radicalmature
by David Finlay (16 Aug 06)

There's a long tradition of motoring journalists scoffing irritably at car advertising campaigns, and who am I to go against it? The keyword in the current marketing for the Toyota Yaris is bigsmall, and while this isn't nearly as bad as the daftness that was created for the Nissan Micra ("modtro", for heaven's sake - "spafe", forsooth), it still narks me a bit.

The reason is that although the Yaris is indeed big on the inside, as suggested by the ads, it's also quite big on the outside. It is not the miracle of packaging that the marketing bods would like you to believe. But even among its rivals in the supermini class (a type of vehicle which is growing on average more massive with every new model that's launched), the Yaris is undoubtedly a roomy vehicle.

Space for rear passengers is particularly impressive - the Japanese are on the whole exceptionally good at that - but if you don't need to carry any of those the back seats can be folded by way of Toyota's Easy Flat system. The boot floor seems high, extending not quite as far off the ground as the level of the sill, but there's more room underneath it for items you'd prefer to keep hidden.

The test car comes in the top half of the Yaris price list, with its mid-range T3 specification and excellent 1.4-litre D-4D turbo diesel engine. The other available engines are smaller and non-turbocharged, and use petrol for fuel, so the D-4D is the one to go for if you want performance and economy.

Actually, with just 89bhp available, the D-4D doesn't seem on paper like it's going to be quick, but there's so much mid-range grunt that it never feels slow. It does, however, always sound like a diesel, or in the case of the test car it did before I put unleaded in the tank by mistake, which is a whole nother story.

Colleagues are still astonished that I goofed to such an extent, and I can't quite understand it myself. In all driving conditions the Yaris sounds diesely, as if Toyota simply couldn't come up with a way of preventing the noise coming into the cabin.

More . . .

Toyota Yaris 1.4 D-4D T3 Five-Door Video Test
More Toyota Yaris Photos
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