Yaris on Motorway

[ninanina]

I’ve posted before about choosing a Yaris but ruled them out after a test ride in an Excel because of the harsh ride; probably due to the crazy big low profile tyres on the Excel

It’s been a very busy time for me since I last posted what with elderly parents causing me all sorts of worries and I’m also buying a house 

So I am now reconsidering the Yaris but one without the low profile tyres, maybe Design spec 

I was considering a new one but funds now won’t allow that so I’d be looking for a 21/22 

I had a courtesy Yaris Design when my Prius was in for service and remember being really impressed with it. I live in a city and to be honest it’s all the car I need 

I do have the occasional long motorway drive to do though and was wondering how well the Yaris copes with it 

Thanks for any advice 

[BlueMike1972]

Can't speak for doing an extended run in one yet, but I test drove a Design and now have an Excel, and would say that there's very little between the ride on them; I know a lot of the online reviews called the ride a bit harsh, but to me it was no worse than the Fiesta I was coming from. Each to their own of course, but I like a nice solid riding car.

[Mojo1010]

I have the design trim, tyres are comfortable on the 16" profile and takes motorway with ease. Spent a week long trip to Cornwall a couple of months ago, covered 980 miles with ease.

There's a definite difference with the excel 17" profile and design 16", cyker will tell you as he went even further to put 15" more comfortable tyre profile on. It was also one of the reason I did not opt for the excel. 

[Cyker]

It'll be worse than the Prius I'm sure!

Of the 3 generations of Yaris I've driven, it's easily the noisiest and has the least comfortable seats.

You'd definitely have to do an extended test drive to see how the seats are for you!

I will say the seats in the lower Icon/Design specs are more comfortable than the back-crippling 'Sports Seats' they put in my Excel - I have to use a rolled up towel/lumbar support cushion to avoid crippling lower back pain for longer journeys.

Aside from that it's pretty good - The dynamic cruise control makes long motorway runs a lot more relaxed, esp. when you're stuck in lock-step behind some HGV in those mind numbing 50mph zones. The car also has a lot of punch so when you're out of those zones, it'll overtake pretty much anything very briskly and return back to a nice sedate pace as if nothing happened.

 

But why the change? Weren't you looking at a CH-R before...?

 

[ninanina]

Thanks for the responses 

Yes I was looking at the C-HR Cyker but I’ve decided that I just don’t need a bigger car than the Yaris. I very very rarely carry much stuff or rear passengers

I also want something that’s as cheap to run and own as possible especially living in Portsmouth City 

[Cyker]

Ahh, that makes sense; Once you get over the high initial cost, there isn't much out there that's cheaper to run than the Mk4 Yaris!!  

That Prius will still have plenty of life left in it though!

[Big_D]

We've driven our Yaris Excel to from Reading to Newcastle and back, a few times now and have had no issues. We find it a comfortable drive, even with the larger wheels.

[Gren]

I have the Yaris Cross, so not a direct comparison, but I find it good on the motorways, though the fuel consumption is nowhere near as good a local trips - but still better than my previous diesel car.

Initially I found it tiring, but once I'd experimented a few times with adjusting the drivers seat I have no issues at all, in fact it is fine on my regular 250-mile motorway trips.

[MardyMarvin]

I have an excel and driven from yorkshire to crawley and shorter motorway drives and its more then comfortable especially using adaptive cruise and I dont find a difference in road comfort compared to my wifes Yaris X. It only get a little jarring on back roads that have tons of pot holes but I think that would be the same in any car unless they float above the road.

[Tonycu]

We have a Yaris icon 22 plate and have travelled twice to Spain from Lancashire

I found the Yaris coped really well with the journey and we both had no problems with the comfort or performance of the car

We also now have a Yaris x but have only travelled as far as St Andrews in Scotland and found it very comfortable 

[BlueMike1972]

Lancashire to Spain is a pretty good endorsement!

[hind]

1 hour ago, Tonycu said:

We have a Yaris icon 22 plate and have travelled twice to Spain from Lancashire

What MPG did you get? 🙂 

[skidlid]

We collected our 2024 Yaris in March this year. We chose the Design spec because it has sensible 55 profile tyres and all the kit we need.

It replaced a 2018 Skoda Fabia 110 PS we had owned from new and it was going to be a hard act to follow. But since it was essential that the new car had an electric handbrake and auto gears the choice was very limited in the small car class, pretty much the Yaris and the Jazz (if you ignore Peugeots, Renaults and Vauxhalls which we did). We never even drove the Jazz, the wife could not adjust the seat position with the arthritis in her left wrist so it was the Yaris and we hoped it would live up to our expectations. Thankfully the test drive was good and did a deal via CarWow in September and waited.

5 months later we are still delighted. We thought we might miss the pick up the turbo petrol in the Fabia provided for overtaking in the hillier parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire but the electric motor more than makes up for it. In town its way better, instant acceleration.

The dash indicates and average mpg of 77.2 mpg, my spreadsheet says its closer to 74 mpg which was are delighted with and is way better than the 48 mpg the Fabia averaged over 6 years. That is in mixed use on motorways, A roads and in town.

