SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


Toyota launched the 2012 Yaris small car range at its engineering test ranch near Eston recently. We dropped by.

This is a launch report. In other words, it's simply a new model announcement. The driving experience was limited to a short drive over a prepared course chosen to make the product look good. We can therefore not tell you what it will be like to live with over an extended period, how economical it is, or how reliable it will be. A very brief first impression is all we can give you until such time as we get an actual test unit for trial. Thank you for your patience.


Pics supplied

Entry level and beyond

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday November 30, 2011

This is not just a facelift; it’s effectively a whole new car, or rather a range of cars – thirteen of them to be precise – and not a four-door among them. They are all hatchbacks with a choice of three- and five-door derivatives spanning three trim levels and a pair of engine sizes.  If you really want a sedan, your only option for the time being is to buy a Zen from the previous model range.

This is the third-generation Yaris, coded XP 130, launched in Yokohama last December and spreading throughout the world since then. Ours come from Toyota’s assembly plant at Valencienne in France. The front face is new, with different upper and lower grilles, new headlights, new fog lamp recesses and a more sharply raked front screen with its pillars moved slightly forward to provide a wider view diagonally outward. Another change up front is the new single wiper arm with washer water being applied along its length.

The inside is new too. Purists and enthusiasts will be pleased to note that the instruments are once again analogue and have moved back to where they belong, in front of the driver. Restyled dashboard, door panels and trim items, redesigned seats with more vertical adjustment, armrests for some and a more body-hugging shape, all add to the indoor ambience. The view outward gets a boost too, with larger rear side windows. New taillights, redefined fenders and more rounded shoulders led to the PR people describing its new after-parts as a “solid, tight rear end that hints at agile performance.” We decline to go there.

Every manufacturer does it and Toyota admits freely – each succeeding model grows some and this new baby is no exception. It’s 100 mm longer, on a wheelbase stretched 50 mm, to give you more knee space in the back and a boot that’s 49 percent roomier than the old one. It now measures 347 litres up to the roof with seats up and 768 litres when folded. Overall body width remains the same, although the loading hatch is 20 mm wider than previously and internal cabin space is 30 mm broader. The only outside measurement reduced was roof height, by 50 mm, but the same clever repackaging that expanded other inside dimensions has kept headroom as it was before.

Even one of the engines is new to the Yaris range. The 996 cc three-cylinder continues, but the old 1298 cc four has been dumped in favour of the 1329 cc 1NR-FE unit out of Auris and Corolla. Slightly more conservative output figures are quoted for this application though: 73 kW and 125 Nm vs 74 kW and 132 Nm in the other ranges.

Enough waffle - what do you get? As mentioned above, there are two engines, two body styles and three trim levels, so the range looks like this: 1,0 litre Xi in three- or five door, 1,0 litre XS with similar choice and 1,0 XR in both door configurations. That gives you six models. Repeat the exercise with the 1,3-litre engine and you have 12. But I said there were 13, didn’t I? The five-door, 1,3 litre XS can be had with a CVT transmission as an alternative to the six-speed manual offered on other 1300s. The three-cylinder cars all have five-speed gearboxes.

Standard equipment on basic Xi models includes ABS with EBD and braking assistance, rear fog lamps, electric power steering, tilting and telescoping steering wheel with satellite controls for the sound system, remote central locking, six-speaker radio and CD unit with USB, auxiliary and iPod inputs and a multi-information display with outdoor temperature gauge. Air conditioning is available as a dealer-fitted option. All Xi, XS and 1,0-litre XR versions are fitted with four airbags each while others have seven and the range boasts a five-star EuroNCAP rating.

XS specification gets you 15” alloy wheels, additional trim items, powered front windows and air conditioning. Top-spec’ XR models have front fog lamps, tinted windows, climate control, a touch-screen audio system with Bluetooth, leather trim on gear lever and steering wheel and powered windows at the back. There are variations within each range, depending on number of doors or engine size, but there isn’t space to list them all. For example, 1,3-litre XR models gain vehicle stability control, rain sensing wipers, smoke-lensed automatic headlamps, a self-dipping inside mirror, rear spoiler, a sports steering wheel and an eight-speaker sound system. The flagship three-door is the only one with a fixed, panoramic glass sunroof.

Supervised drives on a short rally stage, the skidpan and the high-speed track showed these new Yarises to be solid, comfortable and willing performers. They also have handling potential, in skilled hands, somewhat beyond what most owners would demand. We can’t wait for the road test unit to arrive.

The numbers:
Prices range from R124 000 to R203 700
Engines:
1,0 litre – 996 cc, three-cylinder DOHC VVT-i
Power: 51 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 93 Nm at 3600 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 15,3 seconds
Maximum speed: 155 km/h
Average fuel consumption: 5,1 l/100 km and 119 gm/km CO2
1,3 litre – 1329 cc, DOHC VVT-i
Power: 73 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 125 Nm at 4000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 11,7 seconds (man), 12,6 seconds (CVT)
Maximum speed: 175 km/h (both)
Average fuel consumption: 5,6 l/100 (man), 5,4 l/100 (CVT) and 131/125 gm/km CO2 emissions
Tank: 42 litres (all)
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 4 years/60 000 km at 15 000 km intervals


What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously. Email me from here