New 2010 Yaris Owner

[Kaotic Lazagna]

Originally Posted by GrayYaris

Going forward, I would recommend the following "mods" if they aren't already done:

Rear Anti-Sway bar and wider rear tires- See CTScott's and other's posts on this. It will greatly stiffen up and stabilize the ride, especially at highway speeds

Cruise control- CTScott has a great budget solution for this if you want to mess around with basic soldering/electronics. If you don't want to go that route, you can pick up an OEM/OEM style cruise stalk for around $200 installed.

Enjoy!

Since it's for the daughter, I would NOT recommend the rear sway bar as she is an "inexperience" driver at this point having only 6 months of being licensed. I say this because to the average person, it's easier to manage understeer vs oversteer. A rear sway bar will push the handling characteristics towards oversteer, albeit no where near that of a rear wheel drive car or a midship car.

I also wouldn't get wider rear tires only. I would get a square set up of wider tires all around. While I did say understeer is easier to manage, having wider rear tires on a front wheel drive car that has understeer bias from the factory would just make understeering even more pronounced. Having a square wider set would retain the factory understeer bias, but will offer better grip and more side wind resistance. However, there's only so much you can fit on the factory steel wheels before it balloons out, which will result in even more side wall flex, and actually hurt handling.