V-Facts March 2009

[flappist]

Originally Posted by snappy84

Thats fair enough . But it quite hard to find out if its reliable from a test drive .
I test drove one for my sister the other week it was about 24k . The interior felt like paper mache . The speedo is in the middle of the dash (clearly there for cheaper coversions) . Engine sounds like your squeezing a cat and the thing barely moves with out a lot of throttle applied . Turn a corner that i thought was not to quick and had to stop my head from slamming against the side windows because the car was shaking me like a jack in the box . Auto gearbox was average In comparison to the madza 2 and fiesta it was not in the same class except for value as in bits chucked in . After test driving the yaris i was realived to get in my 88 courier and that says alot.

The rest of what you said was very impressive resale , and no warranty repairs are traits i wish ford could pick up . But that would be all I
I understand that people dont care what they drive some much to them it like buying a tv or fridge . But for me buying a yaris would be like buying a push bike with no seat.

Also to top it off it was voted the gay mans cutest car of the year.

Two points.

The instruments in the middle are set up so that they are a lot further than those in front of you. This means the there is significantly less eye fatigue when scanning from instrument to road ahead. Also when you ate looking at the instruments your side peripheral vision which is usually better than above vision includes the road ahead. It is actually a very smart idea.

In 2003 or 2004 one of the gay magazines, Outrage or Outsomething I think it was called, held a poll for their readers to nominate the best gay vehicle in Australia and the winner was BA XR8 ute.
There are several threads about it on the old fordforum site.

And yes I agree that Yaris's are not particularly wonderful to drive if you are a driving enthusiest, but remember most people aren't. 50% of the people in the world think that a day spent trying on clothes and shoes is better than a day driving a performance car in a place with no speed limits.
Even within the Ford Falcon ranks, most XRs are N/A not T6 or V8 and most Falcons sold are basic auto N/A 6 cylinder with very few options.

I own lots of cars but I have only ever driven my Yaris's, Avalon or Hyundai about 3 or 4 times and never driven my Navara, Aurion or Mitsu 300 vans, I just pay the bills and see what they cost me in operating expenses, lost time due to warranty repairs and resale compared to 5 years ago when my fleet was 1 GT-P, 2 Ghias, 1 Fairmont and 2 Falcons.

The only ford I have at the moment is a 2004 BA2 XT which cost $10k about 6 months ago. Good price for a 4 year old $33,000 car with 50,000km (unless I was selling it of course).