GR Yaris ðŸ‘Ž Negatives - what annoys, disappoints, puzzles and generally irks you about the GR Yaris?

that it’ll kick in while the engine is still warming up
This
off the highway at 110 (plus gst) and come to a stop on a side ride and stop/start shuts the engine down immediately
And that.

The problem on start stop is, that it wasn't developed to help the engine in some way. Not even really lower emissions or fuel consumption.

We had a project with VW and one of the lead developers said start stop is for the single reason in the cars because if a car has it, it's allowed to shut the engine down for a great amount of time of the test cycle. This plus the eco turbo are the main reason why cars have a so much lower fuel consumption on paper than in reality.

In reality the reduction in fuel consumption is far from ideal. Tests have shown, that a reduction of 2 up to 10 % is possible. Sounds great isn't it? Well actually no. This higher percentages are only possible with a fully warmed up engine in havy traffic with many and long stops and a very big engine.

Your driving behaviour is far more impactfull to fuel consumption and emissions and surpass potentially reductions from start stop many times.

I did some testing over 3 years with my and other cars to give me some real results. On my daily commute to work I am driving about 11 km through the city. This is barely enough to warm up engine. (At 8 - 12 km depending on environmental temperature)
When using start stop my engine takes much longer to warm up properly and my fuel consumption was about 7 to 10% higher.

On long trips there was no difference. Wind rain, traffic and so on had far more impact. (Sweden is a damn good testing ground for this)

The only situation I was able to save some fuel was when sitting in heavy traffic jam.

Oh and I'm driving ro work 5 minutes later now. I found the traffic is recognisable reduced at this time. This saves me an average of 20%... boom that's my point.

So back to Mr. VW, I asked him why it's used in cars than, when the actual gains are so small and over shadowed by so much greater reduction potential on driver side. He smiled and said, we weren't able to build cars anymore with this emissions standards. I further asked him why japanese car makers seem to have less problems with consumption and emissions (see diesel gate) mazda is able to build cars without turbo. A thing VW said is impossible with current standards. Toyota has great hybrid technology, Honda always had economic engines ( My Civic FK2 took 5.8 l average.... 2005 with 140 HP and without turbo or start stop) he became quite quiet and only said. "Well, money spent elsewhere, I guess."

I said "Well, money better spent elsewhere then, I guess?" He didn't liked me after that.
 
I thought it was to reduce emissions for others in built-up areas? Pedestrians, other drivers, etc.?
 
I thought it was to reduce emissions for others in built-up areas? Pedestrians, other drivers, etc.?
Well actually no. Most cars I cities only drive short distances like several kilometers. In this case the start stop function reduces the warm up and therefore the engine is running rich and burns more fuel to rise temperature. The affect of saved fuel und reduced emissions is mostly compensated by this. So there is actually no real gain.

Try it for your self over a long time to reduce statistical impact of seasons, environmental temperature, cargo, passengers and so on. I did this over a long time and start stop actually hurts my fuel consumption and tied to this emissions in my particular case. If you spend a lot of time on traffic lights or in jam you'll maybe get other results though.
 
I like stop / start because it reduces emissions at traffic lights where potentially pedestrians are waiting to cross the roads. Lower emissions for that rather than any saving the planet eroticism. But it isn't great.
 
stop/start doesn't bother me. i usually stay on the clutch at stops, used to it from the bike where i rarely put in neutral. i have control when stop/start can act. on some long red traffic lights that i know or railway crossings, it is perfectly fine compared with manual switching of the car. since computers stay on. and in such cases it definitely saves some fuel.

i also found the lane centering disable in the settings. the lane safety feature stays on, but that stupid lane centering is dead forever. fine for me. in regular traffic the basic safety features can come in handy. then i set sensitivity all to lowest possible setting. same for the radar. on the autobahn (i'm german) it is a nice feature, but the distance it leaves to the front car is way too high. people here will consider this plenty enough room for a lane change. on lowest setting it's acceptable. I guess the delevopers tested all this and found a compromise between fullfilling regulations, but give the driver some room for adjustments. (if you go deeper into the menues).

PCS is somewhat funny once it's literally yelling "brake, brake" to me. like wifey on the passenger seat. at same distance to car in front. i finally had no opportunity to test the "low" setting today. i guess the default programming is when you have a yaris with the smallest brakes + you are sleeping.

so this does not belong to the "Negatives" finally. i expect i can make freedom with the electronic assists. I hate when i would have to switch of some feature on every start. i want to jump in the car, start and go. and if i want to go hooligan, i can switch all of anyway. but thats not what i bought the car for. then you better use some older car without the flight recorders.

in general i have a two-fold opinion about all this safety features. i have to admit, computers are much faster and does not get distracted. on the other hand i fear, that my mind get lazy when i use it too long. humans get used to this "i don't need to think about, someone else will do" way too fast. and i feel sorry for the young people that learn driving with all the helpers in place and never drove cars where you as the driver must keep full attention. all time.
 
Good tip, should switch off the auto lane keeping thing, I only use it when doing other stuff then actually paying attention to the road, that's bad...

