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Changed my IQ standard wiper blades yesterday (one was cracked) for a set of PIAA silicone ones, plus some rain ex windscreen wash and rain ex glass cleaner. Blades (not just rubbers) cost about £50 for the two, it rained a bit yesterday after fitting them and as this is my first experience with silicone wipers I am wondering why they are not fitted to all cars as standard. Perhaps cost ? They are Much Much better ! In fact with rain ex you don't even need the wipers at all ! I will not go back now I'm hooked ! Especialy in the UK where it often rains a lot !

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I think you'll get about the same as the Civic, maybe better in town and worse on the hills and thus averaging about the same. Sure, you'll probably get a couple mpg more overall, but nothing that will save you money enough to warrant the Yaris. You've got to look at the differences between the cars rather than fuel economy. The Civic is larger, the Yaris isn't, but could be easier to park. The Yaris HSD would be an automatic and a nice smooth drive, the Civic diesel (having driven one) is nice as a diesel but still noisy and clattery (and we found it made for a car sick inducing ride in the rear). Hybrids can handle hills like any car. Lots of steep hills all the time can reduce the HV battery packs life and there are reports of premature failures (about 120,000 miles) in the US (Prius as they don't get the Yaris HSD) due to the heat of the hills etc. Saying that, my Prius lives in Yorkshire and that has lots of hills. I really think that what you ask is so subjective that people can't really answer for you. Will the car work as good as the ones you've quoted in the narrow usage cycle of yours. Probably, but you need to balance the pro's and con's against what you demand from a car. We had a 2008 Civic and found it too 'heavy'. The hybrid, whilst getting slightly more mpg in our usage, ticks other boxes such as smoothness and ease of driving and free car tax. One issue that is important to me is that the emissions of the Toyota hybrids are some of the lowest available in the UK. Not just CO2, but the important NOx/smog emissions of about 6mg/km. This is meaningless to most people but a Euro 5 diesel will come in at about 110 mg/km (about 18 times more). If you or your kids have asthma this is a major factor. One Euro 5 diesel (like the Civic 2.2) will create 18 times as much smog emissions as one Yaris HSD. Imagine that 18x figure multiplied by all those diesel cars out there. To me personally, if one isn't part of the solution, then one is part of the problem. As I get bad asthma in cities in summer due to NOx and smog, then the reduction afforded by a hybrid is significant and I try to play my part by owning one. If your kids suffer it too, then to me I'd get get the hybrid. See, car purchase is a personal thing. Good luck finding a car and welcome to the club. Will the dealers not lend you a demo car for a week?

Ok guys I have them too, it's a company from Poland. Nice and good quality stuff. There is double sided tape on top of deflectors which will stick to rubbers. Also there are metal clips with small hooks which will remain attached to the rubbers. On top of that the deflectors are pretty tight fit, so they won't be falling off. In order to install front ones you even need to bend them in order to stick between the rubbers. Only downside I have noticed is when washing with pressure washer and aiming under the deflector, the water gets in and there is small line on the inside when the water drop goes down. This is not happening when aiming only above the deflector and water is running freely down and washing the window at the same time. Oh and when drying the windows you need to lower it a bit in order to get it dry and also dry the inner side of deflector as deflectors are pretty low profile. If you're interested to see the installation process please see this. Here is how they look on my car. I used polishing machine and metal polish paste in order to remove the "Team Heko" texts from deflectors. They are engraved and painted so it took some effort :D

I have mine front and rear .......

yes and it's at the bargain price of £ 15.95

I went for PIAA Silicone wipers (not just rubbers) and Rain ex windscreen washer additive plus Rain ex glass cleaner, and yes a very good clean of windscreen before fitting the new blades and a complete empty and flush out of windscreen washer container before introducing the Rain ex additive was completed. only took me 20 min to do everything ! I know its only a small issue but sometimes the small things make a big difference in my view !

