Autoblog Drives a '15 Yaris ...

[Kalispel]

Originally Posted by bronsin

No hate but geez...it never ceases to amaze me the moronic standards the buying public has for cars!

I'm really tired of the Honda Fit being touted as some sort of class-leading, absolute Yaris-killer - and most people seem to buy into the hype.

Sure, the Honda Fit is great if you want the hauling capacity of a mini-van in a shrunken, elongated, ugly subcompact form, and a flashier/gaudy interior, but that is about it.

I drove a 2015 Honda Fit EX (which costs more than a Yaris SE) for a few weeks and wasn't impressed by anything beyond its cargo capacity/versatility (which is pretty awesome). It certainly didn't feel any faster than the Yaris, thanks to its extra weight offsetting its higher horsepower. It handled sluggishly compared the the 2015 Yaris SE, with noticeably heavier body roll. The braking didn't feel nearly as tight as the SE. The interior was sort of annoying/distracting in its cheesy attempt to look futuristic and high-tech. The CVT automatic didn't feel any better than the old-school Yaris 4-speed automatic in real-world driving, even if it did squeeze a few extra MPG out - though I'm sure the manual would be nice in the Fit, since Honda does make some of the sweetest manual-transmission vehicles in the world. Bottom line for me is that I find the Yaris SE simply more fun to drive than I did the Fit, as well as having better long-term reliability thanks to well-established technologies being employed, even if they aren't "bleeding edge".

Don't get me wrong - I like Honda (every car I have ever owned before this has been a Honda/Acura), but they seem to have reoccurring core mechanical problems with their brakes, transmissions, and even engines in some models (all of which I have managed to dodge, luckily). It's like they try to redesign everything from scratch with each new generation model release, instead of carrying over what actually works from previous experience (almost the direct opposite of what Toyota seems to do @ almost extreme levels, especially in the case of the Yaris).