YARIS -yet another disappointing and a miserably failed experiment by TOYOTA

1.Buying experience Went for a test drive. The moment you walk in to TOYOTA showroom, you instantly see everything spic and span, reminiscence of a typical JAPANESE company, and its a joy to have the feeling of being in Japan, where I worked and lived for several years, but the moment you see YARIS, you realise that this is not what you expected from a Legendary Japanese Company like TOYOTA.

2. Riding Experience YARIS is somewhat OK to drive, nothing to say 'Awesome' or mind -blowing. The CVT in YARIS is almost the same one as you get in Honda City. Engine mildly feels under powered, or simply because I have driven the Dragon Warrior - 'Honda CITY', and CITY's sharp, crisp and torquey Engine is simply silky smooth, and has set such high levels of refinement, and you somewhat struggle to compare Yaris to CITY, sadly the verdict : YARIS is no where near the Honda CITY's engine. YARIS can probably be compared with other sedans, but not HONDA CITY.

3.Details about looks, performance etc. Looks are somewhat ok types, unlike COROLLA, side view of YARIS gives you the feeling of Nissan Sunny, which is pathetic. Front grill and bold head lamps are somewhat ok, but not sharp as COROLLA and HONDA CITY. Nothing much to write on performance. It's an average engine, and after all the efforts on R & D, I wonder if this is all the Legendary -TOYOTA had to offer us? Toyota has once again under estimated the Indian taste for good Sedans, and continue to ride on the philosophy that they can fool Indian's all the time by dangling the carrot (Toyota brand) and thereby cutting corners in several areas, to cut costs. Only time will say about the success of this new model and TOYOTA don't seem to have learnt from their bitter lessons with ETIOS.

4. Servicing and Maintenance. Toyota somewhat has managed to come a long way in establishing themselves as a legend in after sales and service department, and their excellent after sales/service is definitely one big reason why their Innova's still command a mind- blowing resale value.

5. Pros and Cons, Pros: 'Toyota Brand image', that's it, and nothing more, but with the current features in Yaris, it is bound to struggle in establishing itself as a strong contender in this already choked up sedan segment with rivals placed neck-to-neck, with the ivy league of top sedans in India, Viz: Honda City, Verna, CIAZ, Vento, Skoda. Having worked in Japan, and having seen those tons and tons of TOYOTA cars in myriad forms and sizes, especially those thousands of Toyota models in Japan, I am still scratching my head and baffled as to how TOYOTA is still struggling to figure out suitable models for Indian mass market.

INNOVA, ETIOS, FORTUNER, COROLLA have all established themselves for a different segment and I won't dispute that fact. TOYOTA could have simply picked up a few of their best selling COROLLA sedans and its sub-brands, from their home turf in the Japanese market and simply introduced here. With its entry level Hatchback segment starting with ETIOS and high end segment cars like Fortuner, TOYOTA has established two ends of a car segment in their line up. But what Toyota is ignoring and failing to understand, is the vast vacuum in the middle class SEDAN segment. Somehow, COROLLA, despite being a good SEDAN, is sadly ludicrous, unreasonable in its pricing and totally unaffordable to middle class buyers, unlike JAPAN, where it is sold like hot cakes. In any case, the features in COROLLA are all offered in HONDA CITY, Except the 1.8 L. Forget about YARIS, even HONDA CITY's Engine is miles ahead of COROLLA in terms of pick up because of its power-weight ratio.

CITY will continue to be the indisputable king of this segment for some more time for sure, if not for a few more decades, as HONDA has discovered the perfect recipe for SUCCESS after years of carefully studying the sensitivity and tastes of Indian BUYERS. TOYOTA had one more golden opportunity this time, with a chance to design a flagship sedan to compete with the Honda City, but TOYOTA has once again failed miserably by leaps and bounds with botched up tweaking designs of YARIS to suit Indian customers.

Nevertheless, some customers will be lured by the Brand Toyota and may go for YARIS, but as a car enthusiast, I will certainly go for Honda City, which has set such high levels of refinement, high standards and bench-mark in this segment, and full credit to HONDA engineers, who over the years, have evolved the HONDA CITY in such a beautiful package, that rivals will take ages to beat HONDA CITY. I totally agree with Honda City's punch line on their Ad's and website : 'FORGET- THE - TOYS', and that's precisely what I felt today after driving the Yaris.

All sedans feels like toys compared to Honda City. HONDA CITY is simply a SMASHING HIT, and rivals are going to have to work much harder in their drawing boards, and TOYOTA should learn to use their heart more than their brains, to figure out a way to beat the USAIN BOLT of the SEDAN segment - HONDA CITY!. Simply relying on TOYOTA image, and throwing some fancy and useless funky features in YARIS is just not enough to convince the ever evolving Indian Customers.

CONS: 1. Average Engine, not that of a 'WOW' engine.

2. Lack of Steering -telescopic adjustment.

3. Electric Seat adjustment is interesting but useless, and manual adjustment would have done the job wonderfully well, and Toyota could have used this cost to offer useful features offered by rivals. Drivers have to lean forwards and awkward driving ergonomics is very disappointing.

4. LOOKS : YARIS' side ways design is boring and almost appears like Nissan Sunny.

5.Very cheap quality rear camera, no guidance on the display screen like Honda City- which offers brilliant reverse parking visibility.

6.Gear lever is placed very low, and you have to bend down to reach the gear lever, which is very odd, poor driver ergonomics. ZERO marks for TOYOTA designers here.

7. Smaller sized wheels.

8. TPS, Tyre pressure monitoring - is an awesome feature, but availibility only in top end models- a big disappointment. The list goes on, and despite all the above missing features compared vis-a-vis Honda City/Verna, I am puzzled and baffled as to how on earth did Toyota management decide to price the Top end Yaris almost in the same league as Honda City? With all the above missing features, only BRAND- TOYOTA should do the magic of ticking sales numbers for YARIS. Sadly, I have to say that TOYOTA has once again let down the sentiments of Indian car enthusiasts and seem to fooling us again by dangling the same carrot as they did with ETIOS. They should have brought in the YARIS Hatchback from their other markets, which is a hit. Or atleast re-work YARIS in their drawing boards to gain lost ground, they still have time to fight back and win over the competition.