Toyota Yaris GR4 4x4 Rally going into production.....
- Thread starter Gibbo
- Start date
Hi there
OK nearly 400 miles in, lots of driving on mainly B roads, seems the best kind of roads to run in a car as good use of gears, different elevations and use of most of the rev range, also some town driving.
Let us focus on negative stuff as generally this car is all about how amazing it is but I like to try and be very fair.
- Most annoying thing, the car can hesitate pulling away if you just try to ease clutch out and then gently accelerate, I think its a 3 cylinder trate and not something I am used to and as such it does catch me out from time to time like when you come to a stop at a red light which then immediately changes so you release clutch same time as applying a little throttle and the car just feels a bit dead, I need to train my muscle memory that this car does not instantly rev fast with light throttle input so its safe to give a little throttle and then let clutch out, all is fine. In short always pull away with more than 1500rpm on the revs, ideally 2000-2500rpm even in just regular driving. I suspect its a combination of 3cyl and turbo, I am adapting to it and essentially driving around it.
- Interior plastics, scratch mega easy, so be very careful, I brushed the glovebox and it marked it, thankfully some cleaning has removed it but I am seeing other owners having similar issues and not getting so lucky. Treat the interior like an egg shell, it is cheap.
- Not a negative but I do want even more power.
- Steering wheel is the coldest steering wheel I have ever held, why on earth does the UK not get a heated wheel, yet Australia does, where is the sense in that!
- Visibility could be better, I am not too bothered as such by the mirror/tablet I find they don't interfere with my view but because there is no bonnet you cannot see it, but that is just me and I also think my drivers seat might be broke, it does not seem to want to adjust up or down, my guess is its on lowest setting as I cannot see the bonnet and its a lower seating position than my Abarth was so maybe a good thing also.
- The xenons are only OK, the Abarth's were better but for whatever reason it had fantastic xenons, these are about on par with the S2000 and M5, as such for night driving I do use the fog lights a lot to illuminate the more immediate pavement to the sides.
- The lane assist and stop start is annoying, if anyone comes across an option to code these out at startup be nice, I have noticed an electrical connector on the battery negative terminal, is this start/stop control does anyone know? I only ask as my Jaguar SVR was a similar connector and unplugging it permanently disabled stop/start so I no longer needed to remember to press the button.
- Be cool if the infotainment tablet screen could also display cool stuff like boost, AWD distribution, speed a bit like a GTR does, but this does not.
- The heaters are a bit weak, full front screen defrost is not that powerful.
I am literally nit picking at the above, the only thing that bothers me is the gentle pull away and the cold steering wheel, the rest is me been petty but trying to be totally honest with the car.
The good stuff, you've all seen the videos, it is all true, brakes are outstanding, grip is amazing and on the limit which is very high there is plenty of communication and it seems progressive, as long as your not full throttle, I suspect if you go full throttle just like any FWD/AWD car it could drag you off the road but the balance is fantastic, the hint of understeer is very minor and only at the limit, the sport mode does feel somewhat rear driven but at the same time it won't drift but it might let the rear step out for an instant, I have steered into it letting go twice and over corrected on both accounts as generally its not required, just turn in more the back end is very faithful. Gearbox is also fabulous and though it is much faster than a 0-60 of 5.5s suggest due to the very short gearing and lack of weight, I would like some extra power so will look at the DTUK tuning box which seems the best of them all due to them owning several Yaris themselves and also using several customer cars to fine tune and with a solid 30-40HP gain for the £450 it is great value or £599 if fitted by Toyota. I won't be touching air intake or the filter for the 1-3HP it is not worth the hassle or risk to the MAF. I will watch exhaust development closely, not for noise but just in case a certain downpipe and OPF delete or whatever its called can yield another 20HP or so safely as supposedly a few owners are reporting 330HP with a box and custom exhaust setup, but I do not want any extra noise, its lack of noise means you can thrash this car down a back road and you don't get any members of the public giving you hand jesters or looks that could kill and it really is the kind of car you want to do a full send around every corner, so its best to keep a low profile and keep the noise emitting from the exhaust to a minimum.
