2022 Toyota Yaris Cross review (inc. 0-100)

CarExpert

While it's based on the pint-sized Yaris hatchback, the 2022 Toyota Yaris Cross is a supersized, SUV style version of the Yaris. Is it any good? Paul Maric gets behind the wheel to find out!  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota More Toyota Yaris Cross content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/yaris-cross  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:03 Interior 03:26 Infotainment 05:04 Safety Tech 06:39 Practicality 07:19 On the Road 11:32 0-100 km/h 14:38 Verdict 17:13  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #toyota #review #yariscross

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. I'm seeing a stack of these cars around. It's the Toyota Yaris Cross.

00:05 We reviewed this car a little while back and, gotta be honest, I didn't really love it.

00:09 It was way too expensive at the top end and didn't feel like it was good value for money.

00:13 Well, this time around we've gone to the lower end of the price bracket. This one is just

00:18 one up from the entry level. This is the GXL. It's the hybrid two-wheel drive version. This

00:23 here is priced at just over $30,000, but if that is too expensive, the entire range kicks

00:29 off from a little over $25,000. So there's something in there for everyone and then it

00:32 goes all the way up to that super expensive one that we drove a little while back.

00:36 What are you going to buy if you don't want to buy one of these? Well, you've got Mazda

00:40 CX-3, Hyundai Venue, Kia Seltos. They're just some of the competitors in this segment. Today

00:46 we're going to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other

00:49 parts of the review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're

00:52 on YouTube, scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,

00:56 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon, because that's going to tell you every

01:00 single time we drive very blue cars.

01:04 Let's talk exterior. So you've got eight external colours to pick from. Orbit Black is a little

01:08 under $600 extra. Now, the design. So this is based on the Yaris. It shares a platform

01:15 with the Yaris. So it is 30mm higher off the ground than a standard Yaris. It's 90mm taller,

01:21 20mm wider and 240mm longer. So despite sharing a platform with the Yaris, it is very much

01:28 a bigger vehicle than the Yaris. Down the front here, if you've seen our other Toyota

01:32 Hybrid videos, you will know that the blue here signifies that this is a hybrid. So if

01:36 you have a spot one in traffic and see the blue, you know that this is an environmentally

01:40 conscious person. You've got a radar sensor just under the logo there, and then a camera

01:44 here for the wider view camera, and I'll run you through that when we go for a drive.

01:48 It is interesting here, the whole purpose of a grille is to keep a car cool. And given

01:53 that this is a tiny little engine and obviously doesn't require much cooling, three quarters

01:58 of that grille is completely closed up. So it's kind of just here for design purposes.

02:02 It doesn't really sort of serve any real cooling purpose, which is an interesting dilemma,

02:06 especially as EVs come along because they require less cooling up the top here. So yeah,

02:12 watch this space. I think eventually in the design field, we will see this disappear from

02:16 cars as we move towards battery electric vehicles.

02:19 Over here, you've got a set of full LED headlights with an LED daytime running light.

02:24 You've got an indicator down the bottom there. Whip around to the side, 16-inch alloy wheels.

02:30 That is a very chubby profile tyre, and I suspect that's going to mean this will

02:35 ride very nicely. Typically cars that are on the TNGA platform like this one, I don't

02:40 know, the ride is just really well sorted here for Australia, and this is going to add

02:43 to that. So, can't you see what it's like when we go for a drive? And because it's an

02:47 SUV, you've got to have wheel arch protectors. Look at the size of that. It's almost CX-30

02:52 sized in terms of its bulkiness just there. Another hybrid badge on the side there. It's

02:57 got an indicator built into that wing mirror and then a camera beneath there. So you've

03:01 got this black strip here that divides the body colours. Come back here, you've got privacy

03:06 glass. Up the top there, you've got a shark fin aerial. A little spoiler here with a brake

03:11 light built in. And then more of that blue badging for your hybridness, with more hybrid

03:16 there. LED tail lights. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Do you

03:20 like the design and do you think that the price is justified given how much bigger this

