The 2008 Toyota Yaris Great Mileage, Poor Design

My husband and I had the opportunity to drive the 2008 Toyota Yaris for six days in July. The vehicle had some definite positives, especially the 36 miles a gallon we averaged during the week. Yet, the Toyota Yaris has several features that would prevent us from purchasing the vehicle.

The Toyota Yaris we drove was a rental car from Portland, Oregon. When we picked it up it had just 1,200 miles. It was a four-door, no fills model, no power windows and no power locks.

Initially we planned to rent a larger vehicle, since there would be five adults traveling in our party. At the last minute we decided on a smaller car which might save us on gas. In spite of switching to a smaller vehicle, lack of room or comfort was never an issue during the week. We were surprised at the comfort of the Toyota Yaris.

Our first concern was transporting luggage. Between the five of us there were eight suitcases, with three bags being quite large. Amazingly, the trunk was very roomy, and we were able to fit the large suitcases in the trunk, along with several smaller ones.

We are used to driving a van, not a four door compact. I never felt cramped during the week, even though I'm used to much more room. Two of the people traveling with us are in their eighties, and didn't seem to have any problem getting in and out of the car.

When driving on the highway there was considerable road noise, not uncommon for a light weight compact car. I could live with the increased road noise, in exchange for better gas mileage. Unfortunately, I couldn't get used to several design flaws.

The first flaw was the floor gear shift. The car was an automatic, yet the gear shift didn't move in a straight line, from front to back. Instead, the gear path moved along a series of uneven notches, forcing the driver to pay special attention when positioning the shifter. Moving it was awkward and annoying. My husband hated this feature, and complained about it during the entire week.

My complaint with the design of the Toyota Yaris was its dashboard. Instead of the speedometer and meters being directly in front of the driver, behind the steering wheel, the designers placed it in the center of the dashboard, between the driver and front passenger. When I wanted to see how fast I was going, I had to look to my right, instead of glancing downwards. This was very distracting and made me uncomfortable.

The design of the dashboard was especially annoying at night. In a traditional vehicle, the steering area is lit up by the gauges around the speedometer. Not so with the Toyota Yaris. I was surprised at how distracting the dark dashboard was when driving in the evening, so much so that it made me very nervous while driving. Curious if it also bothered my husband, I asked him. He agreed with me, and felt the speedometer should be in the direct view of the driver.

We loved the great gas mileage the Toyota Yaris offered, appreciating how much it saved us during the week. If it wasn't for the gear shifter, and design of the dashboard, we might be considering the Toyota Yaris for our next family vehicle.