Also the TRD carbon interior stuff, I had my Mrs cancel it when I realised it was £400 and still not available, told him lets keep carbon to minimum as its a big expense and a never ending hole, told her if she really wants to get me a present, wait another month or two until DTUK have perfected their maps for the tuning box and then get me one of those as its something that owners are raving about and works very well, also good to wait just in case some of the engines do start popping, only one engine down so far and that is due to a money shift at the ring.
Unusual for me I have still not washed it, so in person its getting filthy, but I just want to drive it and get it run in.
Couple of pictures:
OK nearly 400 miles in, lots of driving on mainly B roads, seems the best kind of roads to run in a car as good use of gears, different elevations and use of most of the rev range, also some town driving.
Let us focus on negative stuff as generally this car is all about how amazing it is but I like to try and be very fair.
- Most annoying thing, the car can hesitate pulling away if you just try to ease clutch out and then gently accelerate, I think its a 3 cylinder trate and not something I am used to and as such it does catch me out from time to time like when you come to a stop at a red light which then immediately changes so you release clutch same time as applying a little throttle and the car just feels a bit dead, I need to train my muscle memory that this car does not instantly rev fast with light throttle input so its safe to give a little throttle and then let clutch out, all is fine. In short always pull away with more than 1500rpm on the revs, ideally 2000-2500rpm even in just regular driving. I suspect its a combination of 3cyl and turbo, I am adapting to it and essentially driving around it.
- Interior plastics, scratch mega easy, so be very careful, I brushed the glovebox and it marked it, thankfully some cleaning has removed it but I am seeing other owners having similar issues and not getting so lucky. Treat the interior like an egg shell, it is cheap.
- Not a negative but I do want even more power.
- Steering wheel is the coldest steering wheel I have ever held, why on earth does the UK not get a heated wheel, yet Australia does, where is the sense in that!
- Visibility could be better, I am not too bothered as such by the mirror/tablet I find they don't interfere with my view but because there is no bonnet you cannot see it, but that is just me and I also think my drivers seat might be broke, it does not seem to want to adjust up or down, my guess is its on lowest setting as I cannot see the bonnet and its a lower seating position than my Abarth was so maybe a good thing also.
- The xenons are only OK, the Abarth's were better but for whatever reason it had fantastic xenons, these are about on par with the S2000 and M5, as such for night driving I do use the fog lights a lot to illuminate the more immediate pavement to the sides.
- The lane assist and stop start is annoying, if anyone comes across an option to code these out at startup be nice, I have noticed an electrical connector on the battery negative terminal, is this start/stop control does anyone know? I only ask as my Jaguar SVR was a similar connector and unplugging it permanently disabled stop/start so I no longer needed to remember to press the button.
- Be cool if the infotainment tablet screen could also display cool stuff like boost, AWD distribution, speed a bit like a GTR does, but this does not.
- The heaters are a bit weak, full front screen defrost is not that powerful.
I am literally nit picking at the above, the only thing that bothers me is the gentle pull away and the cold steering wheel, the rest is me been petty but trying to be totally honest with the car.