03:24 is than a standard Yaris hatchback? So we're inside the Yaris Cross. We will start with

03:28 the key. So you've got lock, unlock, Toyota, then nothing on the back. It's a proximity

03:35 sensing key. So you grab the door handle. Once you're inside, you've got that big start

03:38 button just there. Okay, so in terms of design, I've got to say this is probably one of the

03:43 blandest looking interiors I've seen in quite a long time. So you've got, you know, piano

03:47 black all over the place, really small infotainment system and just everything is this nasty

03:54 plastic and it's all just sort of quite dark as well. So yeah, it is a little bit disappointing

03:59 that they haven't put just a tiny bit more effort into this because this is a vehicle

04:03 that's potentially going to be bought by young people and I think that a young person would

04:07 want something a little more stylish than just, you know, what we see here in front

04:10 of us. So a little bit disappointing there. So I said that most of the materials are scratchy.

04:14 I do correct myself. This stuff up the top here is a tiny bit soft up to that point where

04:18 it gets a little scratchy and then it sort of stays scratchy down the doors with these

04:22 cloth segments sort of built in. So anyway, touch points. So you've got no center arm

04:28 rest. You can kind of rest your arm on that, but that's like solid and then this is solid

04:34 as well. So how solid is it? Well, we've got our gyrometer, we've tested the main

04:37 surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've

04:41 tested before, look at the link in the description. Build quality. It's got a bit of flex in it

04:46 just there, but I think the rest of this feels okay in terms of how it's put together. Door.

04:51 Sounds a little bit cheap and nasty. I wonder if it's just because that window was open

05:00 a little bit. Yeah, it sounds a little bit better, but yeah, a little tinny. Now moving

05:04 on to infotainment. So I mentioned before that it is like a very small screen and I

05:09 just don't know why they don't go with the bigger screen given you've got all of that

05:12 real estate. Instead, they've gone with what is possibly the smallest screen they can find.

05:16 So it is a seven inch screen. You've got shortcut buttons on either side and then its

05:22 functionality is sort of fairly straightforward. You've got a menu there with shortcuts to

05:27 some of your options. In terms of audio, you have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio,

05:32 and that's all plumbed through a six speaker sound system. Sound system isn't very good,

05:36 but what is good is a new feature that Toyota has added to some of its cars, which is a remote

05:41 connection to the car. So it has an embedded sim. It allows you to interact with the car remotely,

05:45 but it also fits this feature here. So it's not an injector seat, but it is an SOS button. So if

05:51 you do run into any dramas or have a car crash, you can hit that and that will send for assistance,

05:55 which I think is a really great feature. And Toyota are one of the few to be doing it in this

06:00 segment. So it's great to see that they're actually rolling that technology out. In terms of

06:03 smartphone mirroring, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both are wired. I'll show you what

06:07 Apple CarPlay looks like first. So it takes up the entire sort of portion of that small screen.

06:12 It's not too bad. It's kind of fast, but can be a little bit laggy at times. I'll show you what

06:18 Android Auto looks like. So same story, full screen integration, tiny bit laggy, but at least

06:24 it has it. You've got a screen ahead of the driver here as well. This contains your trip computer,

06:28 plus a few more details on the drive. We'll go into a bit more depth with this when we do go for

06:32 a drive, but in terms of the functionality, you can just skip between some of these menus,

06:36 see your safety details and also what the hybrid system is doing. And now safety, you have front

06:41 AEB, rear AEB, front and rear cross traffic alert. You have a lane departure warning and

06:46 a lane keeping assistant. Radar cruise control. You have a blind spot monitor built into the

06:51 wing mirror. And in terms of parking, you have front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera.

06:56 I'll show you what that looks like. Put that into reverse. Quality of that is really, really poor.

