French Yaris in North Carolina

[Onwrdigo]

Buddy of mine came over late the other night needing help to drop off his rental car at Enterprise so I could give him a lift home. (He had just come from a 600 -mile day trip up to Virginia and back). He comes over with a silver '14 LE 4-door hatch just like my "13. He thought I would get a kick out of the fact it was almost my exact car.

In checking it out, I noticed the seats were different. They were a nice heavy duty all black fabric with a cool pattern in the middle part of the seats...gone was the light grey middle part we are all use to. Also, on the front license plate area, the word "Yaris" was imprinted in that area where the front plate normally goes.

On a hunch, I checked the door jam to find out when it was made and "where" it was made. Sure enough; "Manufactured by Toyota of France 5/13" was on the sticker. I was like, "can I drive it back"? He said "sure".

Gotta say, it had 35,000 rental car miles on it and it was "very tightly" put together...drove great, no rattles, seats actually a little more comfortable than my "13 LE. Rear spare tire cover had a nice little heavy-duty strap to pull it up instead of the "hole" our Japanese-made cars have. And of course the daytime running lights switch was on the light handle. He said it drove "great" the whole trip....He has a "10 Subaru Outback Limited and just wanted to keep the miles off of it...figured he'd get a cheap rental for the day. He liked the peppiness of the Yaris....but said the "horn" is a disgrace. He had a couple of close-calls when he got cut-off a couple of times on I-95 and said it was like they never noticed the horn. I told him that the "beep-beep" horn has been a topic of discussion on the Forums. But overall, he was impressed.

So I guess some of the "Fleet Sales" of the Yaris to the rental agencies are from France.....so they "are" here in the States scattered about. Interesting. I really did like those seats; looks like they could take a whole lot more wear and tear than the black/light gray fabric that we normally see. But "yep", the French are here. All in all, "not bad at all" considering my '13 Japanese LE has had the dreaded rattle in the middle of the upper dashboard since "new" that others have mentioned on here. Wish I could fix that. I've tried and so has the dealer...no luck. Maybe I should find a French Yaris...*wink*.

[roxy1]

no surprise. same car. same company. same manufacturing process. same robots. same engineers.

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by Onwrdigo

They were a nice heavy duty all black fabric with a cool pattern in the middle part of the seats...gone was the light grey middle part we are all use to.

This is the best passage within your post (IMO ). I hope this change carries over into the 2015 USDM Yaris.