The good stuff, you've all seen the videos, it is all true, brakes are outstanding, grip is amazing and on the limit which is very high there is plenty of communication and it seems progressive, as long as your not full throttle, I suspect if you go full throttle just like any FWD/AWD car it could drag you off the road but the balance is fantastic, the hint of understeer is very minor and only at the limit, the sport mode does feel somewhat rear driven but at the same time it won't drift but it might let the rear step out for an instant, I have steered into it letting go twice and over corrected on both accounts as generally its not required, just turn in more the back end is very faithful. Gearbox is also fabulous and though it is much faster than a 0-60 of 5.5s suggest due to the very short gearing and lack of weight, I would like some extra power so will look at the DTUK tuning box which seems the best of them all due to them owning several Yaris themselves and also using several customer cars to fine tune and with a solid 30-40HP gain for the £450 it is great value or £599 if fitted by Toyota. I won't be touching air intake or the filter for the 1-3HP it is not worth the hassle or risk to the MAF. I will watch exhaust development closely, not for noise but just in case a certain downpipe and OPF delete or whatever its called can yield another 20HP or so safely as supposedly a few owners are reporting 330HP with a box and custom exhaust setup, but I do not want any extra noise, its lack of noise means you can thrash this car down a back road and you don't get any members of the public giving you hand jesters or looks that could kill and it really is the kind of car you want to do a full send around every corner, so its best to keep a low profile and keep the noise emitting from the exhaust to a minimum.
Also the TRD carbon interior stuff, I had my Mrs cancel it when I realised it was £400 and still not available, told him lets keep carbon to minimum as its a big expense and a never ending hole, told her if she really wants to get me a present, wait another month or two until DTUK have perfected their maps for the tuning box and then get me one of those as its something that owners are raving about and works very well, also good to wait just in case some of the engines do start popping, only one engine down so far and that is due to a money shift at the ring.
Unusual for me I have still not washed it, so in person its getting filthy, but I just want to drive it and get it run in.
Couple of pictures:
Soldato
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Sensor in battery post is for the BMS to know battery load to manage charge and count current in and out, not purely for start stop so I’d leave that.Sojnds good so far. Similar to my insight even super light and electric assist pulling away from rest is hard work with more revs and clutch slip than you think needed. 3 cylinder trait maybe? One thing though: I don’t think you can technically run a car in if you are using the full rev range...
Get a carbon glovebox cover for the scratches
Sojnds good so far. Similar to my insight even super light and electric assist pulling away from rest is hard work with more revs and clutch slip than you think needed. 3 cylinder trait maybe? One thing though: I don’t think you can technically run a car in if you are using the full rev range...
Get a carbon glovebox cover for the scratches
True I am still avoiding full throttle, but now its passed 300 miles I have been letting it rev out to around 5500rpm quite regular, not launched the car yet and only gone full throttle like 2-3 times namely otherwise just partial throttle but using revs. Once I am at 500 miles I will stretch it more again and start using full throttle more often. Toyota just state in the manual, no hard braking until 180 miles and no full throttle ideally until 600 miles, so I've broken the latter rule a couple of time, not worried its gonna explode as most owners seem who got one seem to have left the dealership on the limiter or gone straight to the track with them if permitted. But I do want to try and give it the best shot in later life but at same time don't want to molly cuddle it too much in case it also has an adverse effect, am also using all the drive modes just in case that helps the AWD system and I also did figure of 8's within first 20 miles to fully lubricate the differentials. So far with the car I have had zero warning messages as a few seem to be getting reduced power messages on partial throttle around 2500-5000rpm, I've done this a few times and going uphill and car has zero issues and of course many have had the AWD system overheat or diff overheat message, which I have not, will be interesting to see that when I do go full abuse mode once ran in if I can get or trigger these messages or if running in does help reduce the risk.
Hoping though by end of week I can go absolute full send and give me another couple of weeks and no doubt be tuning it lol.
This sounds like something I've experienced on my car, caused by the electronic throttle. If you disconnect the battery on mine, it causes the ECU to lose it's calibration of the throttle pedal range of movement. The result is that the pedal feels dead for the first few millimetres of travel, which of course leads to irritating behaviour when letting the clutch out.
I think it goes away after a few hundred miles of driving, as the ECU relearns the pedal throw, but there's a procedure on the GT86 to sort it:
1. Turn on the ignition (don't start the engine)
2. Fully depress and release the throttle pedal 5 times.
3. Start engine and let it idle until warm.
After doing this, the pedal feels instantly sharp again.
