Well, I'm some days into my test drive now and this is my first report on 'my' car!
- What were your/your partner's first impressions of the car?
Sleek, ice blue in colour, and totally fabulous! 8 1/2K on the clock and still with that new car smell and clean and bright inside and out...I love that smell and settled down to our homeward journey...in traffic!
The car is very smooth, quiet and has a massive feel good factor about it. I feel quite posh driving it actually.
- What do the children think of it?
The children both love it, though my almost 15yo is 6'3" tall and either has to put the front seat right back to accommodate his legs or needs more headroom in the back with a bit of room for his legs. Dd is loving it totally, but hates that I can take away her control of the electric windows rendering her window unusable to her unless I open it! They do both love the car though!
Ds helped me enormously at first by remembering what Richard at Toyota had said about various controls etc too :)
- How did you find driving a Hybrid? Was it what you expected?
I do like the hybrid, yes! It is very different from my diesel Picasso and is
sooo quiet that the first two days, I started and restarted it several times because I wasn't actually sure it was running!
. I do find that it's completely different to drive than a 'normal' car. You do think carefully about getting out of a turning quickly as you can't be sure entirely that you'll make the gap, though I think the gap will get smaller as you get used to it.
I have no idea what I expected as I'd never looked at one before really, so had no preconceptions about them at all.
Smooth! comfortable! luxurious!
Fab-u-lous!!! actually, it's a joy to drive.
- Is it a comfortable ride?
It
is a comfortable ride. It deals with the road very efficiently when you consider all the potholes and 'quilting' the roads seem to have permanently these days.
- What's the boot space like?
Much better than I originally thought actually. I love the two tier boot shelves! what a simple, but great idea!
I put Dd's booster with back attached straight into the boot and had loads of space for other things. Very impressive!
- What do you think about the features of the car? E.g Heads up display, electric seats, smart start system, multimedia system, rear-parking camera?
The features are very high tech and just scream
'posh car' luxury!
There's no 'heads up' feature on the hybrid.
Ds tried the electric seat and was cooing over it, but I haven't put it on yet; it's not really the weather yet!
Smart start once worked out is
brilliant :)
Multimedia is lovely. I'm not used to DAB and like not having to retune the radio when I travel around.
Starting to enjoy using the rear parking camera, though I am used to parking well without and get into impossibly small spaces a lot of the time.
I have a Garmin satnav which is easy to use, but the inbuilt car one is better. It is easy to use once you look at it logically.
The cruise control is great too. Never used one before, but it's so easy to keep to a speed limit that I think
all cars should have them as standard.
- Were these features what you expected the Auris to have or additional?
This is the top of the range car, so it
should have all these features. I just didn't
know what to expect as I haven't looked at a new and modern car for nearly a decade.
- Are there any other features you?d like the car to have?
Other than a chauffeur? I can't think of anything at the moment.
- Has testing this car made you more or less likely to buy a Toyota in future?
I'm very tempted by this car I must admit. It seems well made. When you close the doors, they really close; nothing tinny about them at all. I like that!
- Has testing this car changed your perception of Toyota cars at all? If so, how?
Yes it has. I always thought of Toyota as 'Jap crap' from decades gone by...they used to be quite cheaply made and rusted easily. That has clearly changed. I'm now a big fan!
- What one thing do you like best about it?
The luxurious look and feel of the car I think, though I could list loads!
- What one thing would you change about it?
The head restraints. It gets in my way when I wear my hair up!