USED Toyota Yaris Hatchback (03 - 05)

My car

This is a nice, roomy, well-built small car, and is reliable and comfortable, although handling is a little jittery.

Mine returned 39.5mpg over 43,000 miles of near-constant hard driving. The 1.0 VVT-i engine will move reasonably quickly when pushed and is almost unbreakable.

The panels are easily marked by shopping trolleys and the seat mechanism in the three-door is a real pain, because it does not return to the last adjusted position if you let anyone into the back.

The interior is plasticky, but it is above average for the price.

Overall, the Yaris is cheap to run, reliable, and much more fun than my new Corolla.

My car

I love my Yaris! I was orginally going to purchase a Mazda MX-5, but I couldn't get hold of one quickly enough - then I looked at a Yaris.

The colour-coded bumbers look far better than the standard grey ones, and the inside is unique, with the textured dash and the speedometer off-centre. It does have some excellent points, such as the chrome air vent surrounds, T-Sport scuff plates and T-Sport bumpers.

This car is very nippy, especially from 0-60mph, but it does lack the speed at the top end. I have changed only two things on my car - the wheels and lights. The wheels look slighty lost on the car, only being 15-inch versions, and I replaced the back lights with clear ones.

Those are the only two faults with the car's appearance - apart from that, I wouldn't change it for the world!

My car

I have a 1.4 litre diesel Yaris. This little car is amazing. The diesel engine seems very nippy in the 0-40 mph range. I hadn't planned on buying a small car, but find this one has ample headroom (I'm 6ft 4in tall, and I just fit!).

This car is small enough to park in places that many others wouldn't fit - very useful if you fight for car spaces at work. Internally, this car has lots of cubbyholes and there are plenty of (small) storage areas.

There are a number of minor things Toyota could improve on, which may perhaps be fixed in the newer version:

(1) The screen wash tank could be bigger! It runs out a little too soon in winter; (2) The internal boot cloth/cover tends to dislodge too easily; (3) The diesel model does not show fuel economy figures on the display but the petrol version does; (4) The gearstick has to be used fairly decisively to change gears; (5) My car tends to steam up too much unless the air conditioning is on. This is a safety issue, because visibility to the side mirrors can be affected here.

My car

Just a little note to say that after fancying a Toyota Yaris, T Sport, Three door, 1.5, I kept going down to my local Toyota Dealer, and asking them to give me a quote for cash purchse.

There were several hums and hahs, and the upshot of it was that I was offered reductions of between three and five hundred pounds. I had no benchmark to give to them and they took advantage of that fact.

However, one day I bought the What Car? magazine, and looked at the What Car? Target price, and it was amazing. Armed with this knowledge, I went down to the Toyota showroom and showed them this, and to my suprise, they said OK. I'm now looking at my invoice that shows a discount of £1421. Not bad for an investment of £3.95 on a magazine.