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First impressions: Nippier than the Red Baron, most definitely. Suspension seems much more taught but that could be because it's new and there was only 4 miles on the clock so hasn't had chance to soften yet. I don't know if it's just me being subjective but I swear that the turning circle is tighter?! My beloved HUD is there and after what seemed to be disaster (Hybrid Assistant shut down with "unknown" in the space for the car model!) and much hasty transfer of debugging logs, the team at Hybrid Assistant quickly "fixed me" and that is up and running great! Happy days! Obviously, I've only driven it 20 miles back to home so check back here in a week or so and I'll try and do a much more objective revue directly comparing it with our dear departed Launch Edition (the Red Baron). So far, so many more dashboards to tinker with!! 🤣 I know it is not usual to show the reg number of a car but I just couldn't resist this as we managed to get a "kind of" status plate by accident when I saw it on the list and it fits me to a "T"!! 😇 (PS. ...and the "new24" is pretty appropriate too!!)

Part 2 b. Well it’s here and I must say I’m quite taken by it. The colour is superb (Juniper Blue) although it looks similar to the Cross blue - maybe a little bit darker..... you decide. 4 miles on the clock so absolutely out of the box. This is running round the factory and various harbours. We had some time going through the dash options and there are many single and double clock types. We settled on this double; In the boot, this one has a deck board and while the previous model had a spacesaver, this one has tyre gunk. The accessory kit comes with all Toyota/Lexus models now. The wheels are sensational I’m my opinion, if they were 18 inch, I’d quite like them on the Lexus; Moving to the inside and look what we’ve got here. Really!!! LED lights - thank you Toyota. Nothing in the back on this car but there might be on other models. Why? Well this one has a pan roof option - very nicely executed too. Nanoe-x climate, USB C’s, cordless charging and the usual layout.... Infotainment screen is big and bright although I noticed the rear view camera was a bit grainy. The sound is good. The vents are in a much more sensible place and we could feel them on the 12 mile return journey. It really is beneficial to leave the climate control in the auto position, oh and the app is far better than the Cross was and my Lexus, you can set any temperature and it’s all colour coded. You can also lock, unlock and set the hazard warning to help you find it in a dark car park. I thought I’d have a little look at those rear henges. Weren’t they two bolt fixings? These are single and they have been daubed in a thick coat of corrosion inhibitor. I think the problem was more chemical than rust in origin but we might learn more with time. The boot floor still has the stain from the electrostatic dip - that’s fine. I know, I know, you want to know about the battery. Well all I can tell you is that it has been changed but quite what to I’m not sure. The Mutlu has gone but there are literally no other markings in view and I didn’t think it fair to dismantle my friend's and more than I did to examine it. It looks very much like a different battery but I can’t tell you at this stage whether it is an upgraded Mutlu or something else - the stickers are at the back but you could see them previously. Something to discuss and speculate on!!! Engine layout is the same and still one single tiny vibrating disc horn. Might be my imagination but it did seem a bit more insulated to ride in. It also has safe exit assist to warn about passing cars and bikes. I would prefer Queen Boadicea extending blades to pass bikes but you know I’m a grumpy so and so.

Picked mine up today. First ever Toyota so I have nothing to compare it to but it is very nice so far and more than enough power for what I need

Just off to get it but I always like the returning car to not be an embarrassment so it’s had a quick clean up. It’ll make somebody a cracking little motor. I’ll show you the new one real soon.

So, coming up to 2 years of ownership of the Yaris. Sitting waiting with my 14 year old son to pick the good lady of the house up. Dad…has this car got Sport mode. No Son. Oh, I miss Sport mode like our old cars had. I’m rolling my eyes 🙄 at this point in disgust of my son’s teenage obsession with speed. Dad. What’s this mode button do. Err, I dunno, the sales person said just leave those buttons alone as the car sorts itself out. (At this point I’m puffing my chest because I’m a man, I never read the manual, it’s built into our genes to never read the manual) So, my lad presses it, ECO, PWR or just normal. Now my lad is all over the button. “PWR” Dad! PWR! I’m gonna Google it. Sheesh, what a world we live in. So, off we go..in PWR mode, I floor the pedal, blimey the Lady Yaris picked up her skirt and lit the road up in thrum of CVT and triple cylinder explosive fun! Don’t get me wrong, we ain’t gonna win many races, but my lad has raised the Yaris in his expectations, and Mum’s car is quite cool 😎. How ridiculous we’ve had the car 2 years and we’ve never bothered with those buttons 🤣.