As for comfort the ride is way better than the Fabia which was crashy on its 215 45 16 tyres. Noise wise there is probably sod all in it. Same with space and seat comfort but its fair to say getting in and out of the back seats (not something we do more than a couple of times a month) is not as easy. The figures suggested the boot would be smaller than the Fabia but I confirmed they were pretty much the same (with my trusty 3m tape) before we bought it and I think I know why the figures differ. The Fabia did not have a standard spare and I feel certain that the underfloor storage is included in the luggage figure, the spare was standard in the Yaris and the boot is just the boot. But we can get the uncles wheeled walker in there and his weeks shopping just as easy as it fitted in the Fabia.

Only done one decent trip so far, a day out in Whitby, about 250 mile round trip. It performed brilliantly and the hills on the North Yorks Moors did not make the engine revs flare as much as I had expected. 70 mph cruise (72 on the speedo) is perfectly relaxing and would shame many bigger cars we have owned in the past. Mr Casio suggested about 85 mpg for the day.

[1.33]

I was recently loaned a nearly new Mk4 GR Sport whilst my Mk3 was in for its annual service. It was much quieter than the earlier (Gen 1) Mk4 with less engine noise noticeable in the cabin. I found the differences between the 116/130hp versions to be minimal in normal town driving, but acceleration was very brisk on faster roads.

Ride comfort was fine on smooth roads, but very fidgety and jarring on pot holed / broken / uneven road surfaces with the low (40) profile tyres. If I needed to switch to a Mk4, it would be the Design spec purely for the ride comfort.

[Cyker]

I keep hinting to my dealer they should loan out more cars during service as that would be more likely to get people to buy them than spamming people with e-mails, but they never have any available

Really wanted to try out a Premiere (They wouldn't even let me test drive one unless I committed to buying one! To discourage 'time-wasters' ), but TBH probably for the best as mine is more than good enough and as nice as the Premiere is the massive difference in cost for it just doesn't make sense...  I don't need the temptation!!   

 

[Tintaglia]

10 hours ago, Cyker said:

 

Really wanted to try out a Premiere (They wouldn't even let me test drive one unless I committed to buying one! To discourage 'time-wasters' ), 

 

I have seen some pretty poor tactics by dealers over the years but that is really poor!!  They don't deserve any sales at all.  I bet they would pretty soon change their tune if most of their sales went to a rival dealer!

[jthspace]

The Premier is a limited edition for the Launch period and it's understandable that they may not have a demo car but the Excel is almost identical other than HUD and bigger hp on the engine so a drive in that would be representative. I test drove a GR edition as Steven Eagell didn't have a Premier registered.  

If it was my Premier at the dealer awaiting delivery I certainly wouldn't want it being test driven by anyone.

Interestingly, Smart Cars could run up 300 miles on the clock before first delivery to the customer; it allowed the dealer to reset to 0 on delivery (one time) so maybe someone had test driven it and I would never know.  Mine had 90 miles on it and it was set to 0 in front of me.

 

 

[dash]

37 minutes ago, jthspace said:

 Mine had 90 miles on it and it was set to 0 in front of me.

 

 

I wouldn't have thought that resetting the odometer to zero would be possible or legal !!

[MardyMarvin]

8 hours ago, dash said:

I wouldn't have thought that resetting the odometer to zero would be possible or legal !!

you can legally change the odometer but it must be declared and documented what it was before changing and the reasons for changing. 

[Tonycu]

On 8/20/2024 at 9:30 AM, hind said:

What MPG did you get? 🙂 

Average 62 mpg,  journey consists of mainly motorways in England,France and spain

The roads abroad are vastly superior to English roads ,very little traffic jams or congestion,apart from Paris,and fewer roadworks

Had three overnight stays in gillingham.france and spain on the journey out and three coming back,spain.and two in France 

Travelled approx 1600 miles

[Tonycu]

Should have said 1600 for each journey 3200 in total

[hind]

6 minutes ago, Tonycu said:

Average 62 mpg

Nice! We did 3500 km trip through the northern Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France in May and got the avg of 54 mpg. The car was fully loaded (3+dog and a luggage for 10 days) and despite very low consumption while driving local roads, the motorway parts corrected it significantly 😉 

[TonyHSD]

Any car is fine on the motorway for occasional drives, holidays etc.
The question is how often and for how long? 
Aygo , Yaris- these are typical city cars and as such they aren’t the first choice to anyone planing to drive exclusively on motorways and covering long miles every day. If this is the question a Corolla is better car or Camry , Lexus IS, ES , UX. 

[70mpg]

On 8/18/2024 at 5:41 PM, Mojo1010 said:

I have the design trim, tyres are comfortable on the 16" profile and takes motorway with ease. Spent a week long trip to Cornwall a couple of months ago, covered 980 miles with ease.

There's a definite difference with the excel 17" profile and design 16", cyker will tell you as he went even further to put 15" more comfortable tyre profile on. It was also one of the reason I did not opt for the excel. 

I’ve got a dynamic on 17 inch rims and can’t fault the ride, much better than the mini it replaced and compared to a couple of German cars I drive I just can’t fault it. 

[ninanina]

Thanks for all the replies 

Am I correct in thinking that the 21/22 Yaris comes with a spare wheel as standard?