What did you drive before your '12 Yaris?

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by Spruce Goose

I drove a 1992 Honda Civic VX hatchback, with 5-speed manual. I bought it in 1992, with 6000 miles on it (it was a repo). It was a great car, 43 MPG, but I finally couldn't get it to pass the smog test. I sold it to the smog test guy for $1,000, with 196,000 miles on it.

My wish list for a replacement car included: (1) Great gas mileage, (2) manual transmission, (3) no power anything, and (4) as short as, or shorter than, the Civic. My new Yaris is getting just over 40 MPG, which is fine. It has power locks (but not remote locks, which I definitely didn't want), and electric power steering, which I can live with. And it's about 6 inches shorter than the Civic. Overall, after about three weeks with my new Yaris, I really enjoy driving it.

Your wish list = . My wish list was the same and the only one I fell short re was car length (pretty close though--outgoing car =149.4 inches and 2007 U.S. Spec 3-Door Yaris I think = 150.5 or 151.5----other countries =some as short as 147 inches--differences re U.S. bumber specs?). My previous car was a 2001 Suzuki Swift that I purchased new on Labor Day Weekend 2001 for almost 20 percent under (yes almost twenty percent under) the factory sticker. I retired it from service on what I thought COULD be it's last trip, depending on conditions (and it was -- unpaved roads in Newfoundland were just too hard on the steering rack -- and I researched the Yaris before I left). I drove it up the coast of California, through Oregon and Washington, and into the Vancouver Metro...then 4 months across Canada from Lion's Bay, BC to Cape Spear,NL (with a 2 day detour into Michigan)... then back into the U.S. after the Atlantic Provinces and soon to Rhode Island for my Yaris.The Blue Book Value was literally zero and with the chewed up steering rack a wholesaler doing other business gave me 50 bucks for it and allowed me to rip out the JL Audio etc stereo including all the high end wiring. I drove 151,000+ miles in the Suzuki Swift in about 61 months.

I just looked up the specs on the Suzuki and it had a 1.3 engine with 79 HP--- with the 5 speed manual and a gear ratio with a 1st gear that felt low AND the low weight, the car didn't feel underpowered. The car could never be built now (at least for the U.S. market). The mindset the car represents (in a good way) is kind of what Bronsin wished the market could go back to offering (in a recent thread he started). The people who replied to him I think correctly pointed out that it wouldn't sell---people wouldn't give up multiple air bags, etc. that exist in 2012 and do contribute to the car costing more.

This may have been mentioned in another thread, but if so I didn't see it....I learned on Wikipedia the second generation Yaris will be sold in Europe as the Daihatsu Charade through the 2013 model year. Toyota owns 51 percent of Daihatsu and has decided that Daihatsu will pull out of the European market at the end of the 2013 model year. The second generation Yaris/Daihatsu Charade will be built in Thailand for the European market----see the link from footnote #24 from the Wikipedia article. More choices the European market gets that we in the U.S. don't, Argh!