Toyota Auris XR
ENG
If you wanted a small family hatchback a decade or two ago, you probably drove out of a Toyota showroom. Going right, presumably.
These days, if you’re craving a sensible car around 250 to 300 thousand, there are hordes of choices with the latest tech. But not many Toyotas…
The evergreen Corolla sedan – now in its 67th generation or something - is still marching into the record books but its successes leave mesceptical.
How many people do you know who drive a modern Corolla? Reps, companies, rentals and other fleets – that’s where its strength lies.
Things don’t even look half as good for its hatchback twin, the Auris. Roll back a few years and our roads were crawling with every imaginable Conquest and Tazz model.
The subsequent Runx still garnered a bit of success but handed a losing batten to the Auris – or Corolla hatchback, as Europeans call it.
Personally I wasn’t nuts about the Runks or Oros, yet my test drives of both revealed that they were slightly dull but highly practical automobiles. In other words, proper Toyotas.
Perhaps their pricing was too steep and they failed to keep pace with the more affordable and better looking rivals from Korea?
Whatever the case may be, Toyota isn’t giving up the fight that easily. This was brutally evident from the press car they dropped off at my house the other day, coated in paint so vibrant that even yours truly was lost for words initially. Mostly, I couldn’t decide if it was poison yellow or radioactive green.
Toyota calls this hue “Citrus Yellow” and most of us thought that it suits the Auris’ sharp and modern shape; there are also more conservative colours you may choose from.
All testers agreed that the interior has also improved with better quality materials and (mostly) soft surfaces to touch.
Leather is standard on the XR, as is the new multimedia sound system with touchy screen. It’s got good audio quality, an easy user interface, cool blue colours to match its other controls, a reverse parking camera, loads of inputs but no volume knob – touch buttons and the steering wheel knoppies can help here.
My OCD is not a fan of current Toyota (and Lexus) dashboard designs but I will note that the bizarre shapes, angles, layers, 1982 LCD clock and the mix of materials certainly look funky and interesting.
The few silver highlights, soft leather and white stitching help to accentuate various elements; lifting the cabin ambience.
Complaints only arrived from tall occupants who bemoaned limited passenger knee room and (front) windscreen wiper coverage, as well as a strange driving position and the lack of steering wheel reach.
Oh, and the clutch clunks on the fire wall when fully depressed – although this wasn’t felt by all drivers.
That typed, lots of praise was garnished on the Auris XR seat heaters, two 12V sockets, highly efficient climate control with its cool toggle switches, the autodimming rear view mirror and comprehensive trip computer between the main instruments.
As is customary for Toyota, the gearbox and all pedals are easy to operate.
Motorisation is also customary Toyota equipment with a 1.6L in-line 4-cylinder petrol giving up to 97kw or 160Nm for 0100km/h in ten seconds (we clocked just over nine) and a top speed of 200km/h.
Claimed average CO2 per km is 145g and petrol consumption 6.2L/100km (claimed average) from the 50L tank - our lumolime specimen managed nine.
Achieving six litres per hundred will take some doing and eat into the XR’S performance even more which is – by the modern (turbo) standards - not exactly exhilarating to start with.
The lack of (rather costly) turbo plumbing is balanced by a revhappy nature and fairly instant, naturally-aspirated response.
Other sensible hallmarks are 140mm of ground clearance, ABS brakes with emergency assistance, front and curtain airbags (including knee-bag), 16" alloys with decent 205/55R rubber, a full size spare wheel and a 360L boot with one-touch 60/40 rear seat recline to give you a completely flat surface.
The Toyota Auris XR’S asking price of N$305,000 includes a 3-year/100,000km warranty as well as five years or 90,000km worth of service plan.
In this price bracket, the Auris XR is outgunned performancewise by turbo competitors but it offers good specs and various models; including a Hybrid.
It’s also got the reputation and dealer count that comes with its badge, plus a sense of longevity thanks to that relatively simple engine.
You could almost say that it’s a no-nonsense car but, and I’m delighted about this, a higherspec car with a colour like this actually looks quite cool.
Toyota has given its Auris another chance at success...