1st Jun 2009, 13:04
Original reviewer signing off with parting comments.
I have now sold the YRV off the local supermarket car park for £2000 with 43,000 miles on the clock. I paid £1530 for it but then got £50 from the dealer when my friend also bought from them, so cost £1480, plus:
Road tax £125.
Service and tracking, plus drill out boot catch stud which I broke adjusting the catch to stop rattles £125.
Brake service, caliper strip and grease £25.
Touch in paint £7.
Weld original exhaust up after off road damage £15.
2 new tyres, balancing £75.
Total cost £1852, sold for £2000- 6,000 miles enjoyable motoring with a profit of £148 which covered my labour to fix the rattles. Free car!
Verdict on the YRV after 6,000 miles of hard use -
Positives - superbly reliable engineering, very quick engine, cheap to run/tax/insure, stylish
Negatives - lots of trim rattles needed fixing, steering too low geared, "Radical" spec loses all of the standard YRV kit - even central locking and ABS.
To sum up - would I have another? If I find a nice high spec version at the right money with the glass roof, yes I would - I have been highly impressed with the model.
I do a high mileage so buy and sell quickly (3 months/5-10k miles) to avoid heavy depreciation - I tend to just buy what is the best deal at the time and have not seen a bargain YRV this time round. Shame!
18th Nov 2010, 17:06
I recently bought a YRV to replace a tired 1.25 Fiesta, however I will soon be swapping back to a Fiesta as I find the YRV unresponsive, and living in Sheffield with all the hills, I am constantly having to work the gears in order to make progress. The YRV has to drop to 3rd gear to take hills that the Fiesta would go up in 4th, the fuel economy is nowhere near the quoted figures, it just about manages 30 mpg around town. Well as they say, you live and learn.
1st Apr 2009, 02:20
Very good review. Thanks.
I have been using the turbo 130 version for a long time. It has the same reliability, amazing performance and hard-to-find-even-in-2009-model-cars features such as 6 airbags, moonroof, parking sensors, 4 decent speakers plus two more slots which you can easily install 2 more, Sony CD-MP3 player etc.