parked in a residents car park which is nearly always in shadow.

 

Where this car really excels is it’s incredible fuel consumption.  My last 3 fuel top ups have shown over 70 mpg on every occasion.  It really is amazing when you consider that most of my journeys are quite short in a semi rural environment.  On the odd occasion that I’ve ventured onto motorways fuel consumption does suffer once you reach the 70mph limit so I’m wondering if it’s the best car for this type of driving.  Nevertheless, the Yaris Cross has been an excellent purchase for me and I now nominate it as the best car I’ve owned so far.

 

Can you explain again how to get rid of the discs rust? You drive slowly both braking and acceleration pedals pressed? Not driving up to 50mph then sudden break instead? Thanks!

[Roy124]

Serban,  just use your breaks like everyone else does.   Approach roundabout brake as normal.  Go down a slope and maintain speed with brakes.

Just don't do hybrid economy driving.

[local hero]

Your original post has greatly reassured me, I only ordered my YC last week and am honestly having 2nd thoughts,  after looking at every review on YouTube etc I love the looks of the YC and wanted something that could cope with country roads , I had a brief test drive but found it to be a bit lacking in pace and quite noisy, to be fair the salesman just handed me the keys and left me to it no idea what mode I was in or anything else, as i am 72 and have no computer skills the functions completely baffled me and I don't know if or how I am going to learn them, can the YC be  left on a trickle charger when left for a few days ? and how would I connect one, many thanks for any help received Stew

[Hicardo]

Primus, as we have the same car, and even the paint weighs the same, I'll predict you'll get 63mpg on the trip, set at 66mph on the cruise.  Lets see 🤫

[Cyker]

2 hours ago, Serban said:

Can you explain again how to get rid of the discs rust? You drive slowly both braking and acceleration pedals pressed? Not driving up to 50mph then sudden break instead? Thanks!

Check your discs after a journey - If they're clean, then just keep doing what you're doing.

If they're still quite rusty, then either you haven't driven very far or you're a very efficient driver!  

One trick to scrub the discs more is to flick the car into N when preparing to stop, e.g. at traffic lights, and brake - This will force it to use the friction brakes exclusively

But don't keep doing it and remember to put it back into D or you'll cause problems.

I will say I've never had to do anything special in mine to keep the brake discs clean, just drive normally and the car's taken car of it.

 

 

33 minutes ago, local hero said:

Your original post has greatly reassured me, I only ordered my YC last week and am honestly having 2nd thoughts,  after looking at every review on YouTube etc I love the looks of the YC and wanted something that could cope with country roads , I had a brief test drive but found it to be a bit lacking in pace and quite noisy, to be fair the salesman just handed me the keys and left me to it no idea what mode I was in or anything else, as i am 72 and have no computer skills the functions completely baffled me and I don't know if or how I am going to learn them, can the YC be  left on a trickle charger when left for a few days ? and how would I connect one, many thanks for any help received Stew

If you're coming from a diesel it won't feel as special; I was lucky in a way, as I was forced by KHAAAAAAN! to get a petrol car, and hated how gutless it was after having a Yaris D4D for so long, so going to the instant response and electric pull of the hybrid was like heaven by comparison  

If I'd gone from the D4D straight to the hybrid I think it would have felt less impressive. (At 2000rpm, the D4D had near 170Nm of torque; The petrol Mk2 probably had 80-90, while the hybrid has around 140-150 I think?)

I will say it's a very easy car to drive - It has lots of buttons, but you don't need to care about any of them until you feel more familiar with the car - Just turn it on, stick it in Drive and use the pedals and steering, and the car will sort itself out. Everything is set at sensible defaults and you don't need to care about any of the 'computery' stuff. Frankly it's easier to drive than a normal car!

 

re. trickle charging, you only need to worry about that if you only drive it infrequently, in which case you can either attach the charger directly to the Battery under the rear seats (Preferably with some sort of breakout lead for easy de/attachment), or the jumpstart post in the fusebox under the bonnet.

Also, welcome back! When did you reappear???! It seems all you OG forum members are coming back again!  

[Serban]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

Check your discs after a journey - If they're clean, then just keep doing what you're doing.

If they're still quite rusty, then either you haven't driven very far or you're a very efficient driver!  

One trick to scrub the discs more is to flick the car into N when preparing to stop, e.g. at traffic lights, and brake - This will force it to use the friction brakes exclusively

But don't keep doing it and remember to put it back into D or you'll cause problems.

I will say I've never had to do anything special in mine to keep the brake discs clean, just drive normally and the car's taken car of it.