Don't keep the clutch in at the lights though, this may cause the clutch throw-out bearing to wear prematurely, they make them as cheap as possible usually...

Driving short distances in heavy traffic in the city where the engine barely warms... Not ideal for any ICE engine, even less for a GRY. Really the anticlimax of both mobility and 'rally car". I would bike if possible or get a little electric car, anything else... In context, I think a GRY is a terrible, terrible city car and driving there should be avoided at all cost ;) (actually, as long as things are moving, it's great to zip around with 'assertively', but traffic jams are mental death to me and would never go there day after day)

Oh and, this is a bit of a thing for me especially in Sweden where people are terrible at both keeping distance and changing lanes and driving in traffic (oh traffic jam is over, let's let the car in front pull away and not accelerate ourselves, keeping ghost traffic jams alive in the process 😡) but the whole point besides basic safety with keeping distance, is to allow smooth lane changes (for me two staples is ideal). It might be counter intuitive, but this not only increases safety (and reduces the occurance of massive traffic jams due to accidents), but also reduces the risk of induced traffic jams as cars going to close will 'ripple' back disturbances such as tight lane changes with increasing brake actions, causing cars to come to a stop further back. And from then you have a traffic jam for no real reason that can take ages to dissolve... Yeah I like automatic cruise control, for the majority uninterested in driving it's a good thing... And when I'm in heavy traffic, I'm also uninterested... in life 😫

Rant over, Over and out 😂
 
Yep, agree Onehp: while I initially found the radar cruise was keeping me too far from the car in front even on its ‘closest’ setting, I think over time it has made me a better motorway driver - changing lanes earlier to overtake and keeping a better/safer distance from the car in front.
 
The rattles are back! After pulling/lifting the dash apart last year and spraying as much as I could with silica spray, I thought I’d solved the problem but it’s all come back.
 
The stereo volume does not default to a 'acceptable' setting when the car is restarted.

Small thing but I have nearly give myself a heart attack on more than one occasion :ROFLMAO:
 
Yep, agree Onehp: while I initially found the radar cruise was keeping me too far from the car in front even on its ‘closest’ setting, I think over time it has made me a better motorway driver - changing lanes earlier to overtake and keeping a better/safer distance from the car in front.
I don't even use the closest radar cruise control setting outside of congestion just to reduce the rate of stone chips. And it's rare I let it kick in.
 
I always use the S/S function on my commute, some of the traffic lights on the A4 are over a minute between changes and i regularly have the engine off for between 5 and 10 minutes on a commute of just over an hour...

Not sure what it says about the weight of traffic lol
 
Having the car for six month, here are my dislikes:
Visibility back sides
Toyota safety - every single feature
Take off procedure
Auto headlights (dunno how to turn em off, didnt check if possible)
Shiny stripe on the doors inside, and toyota logo on horn
Horn
Anchor plates rendering brake vents useless
Windows lowering when open doors
Fake sound
 
Having the car for six month, here are my dislikes:
Visibility back sides
Toyota safety - every single feature
Take off procedure
Auto headlights (dunno how to turn em off, didnt check if possible)
Shiny stripe on the doors inside, and toyota logo on horn
Horn
Anchor plates rendering brake vents useless
Windows lowering when open doors
Fake sound

You can switch off auto headlights and auto main beams very easily. They work pretty well for me though and both are set to auto.

The windows lower when you own the doors like a lot of cars with frameless windows - to protect and ensure a good seal.

I always switch off the lane assist, and put it on of in going on a long motorway journey. But other than that, the safety features are pretty good imo.
 
You can switch off auto headlights and auto main beams very easily. They work pretty well for me though and both are set to auto.

The windows lower when you own the doors like a lot of cars with frameless windows - to protect and ensure a good seal.

I always switch off the lane assist, and put it on of in going on a long motorway journey. But other than that, the safety features are pretty good imo.
Lights do work fine, just in case I find a younger mistress, need stealth leaving my house at night ^^

Windows piss me off 'cos I have a feeling I'll break something if open the doors in a hurry, just a feeling, not compromising anything.

Here we got really crowded city traffic, meaning 1-1.5 m between the cars. So many times I almost got rear ended when my Toyota decided it wants more space in front and hit the brakes. Makes me feel like an idiot as well, who's driving here? Had to hard throttle it out of braking many times. Driving down narrow streets with parked cars on sides is a nightmare, constant beeping and "BRAKE" on the dash...

Can't help it, I'm a 90s guy, don't want my car doing nothing unless I tell it to.
 
the window drop is to relieve cabin air pressure when closing the doors and works very well, you'd notice if wasn't there
 
As Yaris San said above, the windows dropping isn't for when you get out so even if you exit quickly, you won't break the seal; it's for when you get in.
 
Dipped headlights or full beam?
Dipped, didn't know it had auto high beam, but that's generally something you enable in toyotas. Normal lights is auto / side / dipped, no off
 
Dipped, didn't know it had auto high beam, but that's generally something you enable in toyotas. Normal lights is auto / side / dipped, no off

Auto high beam is near your knee (right knee in RHD)

Screenshot_20221014_212056.webp
 
Back
Top