After 3-years driving our GR Yaris should we swap it for the new one? We drive the Gen2 to find out.

Well welcome to a new Harry's Garage video and this is a bit of a special video because it's about the GR Yaris that we've had for three years and my son Charlie is going to be joining me on this video. Hello. Hello Charlie. Because you do most of the driving in this car and a week ago you did. New GR Yaris launch. I went out yeah went out to Lyon to go drive new GR Yaris. Yeah. Drove that one. I drove the two new special editions. So first proper launch. Which I can't wait to download basically Charlie's finding and what is the difference having had this for three years. What do you find new with new one. We're going to go into details when we actually get in the car but also you've had three years driving around in this. I'm occasionally allowed to borrow it. Thank you very much. Yes. What 19,000 miles really. It is isn't it. Just over three years. And also in that time we visited Litchfield. Couldn't resist a couple of things. Yeah. We had the suspension kit. Nitron kit went on it quite early. Early days. Yeah. That was early days. Four months five months in wasn't it. Yeah. And then we've also done recently an engine tune. I drove that M2. Couldn't believe the mapping on it. And I thought I need you know Ian said we've got a really good map for this. So we've had that done as well. Yeah. It was a new map but it was the OBD sort of flash to it. So we'll get in it and show that. But it's got three stages basically. So you can have it absolutely standard 95 octane 99 octane. Very clever. But I just think the three years just looking at it first. It's amazing how it's held up isn't it. It's Toyota isn't it. Yeah. One of the great things about a Toyota. Hardly. We've just been all around it. We're trying to find a stone chip or two. Yeah. Not many. No. There's one on the bonnet we can just see there. Yeah. But this seems to be unmarked which is madness. The actual. And I've spoken to paint shops who say colours like this are an absolute nightmare to try and match paint because it's sort of three different layers. And yes. So yeah just don't bump them in this colour because you'll never get a match. It is actually an optional extra wasn't it. It was £880 I think for this colour. And the other thing we had done early doors was the bronze paint. Yeah. Lamborghini colour wasn't it. Yeah that's right. Lamborghini Huracan Performante colour I think. They've done really well. I still like the look. And the great thing of doing the nitron handling kit is you get adjustable spring platforms wasn't it. Did we click it? We did. Oh I have changed the damper settings on it. I have clicked and got completely lost because it's like at setting 12 out of 24 and you click a few down. Anyway it had a reset when it went in the other day. But that's the downside. But the height of it it does sit lower and I can't remember how much it lowers. 25 mil. 25 mil. Right. Instead of 40. The original nitron kit was a 40 mil drop. It's a 40 mil drip and we went for 25 mil drop. But it still has a start to me. It's got slightly more negative in it. The handling details I think we ought to expand on when we go outside. But yeah I think one of my frustrations with GRR is you can only get it in, well you had it in three kits but you just ordered the circuit pack. No you could, it was two. Was it two originally? You could go comfort or circuit. Yeah. And that was one of the things they changed for the new one. Is it? Right. Good. But the good thing with circuit pack you've got the much lighter wheels. BBS wheels that just look ace. But you also got the harder damper setting on it. Oh there were so many more different changes than just those. Yeah. It was all the diffs, the brakes, there was a whole load of stuff that got changed. You just had to tick circuit. But I think for road it was a little firm straight out the box in my view. Right let's have a look just around the back. What have you done around here? Not a lot. It all looks tidy. Standard exhaust. Yeah still standard exhaust. I like the quietness. There it is. Still a van. Still a van. What's happened to the cover? Where's the cover gone? No I've moved it but those are grass clippings because I bought a cylinder mower. Oh have you now? Yeah because I've never found anything that doesn't fit in the back so I was able to get that straight in the back of there. You've done wheels in the back of there. I've done wheelbarrows. I've done wheelbarrows. Skis. Skis don't go in there do they? Yeah skis go in there. I get my skis in there. Oh dear. Yeah you don't need a Defender 130. You just have a GR Yaris. It's the answer to life. I want, this is suspension kit. I'll just look. Well the original suspension. This is all the original that we kept. What's the date on it? Has it got a date? Yeah it has. July. July. July 21. Well yeah three years ago. Yeah two and a half, £2,544 for parts and then plus fitting. But I went up, the one thing it did develop wasn't it, that rattle, the rear suspension. So the rattle came in about 18 months and it sort of gradually got worse and then at a tune of it is we said just enough. Just needs to get it done. And when I went up to literally, I wasn't sure whether to book it into Toyota because it had obviously new dampers on the back that changed them and it's actually the top mount that was faulty. Yeah. Which is a Toyota part. Yeah I remember Ian saying that, that it was a Toyota thing. So it could have been done via warranty. I think it probably could but it wasn't a very expensive part. Yeah. So we had it changed. I sense it's going to come back though. Yeah. I think it is a weak point. Yeah. Did he replace it like for like? They haven't sort of updated. It was brand new. He actually just put new Nitron dampers on the back and it was easier than, because they're all built up. Yeah. So he actually put new dampers on the back just for ease. Because we had early