At last we managed a long run today (200mile round trip) so I can start to share my thoughts about our shiny new Blue Demon! First things first, please ignore the mpg in my sig as it is wrong. I made a mistake when entering our first full tank fuel up and because Fuelly caches stuff, the real measured figure of 56.8mpg, probably won't show until tomorrow. Not withstanding my mess up, I am really impressed with even 56.8 for a first neck to neck anyway! The Red Baron (my previous Launch Edition 2020 car) only managed 48.3 at its first so I am well impressed with Blue Demon's efforts and when you consider that everything will be a bit "tight" etc, that's a great result. Also, it wasn't that hot today either barely getting above 11-12 degrees C so that should be borne in mind... So, what do I think of the new car and the way that the new (more powerful) drivetrain works? As an overall impression and please bear in mind that everything I may say is very subjective and just my opinion based on comparing it with my previous car, I would have to say that I am very impressed with the many improvements but also a bit frustrated with some of the annoyances! One of the first things that hit us both as we settled down to a cruise at about 65mph was just how quiet it was inside compared to the Red Baron. When I opened the driver's window ajar (the top kept within the wind deflector depth) it didn't even seem to be as loud then either. In my opinion, they have certainly beefed up the insulation in some way or ways. You can still make the engine "growl" if you want but even that seems to be a bit more muted than before. Most of the journey on the main roads (either dual carriageway or motorway) was completed using adaptive cruise control and this highlighted something straight away. There seems to have been a lot of improvements in the software department in regard to how things operate now. The system as a whole seems to be a lot less aggressive and "rough around the edges". Things like lane centring and speed matching are a lot smoother and more well controlled. Especially good now is the way it takes a curve when, for example, you go from one motorway to another at an intersection which usually involves some long sweeping slip road bends as you traverse from one to the other and some measure of speed reduction is usually required in the process. Guess what? It is now virtually automatic and oh so smooth in execution! First, it measures the bend well and steers it very gently with no jerks at all whilst at the same time gently slowing the vehicle in the process by some 10-15mph as you negotiate the bend and once the road straightens out again and you are on the next motorway, it gently regains the speed you were travelling at before! All in all, a very well managed process. The radar is also so good now it virtually never lost the lane markings or edge of the road once all the way there. Even around town it is so well mannered even at very slow speeds. We tried the built-in Nav for a time and also Android Auto but eventually stayed with the latter as the built-in Nav is so old fashioned in terms of its display (a personal preference I know) and harks back to the days of TomTom displays. I'm afraid Google beats it hands down with a full screen of realistic looking landscapes from satellite shot overlays and is so much more relatable with what you are actually seeing on the road instead of spidery roadmaps with no features on it at all. One nice change I really liked is that the interior rear view mirror can also go straight up and down now as well as the usual ball joint adjustment. This is particularly useful for people like myself with a 6'3" frame and also allows more of the windscreen between the top of the (bigger) head unit and the base of the mirror, to be clear and unobstructed ahead. Also at last they have separated the nav voice and audio stream properly in that you can adjust them separately now from the same control now (which didn't work at all well before). Anyway, I've probably gone on long enough for now so I'll finish this episode here and will offer some more thoughts later...

I have water in my Yaris too ... Evian, Smart and Highland Spring if anyone wants some

It amazes me how many indignant owners think parts and technical problems only relate to Toyota. I won’t be buying again is the cry in some sort of declaration of punishment but the fact is, Toyota are statistically better than the others and there are woeful examples with virtually every other brand. Go on, sell it and buy something else, that’ll solve all of your problems. Before you do, join the forum of your intended salvation and have a little flick through.

Last time I had fun in a car I had to get married..👀

I only use BP Ultimate E5. This is because (a) I have a BP Loyalty Card and almost have enough points for a multipack of Kronenbourg 1664 and (b) E10 Petrol is eco-mentalist voodoo claptrap, made out of Moonshine and Greta Turdberg's wee.

Sneaky peak 😉 Picked it up today. Sensible conversations were had with the sales manager about my experience and all appropriate apologies and understandings were given. So well done Jemca Croydon for making it right in the end

I'm an idiot and a buffoon. It was my metallic coffee cup rattling in the cup holder. I'm leaving this up as a testament of my haste to worry and general lack of intellect.

We've had pre-collision systems in our cars for years, but strangely they only seem to activate when my wife is a passenger ....

In a word, no. You'll be buying one of the best small full hybrids on the market in my opinion. I have only done half of your mileage per year in mine over the last 3 and a half years and have never had a failed start once. (...and have never needed to use a booster to start it either)

Nice pictures, thanks for the review. Given my user name I must be the only one feeling any sort of satisfaction that it still has the Mutley battery 😉

Wheels are OK if they are wooden spoked with a iron tyre.

