Faults:

Nothing at all, besides the dealer.

The air-conditioning had to be installed after purchase (not fitted on overseas model).

The dealer installed it and scrathed the dash, they repaired it after I blasted them.

Then at the first service they put grease on the front mats and seats, another blasting which I cleaned and then it was sold.

Note: the only reason I sold it was for quick cash, I loved the car.

General Comments:

Note: In terms of the performance rating, I gave it a high mark simply because the car performed very well for a 1.0L.

The car was always smooth on the road and the cabin was relatively quiet, though on course bitumen the tyre noise resonated through the cabin.

The suspension was firm, yet allowed too much body roll through corners and on sharp bumps was very abrupt.

The steering was light and the turning circle was excellent.

The cabin was modern and cheery to say the least, yet the interior plastics are very hard, cheap and scratch too easily. A small compromise.

The seats were comfortable to a degree, a little firm, but I felt they failed to hold you in position through corners.

Getting to the performance side of things the motor is spirited for its size, moving the car of the line reasonably fast. It doesn't mind being pushed and gets to 100KM/H (62MP/H) with no trouble, despite its 40.5KW specification.

One annoyance is that the higher you rev the more the motor screams and without a tachometer you aren't sure when to ease off.

The Air-Conditioning doesn't help the performance, yet still allows you to drive normally.

Be warned! Don't expect an enjoyable ride when the car is fully loaded i.e. 5 passengers (really only fits 4) because the extra weight makes it perform rather sluggishly.

The legroom is what you would expect from a car in the super-mini class, acceptable, but nothing impressive, head room is not a problem. I'm 176cm tall.

Boot capacity is good for its class (235Litres), with the seats down and the parcel shelf removed there is about 900-1000 Litres of space.

The four-speed automatic transmission in conjunction with the motor was great with smooth shifts and great economy. Abrupt kick downs to second gear when pushing the accelerator down in third gear though, works in speeding up the car though.

Summing Up: for a cheap car there are plenty of features, a 3 star safety rating and a reasonable performance, what more could you expect for $13,490 on-road.

Faults:

Valve clearance had to be adjusted as valves were hitting the casing requiring engine to be taken out of car.

Annoying squeaky rattle from top left of dash.

General Comments:

Bearing in mind Daihatsu's reputation for reliability, I was very surprised when we bought this car as an ex dealer demo with 450 miles on the clock and a month later it was in having the above repair work.Apparently, as ours was one of the first cars, it was a problem that had since been rectified.

It was off the road for three weeks, but the dealer loaned us a car and afterwards it was spot on to be fair.

This was a very quick little car (115 mph 0-60:7.9 seconds) and had easily the best performance in the class-bearing in mind we could've ended up with a Corsa 1.2 SXi for pretty much the same money!

However, the best word to describe it is flawed, in various ways.

To access the performance you had to rev the nuts off it (red line was nearly 8,000 rpm), and it was not relaxing to drive at all, in fifth gear for example, there was no go at all, you had to change down to third believe it or not to get any real shove at 70ish!

Also the cabin was quite cramped when compared to say a Punto or Fiesta, and the steering wheel was set far too low with no adjustment. Handling was reasonable, but it tended to roll excessively all of a sudden when pressed and got quite unsettled.

Build quality was also below par when compared with most competition and it definately had it's fair share of rattles.

Plus points :It was well equipped for the price (A/C, Cd player, full electrics etc), very good fun to thrash, looked different to anything else (sort of retro), and quite economical.

To be honest, Daihatsu need to update this car asap, it's not surprising that you see so few on the roads, but at least I've been there, owned one and now know I wouldn't buy another.