I'm not sure if there's something similar for the Yaris, but the behaviour sounds exactly like that. It might be worth looking in to seeing if it's caused by the electronic throttle (I assume it has one). Of course, it might be something which improves with more driving anyway.
Maybe maybe its a more an issue for me as my other cars are very response NA cars but in fairness I am frankly amazed by how flexible the engine in the Yaris is, the Abarth was very laggy you could floor the throttle in the Abarth in 3rd gear at 1500rpm and nothing would happen until 2500-3000rpm, whereas the Yaris will pull quite eager from 1500rpm with some light throttle and very much so from 2000rpm and it also loves to rev whereas the Abarth was giving up around 5500rpm. So pulling off aside its a great little engine that is really very good for what it is.
Thank you, I should put in my post that it does very much feel like the top of the pedal has a dead zone, of course you want there to be a dead zone at the top of the pedal in an NA car to keep driving smooth, particular motorway but its needed to a lesser percentage in turbo cars and maybe Toyota do have a bit too much of a dead zone in the first few percent of throttle travel or maybe it is as you say it needs to re-learn, I will give your idea a try as it cannot do any harm and maybe the unloading from the transporter and driving on and off boats gave the car some bad habits.
If it is the throttle mapping I guess the easiest solution would be a pedal booster type device, but only issue is then the second half of the throttle will be useless, only kind of thing a true remap can fix as they could change throttle mapping, the three different driving modes seem to have little impact on throttle sensitivity also. I think they literally just change the power split really.
Soldato
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@Gibbo sounds like the Yaris is an epic drivers car but comprimised somewhat as a "normal" car. For enthusiasts I can't see this an issue but people who are cross shopping VS other hot hatches may find those points as disappointing.
Once the ECU is cracked all of those niggles (dead spot, stop/start etc) can all be rectified. I did the same with the Supra, disabled the fake engine noise & stop/start, oh and the BMW chime
Once the ECU is cracked all of those niggles (dead spot, stop/start etc) can all be rectified. I did the same with the Supra, disabled the fake engine noise & stop/start, oh and the BMW chime
Soldato
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I don't know too much about the engine Is it direct injection and port injection? That would explain the flexibility that's beating the Abarth grunt.
Just to clarify (and this is where I got confused) it's not the throttle mapping that's incorrect, it's simply the calibration between the physical travel of the throttle pedal and the ECU.
As I understand it, the throttle map, in simple terms, controls the relationship between the physical pedal position and the throttle body and fuel system (obviously it's much more complex than that).
But that means nothing if the ECU doesn't understand the full range of the physical pedal travel movement...if it thinks the physical position of the pedal is at 10% depressed when it's actually 20% depressed (numbers for arguments sake), then you get the weird deadzone, or "laggy" feeling. So I'm not sure it's something which can actually be 'mapped out', because for a mapping to work, the first thing the ECU needs to know is where the pedal is. So the ECU 'learns' the pedal travel through use, but if can be improved immediately by trying that procedure above (at least in my case).
If that procedure doesn't work, and it may not do, then perhaps give the car a few hundred miles to see if it improves. It's a bit like an unstable idle - if you disconnect the battery on some cars, the idle can be unstable and fluctuate while the ECU sorts itself out, but it soon returns to normal.
I've done this a few times in my car and while I felt the difference, I never saw the engine light flash.
And yes, it's a Subaru engine, so I may be on a hiding to nothing. But I imagine ECU programming might be something fairly generic, so if the behaviour is similar, then perhaps it's applicable in this case too.
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Spotted what I presume was you Gibbo Sunday morning, driving up onto the hills from near your house, car looks fab IRL.
Yes that was probably be me, would have been heading to my Mum's for lunch via the long scenic route and similar back, very lucky to have such great roads in our area.
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When you realise how long it takes to drop revs when revving at a standstill, you'd think it has a very heavy flywheel. I might be wrong though..