 

 

If you're coming from a diesel it won't feel as special; I was lucky in a way, as I was forced by KHAAAAAAN! to get a petrol car, and hated how gutless it was after having a Yaris D4D for so long, so going to the instant response and electric pull of the hybrid was like heaven by comparison  

If I'd gone from the D4D straight to the hybrid I think it would have felt less impressive. (At 2000rpm, the D4D had near 170Nm of torque; The petrol Mk2 probably had 80-90, while the hybrid has around 140-150 I think?)

I will say it's a very easy car to drive - It has lots of buttons, but you don't need to care about any of them until you feel more familiar with the car - Just turn it on, stick it in Drive and use the pedals and steering, and the car will sort itself out. Everything is set at sensible defaults and you don't need to care about any of the 'computery' stuff. Frankly it's easier to drive than a normal car!

 

re. trickle charging, you only need to worry about that if you only drive it infrequently, in which case you can either attach the charger directly to the battery under the rear seats (Preferably with some sort of breakout lead for easy de/attachment), or the jumpstart post in the fusebox under the bonnet.

Also, welcome back! When did you reappear???! It seems all you OG forum members are coming back again!  

Unfortunately I'm an efficient driver according to you 😞

I'll try the N mode sometimes, I just hope it's safe to do, don't wanna ruin anything, I've seen some mention it will fck the transmission but I'm not sure how true it is. I suppose 1 or 2 times every 100miles shouldn't be that problematic, but who knows. I'll just monitor the rust for now, it's rly not that bad.

[TonyHSD]

Best way to keep brake discs clean as everyone says is indeed just use the brakes as any other driver. But because these cars has regen braking and if you drive efficiently with low use of the brakes they will remain redundant most of the times and only work at the very last moment before you come to a complete stop. If this is your typical drive then you can do some quick slow downs when coming off the motorway or A roads , 60mph down to 20mph , no need to flip to N but just do late brake so the actual brakes got engaged. 

You can do in N if the discs are starting to show signs of scoring and corrosion, there is no risk of breaking your transmission or anything.
If something goes wrong with your car hybrid system the transmission will switch to N and the car will stop.

By the car manual N is not to be used in any circumstances other than loading purposes.
If you do braking in N make sure you had driven the car before that for at least 15 min. You will be safe as I have done that many times even at 70 mph. 

Another tested method is in a safe place in reverse , accelerate a bit more and slow down sharply, in reverse there is no regen braking. 
But honestly as long as you do few moderate slow downs or late braking in D there is no reason to bother using N , reverse brakes or anything else. 

 

[Roy124]

Stewart, we were loaned a Corolla for an afternoon.  When the gauge read empty we thought to put some litres in.  The petrol cap defeated us.

Now, 3 years on in Toyota,  I confess that the lights (opposite side from a Mercedes) and washers continue to confuse and defeat.

As Cyker says, most other controls can be left alone until you get used to the car.

We find it no noisier than the Corolla.   My only little gripe is we only get about 400 miles full to reserve compared with 500 on the Corolla but that is because the tank is very small at under 8g.

In context,  my Triumph 1300 had an enormous,  for the time,  11.8g tank which gave me over 300 miles 🙂

[Tommy X]

5 hours ago, local hero said:

Your original post has greatly reassured me, I only ordered my YC last week and am honestly having 2nd thoughts,  after looking at every review on YouTube etc I love the looks of the YC and wanted something that could cope with country roads , I had a brief test drive but found it to be a bit lacking in pace and quite noisy, to be fair the salesman just handed me the keys and left me to it no idea what mode I was in or anything else, as i am 72 and have no computer skills the functions completely baffled me and I don't know if or how I am going to learn them, can the YC be  left on a trickle charger when left for a few days ? and how would I connect one, many thanks for any help received Stew

After five months of ownership my biggest disappointment with my YC is lack of refinement, tyre/road noise especially from the rear,feels like a window has been left open, engine noise when accelerating, although acceptable when up to speed, swift overtakes are a noisy affair, Regarding your trickle charger query, if you have at least three days to spare read the  "12volt Battery maintenance" topic 😉   

[dannyboy413]

@local hero Stew, like you, I am 72 and drive my Yaris Cross on country roads a lot - in fact I have to go about 15 miles before I get to the equivalent of a UK 'A' road. I went from a 1.8 Corolla saloon to the the YC and I love it! I suppose you could say the Corolla was a bit 'posher', but at our ages, the YC is a lot easier to get in and out of! I find the YC can be a bit noisier, but only when pushed hard. As has been suggested, do not bother about all the controls until you get more used to the car, once you have used them a few times, it all becomes second nature. I have not noticed any rust on the discs, but, having said that, I have not really looked. The car normally does 2 x 20 mile journeys a day, Monday to Friday with a bit longer journey sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday. I just let the car get on with what it is doing and enjoy it.