I must say that my early impressions are good. The car looks great, and after having 67 cars (6 brand new in three years), I do expect a few items of snagging, and will see how the dealer rectifies these. I have a very sharp eye for faults, and inspect every vehicle in great detail, finding more faults than most!
I will update this report or add another as the miles go by, but at 800 miles at an average of 46mpg, here are my thoughts:
The car is so refined and quiet, with a very smooth drivetrain, low wind noise and very quiet suspension, and the overall ambience of the fittings and interior is superb.
The car is set up to ride softly and be very refined (for the price), and escapes the daft hard suspension and huge low profile tyres or run-flats which are the fashion now. It is delightfully comfortable, but the rear end suspension is soft and makes the car lean if you push it too hard. It is well composed on the road, very quiet and is a much better handling/ride compromise than most of the current hatchback offerings which are just too hard for mixed surface roads.
I particularly rate the excellent stereo which has four bassy speakers and a marvellous integrated head unit with simple controls, pause, mute and an ingenious "sound" button which offer a variety of pre-set equaliser settings. This is fantastic if you regularly swap from music (bass required) to news/spoken (bass is not required). It is honestly the best unit I have ever used. At this price, I would expect a naff and fiddly face-off unit with two tinny speakers, and not a high power intergated top-end four speaker set up. Superb.
All of the controls are intuitive, well damped and feel of good quality, and are well sited to always be where you expect them to be-your fingers fall to the exact spot that they are located-no hunting for window switches etc. The indicator stalk is well weighted, with a lane change option, and the wipers have a one touch/one wipe setting which is helpful. The auto wiper operation on using screenwash is good, the four electic windows and intelligent interior lighting etc all bely the price. With the daft alarms switched off, the electrics on this car are cleverly designed and good to use.
The air-con is ICE cold, and the face level vents are very high set, giving you cold air without freezing your hands on the steering wheel like in most cars.
The controls are all very light, and with good visiblity (except wide C pillars) and soft, supportive seating, it is an easy car to spend time with-apart from the fact that there is NO CLOCK!!! This is most annoying.
The rear seats are very clever, having the seat base able to pull forward and down to floor level to make a large totally flat low-lip area to load from the side doors without folding the seats is up their with the Honda Jazz magic seat design-I think the Myvi design is better. Again, a 60/40 split rear folding seat which folds flat, with a two postion rear seatback is not what you would expect at the price.
The proper boot handle (no key required) is excellent too, and the boot always shuts first time, even though it is slow to rise.
My early conclusion is that the Myvi is an excellent budget buy, using proven Daihatsu technology and made under the supervision of Toyota. It feels very well sorted indeed for a new £6700 car, but the minor points as listed need addressing. I have never managed to buy a newly launched model of any brand before without a few minor things-manufacturers tend to eradicate the early faults as the years go on-my experience is that the final edition of a model sold for five years or so is ALWAYS more sorted than the newly released replacement model.
In brief, it is much better than my previous 2006 Suzuki Swift DDiS (see report-sold in a rage to buy a lovely, but impractical Daihatsu Copen which was traded for this).
The deal of £6700 included tax, standard metallic paint (inc body colour mirrors and door handles), five floormats and front mudflaps.
I am currently very happy with the car, and await the dealers fix on the minor items. If these are done, and it then turns out to be 100% reliable, then it will have been a fantastic buy- apart from the lack of a clock. Still, with the money saved, I could buy a Rolex!!