dampers, Nitron were quite keen just to see how they're fairing up because there's obviously a joint down here. Yeah. So they just wanted to see them. But the noise was from the top mount. And a bit of body damage down here. Bit of body damage. Which is the only bit on it. No. And we ought to have it done but it's just a little bit there. Escaped a deer. Just a glancing blow. It was sort of very very very lucky to be honest. But tyres, we ought to mention tyres haven't we? Yeah. Because they've been a bit of a problem. A bit of a nightmare. Lots of GR Yaris owners complaining about them. I've been able to find two which are desperately needed for the front but I couldn't find a full set of four. When I took it in for the last service. Yeah. Toyota, they said they don't have any and they can't get hold of any and then they didn't want to fit them because they're very expensive rims. Yeah. Even if they had tyres in stock they wouldn't fit them. Well they said we don't we don't like fitting them. Take them to someone else. Right. Which I thought was a bit, yeah, obscene. And the reason why? Expensive rims. They just don't want to touch them in case they damage them. How much? Because there is a price. These are unknown aren't they? £1,250 a wheel. Is it really? Yeah. That's on this just the circuit pack. Yeah. If you've got an early. So I've got new ones on the front but then I've got the guys who fitted the two front ones. Yeah. I've got a little alert with them to say when two more pop up into stock I'll have them for the rears because the rears are getting really low. And yeah Derek phoned me up the other day and said we're still waiting. And they're the same size I should say. Exactly the same size. Didn't know that. Let's have a look under the bonnet. And under there I can't get over how tidy that is actually for three years. 19,000 miles. You get an app with your Toyota and it's quite useful times like this because it actually gives your history. So if I look at history we have done well vehicle delivery 11th of March 21. Then we had a first service September 21, 4,000 miles. Second service September 22, 9,000 miles. And then the last service was 16,000 miles on the 30th of November. Those are the services we had a bit of a wobble didn't we on that 10,000 mile service because it came back and it started to overheat wasn't it? Yes. No but also remember very very early days I had that misfire. Oh very early. Yeah very very early days. I had that funny misfire. That was the first sort of car in the UK that they'd seen this issue. So they replaced some of the I think it was one of the coil packs failing early. So they replaced it. That was a very easy warranty job. But yeah then had a bit of a grumble with the guys over at Lister's in Cheltenham, the Toyota dealer. Yeah because they'd gone and done a service and yeah had some overheating issues. I was on the phone sitting outside and suddenly saw the temperature needle flick right up. Yeah turn engine off, overheating, warning come up. And then got a bit cross with them and said what's going on. And then yeah we found that they'd disconnected one of the well the fan. The main block that goes to the fans on the radiators for whatever reason during the service had been disconnected unbeknownst to us and we just watched the temperature yeah engine nearly cook itself in traffic. But fortunately we saw it before any damage was done. That's it really on outside. We ought to take it out for a drive and then you can tell us all about the new GR Yaris. Before we get going on the new GR Yaris we ought to quickly say the sort of what we've learned over this are gripes and whether the new one improves. So the quick list of gripes on this car for you. Clutch weighting. Really? Yeah I just find myself feeling very clumsy at junctions and things like that sometimes it's just sort of doesn't feel like there's a lot of modulation to it feels very electronic or very light and you don't know quite where the bike point is. Toyota is always a sort of light clutch anyway I would expect that really. But it's just one of those that you end up feeling a bit clumsy. Right okay I have road noise is one line with this it never goes away it's fairly constant and you most you almost notice it more when it's two of you there that means you crank the radio up or you're doing other things. Yeah. But two of you it's noticeable. Again I don't think the audio as standard is great in here. It's not punchy in any way. Yeah. But I've got I do like that you can do car play if you you know. Yeah well that was a circuit pack thing because you go and press where is it map on here. Yeah. And it goes function not available. Yeah that was so odd the bits they left off this car that people would have liked why don't they just do a list of things you could tick but. You'd think that's just a software thing you'd think wouldn't it like an aerial I don't know but yeah seems a very very odd thing to miss out. I'm intrigued there that will tell us our mpg because that was we've been always yeah 28 mpg ish isn't it 28 30 you have broken the barrier. No I would sort of disagree I think on a run I can do over 40 mpg in this. Yes you can but in general use that's what we've averaged over you know that's quite a few miles that one if I go to home it's around there which is pretty good for the because yeah we'll come on to performance in a minute any other gripes just while we're on those steering sort of feel I don't know there are times we sort of wish it felt a bit more connected. The funny thing with this one is it's got the radar cruise and it's got it's got lane assist and therefore it's got electric steerings which is very modern tech for when we first bought this car in 21 that was just coming in. Well then I don't want to talk quite positives all the positives just yet because well you had some negative like drawbacks. I'm a bit miffed I think that suspension knob's coming back it looks like those top mounts