Glad you're enjoying it Gibbo, I knew you would. I almost feel as though I'm missing out by not having one of my own, but there's very little value in me swapping the STi for one or having both
When you realise how long it takes to drop revs when revving at a standstill, you'd think it has a very heavy flywheel. I might be wrong though..
Glad you're enjoying it Gibbo, I knew you would. I almost feel as though I'm missing out by not having one of my own, but there's very little value in me swapping the STi for one or having both
Yep it is essentially in a way a more focused EVO/Subaru due to its lack of weight, but it has one major shortfall, no rear doors and a tiny boot. Pointless car to have alongside a Scoob or EVO really and in the Scoob will alway win hands down on a sound off.
Soldato
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Yup - I'd sure feel differently if I hadn't have shown a clean pair of heels to the 300bhp test car
However, this takes nothing away from the GR for me. If I didn't have the Subaru I'd have bought one in a heartbeat, it's just my type of car!
However, this takes nothing away from the GR for me. If I didn't have the Subaru I'd have bought one in a heartbeat, it's just my type of car!
Had my test drive today. Biggest take out for me, fake noise, hated it, too loud and sounds like an old diesel tractor. The infamous issues of seat height and mirror I had no issue with. The ergonomics I thought were very good, wheel to gear lever, seat etc. Didn't try any heal and toe.
Mixed impressions, still digesting it, I didn't cancel actually hand over my private reg number certificate. It was a close call though, but with a 2 year 0% offer I think it's worth having a couple of years experience, it will always be a desirable in demand car I think. It felt like a blunt instrument, not one of finesse and balance, just chuck it about and boot it doesn't matter how. Impressively capable and safe and easy to drive safe. No real steering or balancing on the throttle.
Does feel like a light flywheel and very responsive as the pick up is impressive with it's low gearing, very punchy, surely its best quality. Didn't notice any issues pulling away. Gearbox yep feels great.
Ride a bit disappointing, though that was to be expected compared to my active Tractive suspension I'm use to. Not harsh I guess helped by being on 18" rather the often used 19" wheels people fit. Keeps its line great bit bouncy and over sprung. Hate to say it, but may be Litchfield may be right with a Nitron mod. Plus a geometry set-up.
My gut feel people will get bored quite quick and start mod'ing, ie gets some real exhaust noise, DTUK box and suspension kits.
It is as reported, very capable and effective at achieving its task, very quick A to B. Engaging, fun and involving are sacrificed a little I feel. A great tool, but will take longer to bond with it. Roll on May.
Mixed impressions, still digesting it, I didn't cancel actually hand over my private reg number certificate. It was a close call though, but with a 2 year 0% offer I think it's worth having a couple of years experience, it will always be a desirable in demand car I think. It felt like a blunt instrument, not one of finesse and balance, just chuck it about and boot it doesn't matter how. Impressively capable and safe and easy to drive safe. No real steering or balancing on the throttle.
Does feel like a light flywheel and very responsive as the pick up is impressive with it's low gearing, very punchy, surely its best quality. Didn't notice any issues pulling away. Gearbox yep feels great.
Ride a bit disappointing, though that was to be expected compared to my active Tractive suspension I'm use to. Not harsh I guess helped by being on 18" rather the often used 19" wheels people fit. Keeps its line great bit bouncy and over sprung. Hate to say it, but may be Litchfield may be right with a Nitron mod. Plus a geometry set-up.
My gut feel people will get bored quite quick and start mod'ing, ie gets some real exhaust noise, DTUK box and suspension kits.
It is as reported, very capable and effective at achieving its task, very quick A to B. Engaging, fun and involving are sacrificed a little I feel. A great tool, but will take longer to bond with it. Roll on May.
I felt a little similar after test drive but now having owned it I don’t regret it one but, my car seems to drive better than test car but most of all it’s my car and getting to learn it’s true abilities and drive in my favourite roads well it just gets better and better!
Like you say I’d you dislike it moving it on will be easy and you may make a few quid in the process.
