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!
12th Jul 2009, 18:34
I looked at various Daihatsus, bought a Mazda Premacy for my wife, and looked at a few higher spec YRVs and a Terios for me, but none of the deals felt right.
I like the Daihatsu brand, but I am on a tight budget so bought a fabulous 9,000 mile 2004 Perodua Kelisa GXi (Peroduas are Daihatsu designs built in Malaysia under Toyota supervision) off ebay for only £1700, plus RFL, plus £71 flight to collect it from Glasgow. Had to do deep valet, detailing, new exhaust, oil change so stands me about £2000 now for a car that looks and drives as brand new and has the all-important Daihatsu engineering. Have had one before-my wife passed her test in it and said she preferred it to the Copen, Sirions, Materia etc, so was a no-brainer!
The (100% reliable) Mazda Premacy 2.0 GSi, which I bought for my wife was run for five months and 6,000 miles without fault, and sold at a reasonable profit before any costs were incurred servicing it.
Bizarrely, she was going to have my new Kelisa and I went out yesterday to buy a Daihatsu Terios to suit my rural job - spent hours traveling to pick it up, but dealer was a crook and car had spent its (hard) life in a quarry and was horrendous so left it.
Today, I bought ANOTHER Kelisa GXi off ebay, same colour as mine but 2003, 77k, new MOT, £200 stereo, tidy and only £830..!! My wife will run this and I will run the 9,000 miler. Back to two identical cars - like the two new Sirions!!
They are superbly entertaining to drive and not too much of a compromise after a nice new car...! Apart from safety..
NOTE: have had bargains off the Internet - but the Terios cost me a lost day and £77 in lost fares due to a dodgy seller, plus I also bought a supposedly factory fresh 1993 classic Fiat Panda and got royally done - but sold it honestly to the right guy for a loss of only £60.
Wandering off the point a bit on a YRV thread, but suffice to say you can have enjoyable motoring for free if you buy a decent Daihatsu from the right place, run it for a while and sell it well. If on a tighter budget, look at Peroduas on the Internet - many dealers do not have any idea what to do with these and panic sell them to avoid getting stuck with them - they do not realise that supply is limited and buyers are fiercely brand loyal. I did very well out of my last Kelisa and the Myvi was OK too.
When money is more plentiful (!!), I will not hesitate to buy another good spec YRV or new Sirion, but would never have a Materia again. The only thing is that it will be hard to justify the loss of capital through depreciation on a new car now I have managed to have free use of used cars and make a little each time too by buying and selling wisely - the Daihatsu/Mazda/Perodua Japanese engineering means I don't spend on repairs, and buyers trust well maintained cars enough to pay full price.
Footnote - remember the YRV for amazingly quick and characterful VVTi engine and tiller-like under-geared steering. The Kelisa is better to drive - and in many ways I prefer the simplicity and honesty of it over the new cars I had so I don't feel hard done to. Kelisa report to follow (previous report/comments, see 2002: Proven Japanese....)
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.