Toyota Vios: Can the country’s best-selling car get any better?

THE UBIQUITOUS Toyota Vios best represents the face of the Philippine automotive industry. Taxis, sales representatives, private car owners and everyone else in between drive a Vios.

Many of today’s young drivers most likely learned how to drive with the Toyota Vios.

The Vios sells so well, that this single vehicle alone accounts for roughly 10 percent of the local car market in the country, if not more.
It’s a pretty decent car, if one simply considers a car much like an appliance: decent engine, decent transmissions (a four-speed automatic and a 5-speed manual), a very roomy interior, a very nippy air-conditioner that is more than enough to chill the interior in the hottest of summer rush hour madness, and, typical of a Toyota, that feeling of “unburstability” and solidity.

Indeed, if nuclear Armageddon happened to this world, the Vios, alongside the cockroach would be the only survivors left. That’s not to compare the Vios to a pest, but rather, how tough, solid, reliable and pretty much almost unbreakable a Vios is.

But it’s not perfect. When the third generation Vios broke cover, many drivers and fleet operartors complained about one thing: the loss in fuel efficiency.
The previous Vioses were known to be very frugal. The long-geared transmission helped its efficiency on the highway, but was barely able to deliver decent grunt in city driving.

By making the 3rd generation Vios safer, it meant making the chassis stiffer, stronger and more robust. More safety gear was added as well, which also meant more weight.

While the interior grew considerably roomier and more comfortable and refined, this again added more weight.

It’s longer and taller than its predecessor. Surely, this won’t aid aerodynamics as well. Plus the long gearing’s effect in city driving was magnified further, stunting the Vios’ movement.

Interesting that the Vios’ name, derived from Latin, which means to “move forward,” was something it had great difficulty doing so.

Fundamentally, the Vios is a very good car. Speaking from experience, the Vios makes for an excellent race car: remove all the heavy bits (sound deadening, most of the interior), add a roll-cage, stiffer TRD coil-over race suspension, some sticky Bridgestone tires wrapped over equally meaty Rota alloy wheels, plus OMP safety equipment, and the Vios laps Clark International Speedway at an alarming rate for most novice drivers.
But not everyone wants to strip down their cars and prep it for track action obviously, so finally, Toyota has done the biggest update in terms of the powertrain for the Vios which is approaching the middle of its product life-cycle.

The venerable 1.5-liter 1NZ-FE and its 1.3-liter sibling, the 2NZ-FE, which have powered all three Vioses (and the Vitz/Echo/Yaris hatchback predecessors) have finally retired and called it a day. As they say, #walangforever.

The new engines, codenamed 2NR-FBE (1.5 l) and 1NR-FE (1.3 l), feature dual vvt-i, which broadens the power curve and improves the power-to-weight ratio at lower engine speeds.

It also features more response low-down, providing a gutsier feel.

The 2NR-FBE is capable of running on E85 bioethanol fuel, according to foreign media, and produces 106 hp at 6000 rpm and 140 Newton meters of torque at 4,200 rpm.

The new 1NR-FE 1.3-l engine produces 99 hp at 600 rpm as well, and 123 Nm at 4,200 rpm, similar to the 1.5 l.

Gone also is the 4-speed automatic, replaced by a new CVT transmission which can also simulate 7 forward gears via playing with the gearshift level, slotting it into a parallel uhm slot beside the normal D position then tugging on it up or down to change gears.

You still get a five-speed manual available on certain variants, but I do wish Toyota used this opportunity to install a six-speed manual.
Aside from the engine and transmission, a new interior fabric scheme is available, and a touch screen multimedia infotainment system.

New heart, but how does it drive?

The promise of a broader power curve at the low-end in particular, mated with the CVT’s uncanny ability to simulate the perfect gear for any situation, holds true: the Vios feels all that much more better to drive.
It pulls harder low down, has more midrange grunt, and the 2NR-FBE engine is smoother, less noisy, and more refined than its predecessor.

I’m not sure if that’s down to the liquid-filled engine and transmission mounts, or if the engine is really smoother.

In normal city driving, bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, the Vios sipped fuel like a miser. I had the car for six days, and covered roughly 120 kilometers, and it consumed less than a fourth of fuel in the tank, considering it came from Toyota’s staging yard at Bicutan and went to my home in Mandaluyong.

The brakes on this particular Vios also felt sharper, more responsive, and with no trace of mushiness. I guess someone at Toyota did his homework and flush-bled the brakes properly.

The only complaint I have left to levy on the Vios is the seating position. The steering wheel doesn’t adjust for reach at all: you feel like driving an Italian classics. Your arms extend all the way forward, and your feet and legs slightly akimbo while supporting your thighs as the Vios’ chairs also lack thigh support for anyone over 5-feet 8-inches tall.

It’s a major sticking point for me, but probably largely irrelevant to the vast majority of Vios drivers in the country who are admittedly much smaller (in size, height, heft and girth) than me.

With the powertrain upgrade, Toyota foresees the Vios to sell even better than before as it addresses the one universally-accepted problem of being thirsty. Well, finally, a safer Vios with a more fuel efficient engine is now available.