07:02 I mean, look at that. The 360 camera is kind of just pointless because you can't really see

07:05 anything. And the visibility out the rear is just really basic as well. Although you can go to a

07:10 bigger view if you need to. I just honestly don't know why they don't just fit these with a better

07:15 camera. Cameras are so cheap at the moment. So anyway, moving on to practicality, and we'll

07:20 start with connectivity. So you have one USB-A port, and when you have smartphone mirroring

07:26 running, that's in use. So you really can't do anything with any other devices in the car

07:30 because that's in use. But you do get a 12-volt outlet. This is a lower grade car, so there's a

07:35 stack of blank buttons all over the place here. In terms of storing your phone, where are you

07:40 going to put it? Well, it can live down here in the cup holders, kind of, or you can pop it down

07:45 the front there as well. And then in terms of your coffee cup, that can easily live down there.

07:50 There's no teeth or anything like that, but it is easy to retrieve that. Same story with the bottle,

07:55 that can easily slot into there. We'll try that one inside the door as well. That is an easy fit.

08:00 Now, what about our big bottle? So, look, it actually fits, but you've got to wedge it into

08:07 there and force it in, and then it's really hard to get out. So, yeah, it's good, but not amazing

08:12 there in terms of bottle fit. Other storage, well, you've got this little hole just here.

08:16 You've got this nook just beneath the screen, and you also have a glove box there that is

08:22 kind of reasonably sized, but most of the space is robbed by the manual.

08:25 Moving on to comfort, you have single zone automatic climate control, and that's about it.

08:31 The seats, they are very cloth. Design is kind of okay though, so you've got the sort of

08:37 designed textile section on that side, and then a graphic on that centre section,

08:42 while this top is just pretty sort of basic. In terms of comfort, they're pretty comfortable to

08:46 sit in. They're sort of inoffensive in that sense. Fully manually adjustable for both the driver and

08:51 front passenger, and then on the steering front, you have both tilt and reach adjustment.

08:56 On our reach test, all of this is easy to reach, but for these controls, you will have to

09:01 lean in to get to the left-hand side of that screen.

09:03 Okay, now before I run through this, I'm not a huge fan of this door. I mean, that is as

09:08 far as it opens, so yeah, it's just really not very good in terms of the aperture there,

09:12 so pretty disappointing. Space, it's not a great deal of it, so my knees are wedged into that seat.

09:18 Toe room's not too bad. Headroom is reasonable. Look, I mean, yes, this is based on the Yaris,

09:25 I understand that, but it is longer than a Yaris and bigger than a Yaris, and I think that if

09:28 you're making an SUV, why would you not make there be enough room here, especially if you're

09:32 going to be carrying friends and stuff like that in it, so pretty disappointing in terms of the

09:36 amount of space back here. That flows on to the amenities. You've got one matte pocket there,

09:40 no air vents, no USB charging, you know, even this stuff, like that's almost made entirely out

09:47 of a single cast of plastic. It's just really drab and dreary back here, so same theme continues

09:53 with that seat design, and then you've also got ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with

09:57 three top tether points. This centre section drops down and gives you access to two cup holders,

10:02 so you can drop bottles in there if you need to, and then you've got storage for the bottle inside

10:07 the door, so look, this is a pretty cramped space and it is a bit disappointing they didn't put a

10:11 little more effort into the second row, but there is one upshot, watch this. The window goes all the

10:18 way down. Let's talk cargo, so I've got some good news. In addition to saving money with the

10:24 two-wheel drive, you also get more boot space, so the two-wheel drive gets 390 litres of cargo space,

10:30 the all-wheel drive with its hybrid motor at the back here robs you of boot space, which is good

10:36 news. It's also a dual-tiered floor, which means you can have it up here or you can drop that tier

10:42 out of the way, and then you get yourself a little bit more storage space. Beneath both of these is a

10:48 space saver spare tyre, and I'll show you what it looks like with our bags in there. Pop one in there,

10:54 and we'll try this one over here. Yeah, look, I'm sure you could close the boot if you sort of wedge

10:59 that in, or alternatively you can go in sideways and then you have plenty of storage space there,

11:04 and it's nice and deep as well, which means you can actually get a whole stack of things in there

11:08 if you need to, and if you need a little bit more space, what you can do is get rid of this cargo

11:13 blind, so I'll pop that out of the way, and then once that's out of the way, you can drop your

11:18 second row. Oh, that's good. You can't drop your second row, well, you can drop your second row,

11:23 but you need to move the front seats forward. A little bit annoying given that should just

11:27 drop on its own, but anyway, once you do that, you have a little bit more storage space.