are a weak point on it which is very unusual being a Toyota I never thought we'd get nipples like that but they seem to be there. I think it's time to start talking about the new car though what it improves and what you found out on the launch. So as soon as you step in what's what do you notice? Well it's before you step in really there were quite a few exterior sort of differences the big one which I thought and we all thought was a bit weird was the lack of Toyota badge on the boot lid oh right got rid of it they've got rid of the Toyota badge on the back that's strange very odd different front grille so they've changed it so you get this intercooler for the automatic transmission one so there's a vent down there or a radiator grille what an additional grille for the automatic yeah for the auto which again another change isn't it you can now order in an automatic what sort of auto is it it's an eight speed automatic not dual clutch no that's not a dual clutch that was one of their well yeah we'll get on to automatic gearboxes and things like that other changes they sort of listen to their motorsport and their rally guys who sort of either you I couldn't quite work out whether in Japan they go off and do rallies in these cars yeah and they found that it would be far better if they could segment their front grille so they're made up of like a few different pieces so if a piece breaks you can just replace that instead of having to do the whole front grille oh a big thing actually they've changed the front grille so from being a plastic front grille it's now metal mesh so you don't get stones breaking it and things like that if you are doing any sort of rally in it we haven't been trying hard enough obviously we've had three years no there were quite a few things it was like bloody hell the Japanese guys must be driving bloody hard if they're having to make these yeah because they when we were there they had some broken pistons god where they yeah really been trying to push these things to the absolute limit because their whole thing is like drive it break it fix it and yeah update and well they they managed to break pistons on standard joy and what do you think they're tweaked one rally ones I think that it's got to be tweaked there's no way they could have done that from standard but it was yeah impressive and there's a change at the rear isn't there wing or rear boot lid yeah well that was the thing with their rear boot lids is they're massively into their aftermarket guys so they've changed it so they've moved the rear brake light sort of out of the spoiler so then you can get different spoiler mods and things like that much easier to change the rear spoiler much easier right okay and then you stepped inside and what did you notice then it felt a lot more grown up that was the sort of difference coming from this this that I do prefer the old school dials because the new one went full digital dash oh yes it was full digital and you've got this sort of slightly mark four supra or as they call it driver focus interior yeah they've got the head of name for it and they were very pleased that they were able to drop the screen by 50 mil because that was a big gripe they said from toyota customers or gi owners was that this was too high yeah and this was too low so they've dropped the screen by 50 mil and up to the mirror by 20 mil to give you a more panoramic view right but I don't find this too offensive it's not it doesn't sit above the line that you can see out you're seeing the where the wipers are the bottom of the windscreen yeah above that that isn't actually obscuring road no I'm sitting very high because the passenger seat it doesn't go up and down and it doesn't go up and down on the new one I checked because that was a weird gripe whenever I've sat in the passenger seat and that was again on the new one they've dropped the driver's seat by 25 mil yeah which to be honest it's one of those things it just feels like a journalist complaint that you'd get in from being in something else yes and go wow the seat's too high that the seat's too high in that but once you're in it for five minutes you get used to it I never found it offensive to see it's it's a bit bulky a bit big the seat you think for this crazy sports car we did do the mirror mod on this car though and that made a pretty big difference yeah but the new one that does feel up here they've sort of mounted it been able to do it but it's all different here so you've got start button up here you've got hazards up here you lose this you lose a place to fit your phone yeah they've made this space a bit bigger right it's again like a little thing but it's usb c um right only only right but yeah I don't know whether it's coming to the uk or if it's a option but one cool thing that they had on the the press cards was the icy spray you've gone in to call a water spray which was quite a cool thing to see again I haven't seen that since Subaru days oh and you could hear it post uh being on track yeah if you had it pressed you'd come back into the pits and all you could hear was this sort of stinging it was like like a little motor you could hear a little water pump going sort of towards the back of the car and I was like that's quite cool but yeah big change on the inside a few little sad bits they've lost their little gr wrc badge that's gone no um the and they've moved a few buttons from here so there's no auto stop start anymore got imt if you've got manual moves to up here yeah and then this gets sort of a bit busy because on the new one you have flickable drive modes so which is different to the knob so the drive modes uh have an impact on like your accelerator response and they've also now added uh different weighting to the power steering so you can have it in a race or a sport mode and it stiffens up or firms up the power steering so you can do that sort of individual setting yeah but there isn't like an m button that just says your setting you have