Probably the same reason as you get ECO Tyres fitted, & Standard Brake Pads not Upgraded ones, Standard Disc Brakes, Airfilters. OEM equipment as bought for the mass market. Upgrade and after market upgrades are often cheaper anyway when bought and fitted by yourself. How much will Toyota or any other Manufacturer charge if the Silicone Wipers are an Option.? They are fitting blades anyway of the cheaper kind. Maybe buy, Lexus, Infinity, Merc, Audi, BMW, Volvo etc and you might get Silicone Blades as Standard. (Did the Cygnet get them put on as standard?) Using Wipers regularly in rainy places is not normally what kills blades IME. It is them sitting mostly unused, Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. Winter, getting cooked or frozen to the windscreen and drying out. It is good that Silicone Wipers are now readily available, I used to have to buy Scandanavian ones that were good in cold weather and did not rip easily in the cold. They were about 5 times as expensive back in the pre Internet/Amazon/Ebay days. george

Does have a certain quality look to it ....

Yeah, I love mine :) Pretty amazing! They are stupidly expensive but are the kind of thing that, once you've used them, it's hard to go back :) The cost isn't too bad long-term tho' as they tend to last longer than normal rubbers as they don't crack with age or degrade in the sun, plus it inhibits the growth of things like algea and mosses which was a problem I had a lot on the stock wipers. Previously I was changing wipers every 1-2 years because they'd split where the blade connects to the part in the holder or just smear so bad I'd be blind until I ran the jets for a couple seconds (!!), but the PIAA's I fitted on my old Yaris (Now my brother's!) have been on there for 5-6 years now with no degradation in performance! I would say you probably shouldn't have bothered with the rainex tho', esp. if it's the stuff that leaves a rain repellent coating. The reason is, the PIAA wipers will leave a film of silicone on the windscreen over time which does the same job (On mine it's well bedded in now and when it rains, you can see a stark contrast where the wipers operate and the edges; The rain just beads up in the wiper path but still goes into that distorted murky layer everywhere else) One mistake I made with the PIAAs is I didn't clean my windscreen thoroughly before using them so there were bits of dirt embedded at the edges :( Had to give it a good scrub to remove the silicone layer to get the dirt out, so now after I clean the car I always run the wipers a few times to recoat the screen while it's still clean! But enjoy your smooth silent squeak-free smear-free wipers ;) And come winter, should make de-icing the windscreen easier too as the silicone layer stops the ice sticking to the glass as tightly ;)

Bob, did you go for the Rain-X brand or the PIAA version? I went whole hogg PIAA, blades, screen cleaner, screen treatment (like Rain-X) and screen wash that help to maintain repellent properties. I'll swear I don't go through as much screen wash as I used to (I really do hate any dirt or marks on screen), as the screen does keep cleaner and any surface dust just gets washed away when it does rain.

Hi Lippy I purchased my Auris secondhand from a non toyota dealer however as I intend to keep the car for at least 5years and the first service was due I signed up with my local dealer to a 6 service plan which was based on the fixed prices quoted on the Toyota website this freezes the cost of services to today's prices for all the future services under the plan so a good saving as I reckon service prices will go up by at least £10 a year if not more it also gives me a 10% discount on all parts I purchase and 10% discount on labour should I have any other work done on my car. I also managed to negotiate the first brake oil change for free and free MOTS for the life of the plan so again this will save me £50+ a year from year 3. As you have purchased new you may already have free MOTS however if not then its worth asking and if you have you might be able to negotiate a similar saving by getting air and pollen filter changes added for free or something similar you are always going to be able to negotiate more saving on something that costs toyota very little in comparison to what they charge the public, lastly the service plan can be transferred to any other Toyota if I do sell the car or I can opt out at anytime for a £25 admin fee so I think all in all its a good deal and worth considering.

My T180 in 1 year of ownership shows an average of 37 MPG. I tend to rely on my trip meter when I fill up with fuel which has varied between 350 - 420 miles on a full tank. That extra bhp is fun to use!