11:31 Okay, we're on the road in the Yaris Cross. Let's start off with the engine and the combination

11:40 with the electric motor, because this is, of course, a hybrid two-wheel drive version.

11:44 So, powering this is a one-and-a-half litre three-cylinder petrol engine. It's naturally

11:49 aspirated. The petrol itself produces 67 kilowatts of power and 120 newton metres of torque, so it's

11:55 barely anything, but it is supplemented by an electric motor on the front axle, and that provides

12:00 a combined power output of 85 kilowatts. Toyota doesn't quote a combined torque figure because it

12:04 varies throughout the torque band, so it will sort of team up with the petrol engine when it needs to,

12:10 and then other times, like right now when the little EV light is on just there, it is running

12:14 just on electricity alone. It's not until I get stuck into the throttle that it actually kicks on

12:19 the internal combustion engine. It uses a CVT, so a continuously variable transmission, but it's not

12:24 a conventional one. It has a mechanical first gear, so when it does take off, it's actually

12:29 using an actual gear before it kicks into its standard CVT mode, where it does have 10 individual

12:35 gears you can pick from as well. So, what does all that feel like behind the wheel? Look,

12:38 it's not the snappiest thing in the world, but it's also not the worst. It kind of just gets up

12:44 and moves when it needs to. It doesn't really sort of pin you back in the seat, but it's adequate for

12:49 where this car will be driving, which is probably in and around the city, doing overtaking and that

12:53 kind of stuff. You really want to be concentrating on what you're doing and getting stuck into the

12:56 throttle nice and early. You do get a nice supplement of torque from the electric motor,

13:01 but you're not really getting a huge amount to work with there. Now, I'm going to switch that

13:05 annoying lane departure stuff off because it will just end up beeping at us the entire time.

13:10 Toyota claims a combined fuel economy figure of just 3.8 litres per 100km. Let's have a look at

13:16 what we're sitting on. 4.3, like pretty much bang on that number. That is such a small amount of

13:23 fuel. It is genuinely remarkable. Now, what about your drive mode? So, you have Eco, which seems to

13:29 make sense for a car like this. You have Normal, and then you have Power. When you put it in Power,

13:33 everything just becomes a whole lot snappier and it's ready to respond. Really, all Power mode's

13:39 doing is bringing in a higher throttle position earlier in the pedal to make it feel like it's

13:44 going faster. It isn't actually giving you any extra power or torque when it comes to

13:48 hitting down the throttle. Just another couple of things I wanted to point out in terms of driving.

13:52 You can slot this down into B mode, and that increases the amount of, I guess, resistance

13:59 you get as the vehicle slows down. It kind of gives you a little bit more charge into the

14:02 batteries, but it feels like it actually uses a bit of reduction gearing with the engine as well

14:08 to slow the car down. So, it's a really good system if you're going down long hills and you

14:11 want to conserve a little bit of energy. And you can see how that whole process is going using that

14:16 little screen there. So, right now it shows you that we're using battery power to run the vehicle,

14:21 but if I push a little harder, it kicks in the internal combustion engine, and when I roll out

14:25 of the throttle, it all starts plumbing back into the battery pack. So, yeah, really nice setup,

14:29 and to be honest, I think this is exactly what people want from a car like this. It needs to

14:33 be simple, and for the most part, it is incredibly simple to operate all of these hybrid controls.

14:38 Now, Toyota doesn't have an official 0-100 time for the Yaris Cross Hybrid,

14:42 but we've put it up against our stopwatch, and this is how it went.