to go through yeah there is like an individual that you can configure but it's not like a button on the wheel oh that you can press it's down there which is then different to the because then that's just a four-wheel drive controller so then that does your electric drifts and things like that so that was the big change one thing i always thought is the quality of the lever on the wheels really nice something is is it the same same thing exactly same same skinny wheel which i really like right sort of very very minor change they've sort of changed the adaptive cruise control button so it's now a bit of a rocker here uh to flick between i think they've added normal cruise control on it as well now but everything else stays the same right well we've done five six miles now and we've noticed a bit bumpy this road would i've noticed a difference with him usually getting in the new one yeah no i think there's a ride quality difference they've even though they've stiffened up the springs the the damping seems really really well done so i i do think that you notice it and it does seem a lot quieter oh is it it does seem a lot quieter and it's still on michelin yep still the same rubber same wheels yeah it's exactly the same really i think it's all the same shocks and stuff like well they must have changed something but it's all the same underneath and you said they had huge number of tires yeah chamois yeah i was so envious wish i could yeah stick two in my hand luggage yeah oh dear and then yeah automatic gearbox as well that was a big change because that was one of the gripes of having driven this through central london a few times it is a bit annoying in stop stop traffic yeah it is and yeah i found that with the emir every now and then i really wanted that to have a paddle shift i want to get home or something like that i don't want to have to keep sort of the mechanical sympathy at me it's like i feel i don't need to be wasting clutch doing this performance wise did you notice those extra horsepower yeah a little bit yeah definitely felt a bump over the standard car but not quite where we are with this now we ought to describe that now and bringing up new yaris the litchfield vods you went along there and it's a really clever system because yeah you get these three maps don't you that yeah control i press the cancel button and then i can flick through but no three two or one right one being the full 320 brake at 99 octane and then two is a 95 octane man and then mode three is a standard the 261 brake horsepower we haven't got a little much of a stroke can you just slow down and just so we can go through second gear in new mode but you sort of feel sort of from here it sort of feels a lot quicker when i've driven this after the pod it feels yeah it's sort of exciting it's sort of grown up it's like when i get in the project eight god it's quick yeah now this is that sort of same sort of feeling you sort of feel it after 4000 rpm it's the mid-range that it really really has made a big big difference yeah you probably you notice it actually more in the higher gears than the lower gears and that's still the mad noise it champs on doesn't it with a mod i think i would absolutely do it and i love that we can just put it down to a standard map it's uh john and i know how to put it into mad map yeah should we say but that was the thing when ian when i was there he was saying if you've got someone that you don't really know driving your car you can just flick it back into normal mode so they're not going to do anything it's almost like a valet it's so useful and also from what you were saying as i told you they almost expect us to mod these cars yeah no they know that everything gets changed all the suspension is going to get done it's a bit of a shame when people start doing the wheels i think that they're chuffing expensive wheels what they are these are cracking wheels these are as good as you could ever want yeah yeah i did like the but they're white and the amount of brake dust we get it's yeah just driving nuts yeah these just bang on no but they fully expect all the engine mods the circuit time attack cars to the rally stuff and they love it there yeah yeah absolutely in for it the japanese also there's a the japanese market gets a proper sort of drift handbrake that's an option so you can have one option one thing that has changed obviously is price on the new one i've got the prices here so gl yaris with intelligent manual 44 250 pounds so quite a lot more than this i looked this one up and with circuit pack and the red paint this was 35 000 on the road so it's gone up 10 000 what's the difference between the new one the manual versus the auto the auto is an additional 1500 pounds it's 45 750 so it's not a big rise yeah so that might be the one to have because it's different so different to this in a way yeah speaking to the development guys they were expecting more of the modern guys to go for the manual box yes just it's easier for mapping and things like that but also the auto it only really came alive to me when on circuit it found a bit delayed there were times where it would hold on to gears and things like that and you'd want to change it i know that's probably a pre-production car or something it's odd that it's an actual auto rather yeah close to me even though it's as small as it yeah but you were trying to change gears when it was sort of sitting high and it wouldn't let you and uh it felt like a mirror then yeah i felt a bit clumsy at times yeah but i'm sure this will all come out when you do what else from the driving did you find any others you want to add uh they had added a like a stronger spring actually on the clutch they had made it slightly heavier oh right um which was yeah a niche little detail but i think the development guys he was rather they'd flown over who was sort of quite high up in the development of it they were so chuffed about the seat i think that there must have been a lot