Bought a Toyota Yaris 1.5 Icon Tech earlier on this year after a disastrous experience with a Hyundai i20 (clutch judder problems, changed twice in a year under warranty but problems persisted).

Bought the Yaris for a few reasons, most of them being the same reasons for buying the i20:

• Had a 5 year 100,000 mile warranty.
• Had a conventional 4 cylinder engine (no turbo), so therefore more reliable. Also this wasn’t a new engine to Toyota, they had been using it on the Yaris Hybrid for a while.
• Quite nippy having 111 hp.
• Had a sensible tyre/ wheel size (175/65 R15 I think).
• Good equipment levels.
• Good price, being a pre-reg car.

So having driven 10,000 miles in the Yaris, what can I report? Had the following issues with the Yaris:

• Found it a difficult car to pull away with from rest. The engine seemed to lose power just at the point of engaging the clutch. Would often kangaroo when pulling away. Was ok when no other vehicles were about, but when trying to pull away briskly into gaps in traffic (or at roundabouts) it was a problem. This problem was intermittent. Seemed to be less of a problem when running on Shell V power and it didn’t like supermarket fuels. Never had a car before which ran noticeably better on one fuel that another.
• Had to take my time changing from 1st to 2nd gear to prevent crunching. This meant that despite its 111hp, it was a slow car to pull away with.
• Headlights were appalling. Just couldn’t see with them. A lot of people complain about them in the owners forums. Couldn’t just upgrade the bulbs to Osram Nightbreakers as the headlights use a special Toyota HIR2 bulb. This is a single filament bulb which works both dipped and main beams! Toyota did a uprated (optiwhite bulb, standard ones being optibrite) but this didn’t help at all.
• Car would wander about the lane, was having to continually correct the steering, when on the open road.I
• Infotainment system was slow to react and a bit clunky. This wasn’t a big issue though.

The car was comfortable, reasonably spacious (considering its compact dimensions), extremely economical and very well equipped having: Cruise Control, Reversing Camera, Sat Nav etc.

The above issues made this a difficult car to live with. This car has now been traded in and I’ll start a new thread on its replacement.

Think this thread proves that you can do all the research you like, but you do need a bit of luck as well when car buying. Have had a i20 and a Yaris in succession and have regretted buying both of them.