14:57 Now, what's it like through corners? We've got our little corner coming up here. We're

14:59 already in power mode. Let's give it a shot. Look, it's okay. It's not going to change the world,

15:05 but equally, it's kind of fun at the same time. Now, you will have noticed that my

15:10 torquing has picked up a little bit. As we get to these ruttier sections of country road,

15:14 there is a lot of tyre noise coming into the cabin. It is one of the downsides when they

15:18 take something like a Yaris, which is very much a, I guess, affordably built city car,

15:23 and then make it into an SUV. They don't seem to be adding any more insulation, and as a result of

15:27 that, it really communicates a lot of that through to the cabin. Now, what about the ride? So, I

15:31 mentioned in the intro that Toyota has this thing on the TNGA platform. TNGA in general is really

15:37 good, and the ride here is excellent. So, even on a choppy country road, it's nice and smooth and

15:43 very soft, and that's also partly thanks to the amount of profile you have on those tyres. It is

15:48 worth pointing out, though, disappointingly, that the two-wheel drive models get a torsion bar

15:53 for rear suspension, whereas your all-wheel drive models have a multi-link rear suspension setup,

15:58 and that's probably going to affect this mostly when you're, I guess, driving in a sporty manner.

16:03 It is also slightly less comfortable when it comes to the choppier roads, because you are getting a

16:08 lot of feedback from left to right when you do hit potholes. You get that acceleration moment as the

16:13 torsion beam reacts. So, look, it's probably not something you're going to notice, but it is worth

16:18 keeping in mind that if you do invest in the all-wheel drive version, you are actually getting

16:21 a far superior suspension setup at the rear. Now, steering. So, low speed, it's interesting,

16:26 it's an electrically-assisted steering rack, but the feel isn't fantastic. It kind of feels

16:31 quite numb. I don't expect it to be a supercar, but, you know, even at low speeds, it really just

16:35 lacks that sort of feel you'd expect. In power mode, it does feel slightly heavier, but, I don't

16:41 know, it'd be nice just to have a little bit more steering feel out of your sport utility vehicle,

16:45 given that's what it's called. And then the turning circle comes in at 10.6 metres, which is

16:49 pint-sized, and it is excellent for getting in and around the city. It's super easy to manoeuvre and

16:54 park, thanks to that tight turning circle. Visibility. So, being a smaller car, it is

16:58 excellent. So, I'm able to see clearly down the front of the car there. Wing mirrors are small,

17:02 but kind of big enough to see down the side. You've got a blind spot monitor built into those.

17:06 Visibility out the rear is pretty good as well. I can sort of clearly see there, and it's a pretty

17:10 decent envelope as well. So, the Toyota Yaris Cross. I was kind of hoping that it would get

17:17 better the cheaper that it was and the lower it was down the price range, but it kind of,

17:20 I don't know, it still doesn't really do it for me. I think that Toyota just dropped the ball

17:25 with it. They really didn't put a great deal of effort into it, and with a brand new car on a

17:29 brand new platform, why would you not just go that extra mile to make it just something interesting

17:33 and cool? The upshots, though, it is incredibly efficient, and I think that if you don't really

17:38 care about interior materials and space in the second row and all that sort of stuff,

17:42 this is probably a really good option if you're doing a lot of city driving or even a lot of

17:45 highway driving, because it is a class leader when it comes to fuel economy. So, that is probably

17:50 something to keep in mind, and it isn't that expensive at this end of the price range,

17:54 so it takes a little bit of the sting out of the lack of materials and stuff inside the cabin.

17:59 So, let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section. Our last video got a stack of

18:02 views, and people seem to really like the car, but I don't know if they're just watching it

18:05 because they're interested in it, or they're watching it because they're buying it. So,

18:08 if you were one of the people that bought it, let me know why you bought it over some of the

18:11 competitors, and whether some of the stuff that I was talking about really doesn't affect you. So,

18:15 really keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share

18:19 it with your mates, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the

18:22 bell icon. But, until next time, take it easy.

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