Toyota’s refreshed Yaris arrives

TOYOTA Australia has brought its lightly tweaked three-variant Yaris hatchback range to local showrooms, updating exterior styling across the board, while raising prices and standard safety equipment in its top-spec ZR version.

A new-look front grille replaces the outgoing version’s X-shaped nose, while the new Yaris also receives redesigned front fog-lamps and wraparound tail-lights in the rear.

Kicking off the range, as before, is the $15,290, before on-roads, five-speed manual Yaris Ascent, which is powered by a 1.3-litre atmo four cylinder engine that produces 63kW of power at 6000rpm and 120Nm of torque at 4600rpm.

Opting for a four-speed auto brings pricing up to $16,820, and both Ascent versions benefit from 15-inch steel wheels shod in 175/65 rubber, 6.1-inch colour touchscreen with Bluetooth connectivity, reversing camera, seven airbags, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, cloth interior and six-speaker audio system as standard.

Fuel consumption is measured at 5.8 litres per 100km for the manual and 6.4L/100km for the auto, with carbon dioxide emissions rated at 134 grams per km and 147g/km respectively.

Moving up to the mid-spec SX nets an uprated 80kW/141Nm 1.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine and raises prices to $17,330 for the manual and $18,860 for the automatic.

However, the increased performance comes with more than a monetary cost as SX manual’s average 5.9L/100km and auto versions net 6.4L/100km. CO2 emissions are also up to 137 and 147g/km respectively for the five-speed and four-speed hatcbacks.

Topping the range is the automatic-only $22,470 Yaris ZR – a modest $550 price bump – which adopts the same 1.5-litre engine and four-speed transmission as its SX sibling.

However, the flagship Yaris gains LED headlights and fog-lamps, as well as satellite navigation, climate control air-conditioning and Toyota’s safety sense package including lane departure warning, automatic high beam and pre-collision warning systems as standard.

The aforementioned safety sense package is also available on Ascent and SX grades as an optional extra and all new Yaris hatchbacks come with Toyota’s three year/100,000km warranty.

Last year, Toyota sold 12,158 Yaris light cars – a 15.9 per cent drop over 2015’s haul – which placed it behind the Hyundai Accent (18,703) and Mazda2 (13,639) in the shrinking segment.

For the first two months of 2017, Toyota has found 1960 new homes for its Yaris, a 10.4 per cent decrease year-on-year.

2017 Toyota Yaris pricing*

Ascent	$15,290
Ascent (a)	$16,820
SX	$17,330
SX (a)	$18,860
ZR (a)	$22,470

*Excludes on-road costs