Phone the dealer up and tell them you are going to buy 5 litres of 0W/8 and a filter and bring it back while they change it. Tell them you are going to let Mazda GB know and that you want all your costs back. You are running round with completely the wrong oil in and it needs to come out. The engine relies on 0W for cold weather when it could starve parts of the engine of oil. Ignore daft videos about thin oil, that’s because somebody is ignorant about fluid dynamics. You can’t compress a fluid (within normal reason) and in an engine with very fine tolerances, you need low viscosity oil in cold weather to get it round fast. Get it out and get the correct oil in.

When I picked ours up the pressures were so over inflated it had Goodyear written on the side and had two blokes holding it down with ropes…

I’m always pushing my wife’s buttons, once I didn’t see her for three days, my eyes did open, eventually, when the swelling went down..

It seems that you and I are similar Chas (I'm fast approaching 75!) in that I've driven a lot of high powered rally and track machinery in my murky past... However, unlike you, I still find the Mk4 Yaris (to use @Cyker's vernacular) a bit of a hoot to drive and love watching the faces of other driver's in much higher powered cars when I leave them for dead at the traffic light grand prix (up to 30 at least anyway...) with the help of the combined ICE and max torque of MG2. I can just see it on their faces as they subsequently pass me with a quizzical look... "that's a hybrid?!" 😁

True, although it's easier to claim on the warranty if the servicing is done by the dealer otherwise you get the extra step to prove work was done properly. Also, if you have a long dealership history, you're more likely to get goodwill. The relax warranty was a clever move, and with hybrids it makes sense as you also get the HHC free. I'd be very reluctant do take my car there for any other work, e.g. tyres and brakes and especially non-hybrid system related diagnostics, but for basic servicing I've been happy with them so far.

There have been some interesting comments on this forum regarding the effect of different fuel grades on fuel economy and perceived smoothness/performance/noise levels of the Yaris 1.5 hybrid engine in the Yaris and Yaris Cross. As a STEM professional, I have zero tolerance of voodoo science: it's got to be a combination of science-based modelling and empirical evidence. The earth isn't flat, the moon landings weren't faked, Covid wasn't a hoax or caused by 5G, and vaccines actually work....get over it So I tried to do an experiment. What follows wouldn't get past the first stage of a rigorous peer review, so bear that in mind. I wanted to eliminate the placebo effect i.e. I know I've put super-unleaded in the tank, so I drive differently and convince myself the engine is smoother/quieter/more responsive.... So what I did, for the last 4000 miles I re-fuelled when the gauge was showing nearly empty and Mrs SPS filled the car BUT without telling me what fuel she chose (E10 or 'E5/super-unleaded'), choice dictated by coin flip Fuel economy: OK, this wasn't easy tank-to-tank because of varying weather/driving patterns etc, so the best I could do was to select individual journeys using the App (hybrid coaching) because many journeys are repeated regularly. All of these journeys using higher-grade fuel showed higher mpg than those with E10, and the average was 5% improvement. BUT, this was a limited number of journeys/data points, not a proper controlled experiment (that peer review committee would be shredding me by now) and the variation was 3-8% Now this is where it gets interesting: I noted my (entirely subjective, yes, I admit) observations regarding my perception of the aforementioned engine characteristics. My prior expectation was that there would be no statistically-significant correlation....but lordy, to my surprise, I was wrong. When I perceived the engine's performance to be smoother/quieter/more responsive, it was 100% correlated with the higher-grade fuel. Performance, yes, I might expect, simple science explanation of energy content per litre, other characteristics.... I dunno. The difference wasn't huge (the engine's pretty quiet most of the time anyway and acceptably smooth) but noticeable. Others on this forum (thanks anchorman in particular) have explained why this might be so Like I said, this is far from a properly-controlled double-blind experiment, with the added 'bonus' of some subjectivity so please don't flame me for the obvious shortfalls in my evidence gathering. E10 clearly has some environmental benefits, so it's an 'interesting' choice we have. I'd be interested to hear others' experiences using different grade fuels

Crikey, you’re on thin ice bringing this up, I got a “how dare you” quickly followed by a luvvie revert to the poor and mental health. if you follow the logic you should get a modest improvement in economy although never usually enough to make up for the increase cost and it should be quieter because the engine management computer can and will advance the timing without knock. The big benefit for me is keeping the system clean. Before I get lambasted, if somebody prefers supermarket fuel, been using it for 40 years, had 20 cars no problem etc etc, crack on.

You won’t necessarily start having problems again, we have reason to believe that there are bad Mutlu batteries out there that fail to recover if they’ve been left low in charge. It might have been addressed now. I had a mate who’s Yaris was regularly letting them down but after fitting a Yuasa has never once done so after quite lengthy stands.

