Toyota Etios VX Review

As a form of affordable transport for the family, the Etios is perfect. It is amazingly practical thanks to its supreme space, excellent comfort and great fuel efficiency. Also, the light controls and energetic performance make it easy to drive. It may not excite you but the Etios comes across as a car you can completely trust. Like any other Toyota.

DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

Not many would call the Etios unattractive but even fewer would call it beautiful and if there is one area where the Etios is at a weakness, it's with the styling. The meek-looking headlights, simple body lines and a unwieldy boot won't turn heads. Nevertheless, Toyota has tried to add some visual excitement. The only distinctive bits of the Etios are the boomerang-shaped grille, the hump on the hood and a prominent crease that runs across the doors. Toyota has added a chrome strip at the rear to break the mass of the boot. But the triangular tail-lamps and the large mass of the boot make this difficult to achieve.

INTERIORS

In sharp contrast to the Etios' insipid exteriors is its avant-garde dashboard. The instrument panel is not where you expect it to be, the central console with two perpendicularly stacked centre vents is like nothing we've seen before. The flat-bottomed steering wheel feels super and the white semi-circular Speedo and tachometer are quite unique, in particular when lit up at night.

However, there are ample poor quality bits as well. The dashboard plastics don't have a class feel, the air-con controls look like they have been lifted from an old Maruti and the cable-type headlamp height adjuster looks even shoddier. Then, the carpets are very basic and the sun visors look low-priced too.

The Etios' stongest point is room. The front and rear seats are both big and wide, offering outstanding back and thigh support. There is plenty of leg- and headroom around as well. The Etios is almost as wide as a Camry, so sitting three side by side at the rear is quite comfy.

And making life easy for the middle passenger is the flat floor and well designed backrest. However, what these seats lack is good lateral support and passengers do slide around a bit on the flat surfaces if you corner the Etios briskly. There are no appropriate headrests in the rear and no central armrest but even so the large area the seats offer, the ideal backrest angle and the 'hip' point translate into a very comfortable sitting posture.

ENGINE, GEARBOX & PERFORMANCE

The Etios comes with a single engine option at the moment - 1496cc petrol, developing 90bhp and 13.4kgm of power and torque. These are humble figures for a 1.5-litre engine that has deep-breathing 16 valves activated by twin camshafts. But don't let that fool you into thinking that performance is less than sufficient. This very long-stroke engine has exceptional drivability which you instantly observe.

Prod the throttle and the lightweight Etios merely leaps forward. The motor is super-responsive and has a firm, linear tug from low engine speeds, which makes it ideal for city driving. In fact, so good is the pulling power that you feel the Etios could have got away with taller gearing. Where you think you need second gear, the Etios does the job in third.

Despite its long stroke, this engine revs quite freely but gets quite vocal when you near the redline. In fact, the engine is a bit loud and not as well insulated from the passenger cabin as we would have liked.

Of course, the secret to the strong performance is the Etios' light kerb weight and well spaced gear ratios. Our only complaint here is that you feel shortchanged by the very traditional rev limiter, quite unexpectedly encountered at 6000rpm.

RIDE & HANDLING

For a car that doesn't have sporting pretensions, the Etios is fairly awkwardly sprung but there's a reason for that. High-speed stability was precedence for Toyota and for this reason a firm suspension set-up for better control was selected. At low speeds, this has compromised the ride quality a bit which feels a bit jiggly over bumpy surfaces but it's not to the point of being jarring. Accentuating the stiff-kneed ride is a fair amount of road noise that filters through. Tyre noise and clunks from the suspension are quite audible, much of which is down to Toyota stinting on wheel arch and underbody insulation on this car.

Up the pace and the ride smoothens out and in fact is quite relaxed for most of the part. The Etios cruises with a flat and consistent self-confidence which gives the driver a vast amount of assurance, particularly at highway speeds.

FUEL ECONOMY

With an astoundingly low kerb weight, a very good engine that has been tweaked for fuel efficiency, we would have been shocked if the Etios was anything other than very fuel efficient. We achieved a very remarkable 11.8kpl in the city and 16.8kpl on the highway, which makes the Etios the most fuel efficient 1.5-litre petrol car in the country.

FACT FILE  Width 1690mm Front track 1468mm Trunk volume 595 litres Installation Front, transverse Type 4-cyls in-line, 1496cc Power 90bhp at 5600rpm Torque 13.46kgm at 3000rpm Gearbox 5-speed manual Weight 930kg Anti-lock Yes