behind the scenes to get that to change yeah a lot of engineering to get that to change because they the amount of extra spot welds they'd done and more adhesive that they'd used for bonding panels together it really sort of stiffened everything up so they must have changed something and they're going to be building a lot less of yeah they said they were only going to be building a few thousand a year which i think is quite a lot less than well they had this one 25 000 they were going to do they announced i don't know how many more they did so they didn't give a number they never gave a number no but they are going to be rarer then yeah well they probably didn't imagine how long well we don't know how it's going to live but they didn't give an indication just not a one-year well that was there also the other thing is they had their hydrogen car there the hydrogen yaris which they're going to have a goodwood festival speed oh good they're going to have the new one the hydrogen one and their rally two which sort of to me looked like a sort of almost a privateer rally version of the wrc car i noticed there is special editions 60 000 pounds special editions aren't there so that's those is it no no no this is a full this is like an x works okay proper proper job the power right there's 20 horsepower actually this this is 320 put it on the dynos and it was 320 i can't remember what the torque number is but there is proper a wallet and i love that nothing's really changed but you do you just yeah you know we try some quick stuff but it feels quick and you know and always with this car the brakes are outstanding i don't i don't feel i have to change everything because i've got more power i think that was a circuit pack thing as well the bigger brakes right and they are just yeah proper they're just as good as you could ever wish for so did you come away with the law saying oh my god we've got to order this so hard i think if you've got one of these and you drive it and you know what it's about you wouldn't feel the need to go and upgrade unless you wanted the auto to do track work right because that was really good on track they'd mapped it really really well uh the sort of pdk-ness of it you know when it's changing gears at exactly the right time they'd obviously spent a lot of time mapping and mapping it and getting that right so the track here what about what about the fact that this is slightly inert i haven't got the balance change i don't notice the change when the dips and was that different was that something on the new one line how do you notice the balance it felt did it you could more rear drive it you could feel that it's all the same man they changed that basically down here so you've now got a sport and a gravel mode so it's not a track anymore so this is now 70 front 30 rear because we're just driving in normal yeah in sport then this becomes 70 front 30 rear and then in track it's 50 50 in the sport mode 40 front 60 rear and then in gravel it's sort of a 50 50 changing split so it's sort of about 54 46 ish but i think it changes but are you as a driver did you notice it more than this car it's pretty marginal isn't it yeah you think it should make more change to the your sense when you're driving this car than it actually does but i did drive that mostly in the sport mode okay and you didn't notice a little bit but it's not much it's just a bit of traction control flicking from time to time so also that just offers something more especially on track because you keep it in the zone yeah but then it depends how much track driving you're doing yeah like i don't know if you're living with it you'd probably find it a bit annoying at times but i find driving a manual a bit annoying at times as well so yeah when in track days we've done it no just one just that could move on yeah which if it's a shame it wasn't wet because i think that's where it would really start with but it just looks after you i had an instructor and she was a drift but i don't know that was her thing her specialty she said yeah this thing absolutely looks after you it makes you it flatters you and makes you look a far better driver right that's good so are we going to change into the new one don't think so i felt very grown up and things like the infotainment system there's no lag and it feels sort of more grown up wireless car playing great it's got uprated uh sound system it's a jbl audio sound system yeah sounds great really really good if you hadn't had one and you were on the wait list yeah then that's perfect it's like you're gonna walk into the gen2 yaris sort of feeling quite smug but i don't know whether it's worth the extra i don't know for this it'd be 15 it should be 15 for us probably to get in which is 50 of the value and i don't think it's worth that i think the great thing now this is three years old we've added a couple of miles we've done the suspension we've now done the engine we're ready to enjoy this for another few years we're very very happy having a yaris set outside i do not feel shortchanged no so i think it's great that it lives on because there was a time when we thought it was going to stop yeah but thank goodness it lives on so it's winner we're i just want to say like i'm not poo-pooing the new one at all no it was a it is a better car than this hands down it is yeah but it's just i don't think a big enough it's just another evolution isn't it it's an evolution not a revolution like people get the new range rover because it's the new one the new one but is it that much better than the last one well it depends doesn't it depends what you want it what you want it for well there you go thanks for the debrief yeah thank you for going on the launch for me very kind no problem while you were off on holiday enjoying yourself yeah yeah there you go but um yeah hopefully we'll do a few more father and son reviews like this so if you did enjoy this one yeah keep watching keep striving more videos coming along very soon