Your car doesn’t have brakes??? 😉

Has anyone upgraded there feeble horn on corolla ts, I struggle to scare pigeons out of the way, my old prius was 10 times better

0w8 or 0w16 and at very bottom 0w20 , these are only oil viscosity types that you can use safely in your hybrid Toyota. Anything else is out of spec. Those 10w30 aren’t even so popular oils used in Europe, these are mostly USA and some Asian regions , perhaps difficult to find easily in shops either. Opieoils have them but they aren’t suitable for your engine. The problem is not only cold starts during cold weather, but any starts of the engine, since it’s a hybrid the engine starts and spins immediately at very high rpm so you need the right oil type and viscosity to have the required lubrication and protection.

Cars usually arrive with transportation tyre pressures (often 40-50 odd psi. Dealer should drop them during the PDI stage but they often don’t.

No way would I buy any used car this way without seeing it first and giving it a thorough look over and a test drive 🤷‍♂️

I would have thought in your case it was hooked up to an Infinite Improbability Drive (Good grief try saying that 3 times fast after a few pints! )

Cyker, I fully agree with your views, but I would add my following reservation. As I have previously stated, the abilities across the whole spectrum of drivers varies quite considerably. There are many who would firmly believe that they would be just a proficient at 100 mph as they are at 70 mph, when clearly they would not. Drivers of fast response vehicles (police/fire/ambulance) have to go through rigorous training for this, and not without good reason. Before motorways were limited to 70 mph, I have driven at 100 mph. I was a lot younger then but, at that speed, I was aware of my own increased vulnerability. Now in my (very) late 80s, I still drive on motorways and I regularly touch the 70 limit - mainly to get by strings of slower moving HGVs - but apart from this I am happy to tootle along at 55-60 mph in lane one. Were the motorway speed limit raised to 100 mph, I would not be happy at being among drivers who erroniously believed themselves to be safe at such a speed.

No..the big end..

Ones Red the other Blue?

You can do anything if you throw enough money at it James but by the time you’ve done those, just trade it in for an Excel.

Ugh this is just BS lazy reporting for sensationalist clickbait - It's just *another* uk.gov petition trying to get the speed limit increased, nothing special or new; The 'could', while technically true, has similar probability to me winning the national lottery (For context, I don't play the national lottery) I can play that game too - Just from the current active petitions: "UK could ban the sale of power tools!" "UK could ban the use of dogs!" "UK could legalize murder!" I could have been a great journalist if I didn't value my integrity

I have found a way around the problem with passengers is don't carry them in the car😀😀😀

My Yaris is now nearly two years old and I do about seven to eight thousand miles per year. However this is concentrated in long journeys and being retired with most of the rest of the time comparatively local trips. The car can sit on my drive for days at a time although I am wary about leaving it for more than a week without using ready mode. So far I've experienced no issues, but I agree the information in the long thread is concerning. Someone who buys a new car does not expect to have to mess around with chargers/solar panels etc.

Nothing get easier does it 🤦‍♂️.... 30 options on the tumble dryer, thats if it hasnt told you told you clean the fluff filter via the app, 20 button combinations on the dishwasher and nobody uses 18 of them ....is it just me or is anyone else hankering for things that just have an ON/OFF button and maybe a calendar reminder to replace the bag on the hoover every 6 months ?

On LTA, get in the habit using the indicators. This handy gadget performs two functions, it warns other road users that you are intentionally avoiding or aiming at them. Another possibly unknown effect is to mute the LTA and even stops trying to pull you back. I haven't tried driving with the right indicator permanently on to see of it permanently mutes the LTA as the incessant clicking is annoying. ⁶

Good one ☝️ Let us know how you find the new tyres. Also double check pressures tomorrow morning before driving off to make sure they are correctly set because no tyre filter ever do these right and every driver should check and adjust next day.

update, i brought it to a bodyshop new bumper ordered and my neighbour has paid the bill already just shy of £900.

Your tyres are the only thing holding your car to the road. Buying the cheapest tyres you can find sounds like a dangerous strategy to me.

Hi, fuel savings between different tyres is negligible, 2-3mpg , however the comfort and safety are day and night difference. Go for minimum mid range tyres like Nexen, Kumho, Hankook or preferably get premium tyres like Goodyear efficient grip performance 2 or similar, these are so good , last long and withhold characteristics with age and mileage where cheaper tyres loose grip as soon as one year old or less than 10k miles. If you look for promotions you can get premium tyres for the price of mid range. https://www.blackcircles.com/tyres/205-55-16

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The Insurance quotes have started to expand this morning!! (at last...)😁 £601 so far from 5 other companies...

Decided apart from the battery, I really like the car, so just going to swap out the untrustworthy Mutlu for a YBX5202 when I get the car.... you can pick them up for c £70, so by the time you've faffed about with chargers and boosters etc I cant see its worth the effort or angst....would anyone interested in a new (very lightly used) Mutlu in a few weeks time 😉

How about wheels....are they ok...or perhaps a bit modern for you ! 🙂