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Lauren

GR Yaris who's going for it?

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1 hour ago, Subota Boy said:

Great article in Feb issue of EVO mag!  GR Yaris versus 22b and Quattro Sport. GRY acquits itself well against these rally-bred giants. I had not realised that a 22B commands £150-200k, and a Quattro £500k. Makes the GRY appear great value to get that kind of buzz today.

Nice, might have to get that.

I was thinking before the arrival of the Yaris might devalue older Impreza's and Evo's a bit. They've been quite expensive for a while, I think partly because nothing really replaced them. My old Blob eye would be worth more now than when I sold it 5 years ago.

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In an update of mapping the tuning box, good progress has been made. Nervous me has had plenty of reassurances from Richard and Gary has checked the fuelling which is nice and rich on full boost at the top end. I have also received information from trusted sources that the stock bottom end will take 500bhp and been advised that I'm barely tickling it at 305bhp. This is good news. I have had some revisions done to the map, to wind back the boost a bit at 3000rpm and make it a bit more linear. The guy at DTUK has been excellent with taking a lot of time to discuss and revise and checking in with me every day this week, when I've been in the car. This has helped and the car is absolutely flying now. The boost increase is 0.2 bar/2.9psi, so it's nothing too crazy. 

Really enjoyed the EVO article too. :)

 

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5 hours ago, gavin_t said:

It's a very, very similar to the map I'm running. Whether the ECU can be remapped remains to be seen and is still by no means certain. that HKS have brought out their own tuning box, tells you something, in that it's going to a while yet. 

 

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3 hours ago, Lauren said:

that HKS have brought out their own tuning box, tells you something, in that it's going to a while yet. 

HKS have always done this, and really it's speed to market. These boxes already exist, so just need mild modifications to fit different cars. To remap the ECU needs a ton of work, including how to get access to the thing, whether by bench or OBD.

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On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2021 at 7:35 PM, Lauren said:

It's a very, very similar to the map I'm running. Whether the ECU can be remapped remains to be seen and is still by no means certain. that HKS have brought out their own tuning box, tells you something, in that it's going to a while yet. 

 

For tall people like me the best thing they have done is develop lower seat rails. I would certainly be buying a set of those!

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Enjoyed reading this GR Yaris sounds really fun to drive. In 4 years when I eventually do change cars from my 2017MY GT86 will be a hard choice between GR Supra, GR Yaris and GR86.

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@Joolz it'll be between the latter 2, coming from the 86 I felt the Supra was a bit sterile - It's quick, no doubt, but it's a much more removed driving experience, you'll hit your head on the door opening until you get used to it (probably not an issue if you're shorter than 5'10) and the feeling of the car (seating position etc) isn't as nice. Perhaps the seating position of the Yaris will also be interesting as a comparison, but at least that is a taller car so maybe you expect it.

 

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2 hours ago, Kodename47 said:

@Joolz it'll be between the latter 2, coming from the 86 I felt the Supra was a bit sterile - It's quick, no doubt, but it's a much more removed driving experience, you'll hit your head on the door opening until you get used to it (probably not an issue if you're shorter than 5'10) and the feeling of the car (seating position etc) isn't as nice. Perhaps the seating position of the Yaris will also be interesting as a comparison, but at least that is a taller car so maybe you expect it.

 

I have also test driven GR Supra the cramped cabin was first thing to strike me, and you are correct it is a bit low (I do not quite bang my head but 6’2 so I’m sure I would at some point) and steering a bit numb BMW ish. Will see though I did really enjoy the GR Supra, but depends on how much it comes down in price too. GR86 is very exciting and sounds like GR Yaris is great too. With both much cheaper and may we say better than GR Supra maybe in some respects.

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From the article, posted elsewhere;

 

Quote
 I really didn’t want to drive the new Toyota Yaris. I’d seen in my diary that it was due to come for a week at the beginning of February and all through January I was filled with a constant, draining need to oil the service revolver and write a note to my children.
 
The Yaris is a car you buy because you think the Honda Jazz is a bit too racy. It’s for recently widowed old ladies who need something to get them and their friend Peggy to the bridge club. That’s it. It has no other purpose. It’s completely unreviewable and when I learnt that the model I would test had a three-cylinder engine, I very nearly called Toyota to cancel the booking. That, however, would have been a very big mistake because the Yaris that turned up was the GR model, which means that, actually, it isn’t really a Yaris at all.
 
To understand this car — and you need to because you are going to want one — you must delve into the rule book that governs international rallying.
If a carmaker wanted to enter a car into a rally in the Eighties, it had to produce 5,000 roadgoing versions, for ordinary people in ordinary showrooms. This is why we ended up with cars like the Lancia Delta Integrale and the Ford Escort Cosworth.
Later a new rule was introduced that said carmakers had to make only 200 roadgoing versions. That’s why we got the short-wheelbase Audi quattro, that nutty Peugeot 205 T16 and the ridiculous rear-engined Metro.
 
Today carmakers must produce a whopping 25,000 versions of a car they enter into a world championship rally. Which is why the sport is now full of dreary Hyundais and Volkswagen Polos, and no one watches it. The RAC rally used to be Britain’s biggest spectator event. Now you get more people in the bedroom of someone with a temperature and a cough.
 
Toyota has plainly decided to do something about that. So instead of putting stickers and some knobbly tyres on an ordinary Yaris, it has built an all-new version — a version that shares almost no components at all with its bridge- four brother. And now it has to find 25,000 people in the world who’ll want to buy one.
 
First things first. The engine. It’s a three-cylinder 1.6-litre turbo, which doesn’t sound particularly rallyish. But here’s the thing. It does. The noise may be artificial, but as you bumble along there’s a deep, offbeat thrum, as if you’re sharing the car with a snoring dog. It’s tremendous.
 
Then, when you put your foot down at low speed in a high gear, it’s like you’ve gently woken the dog. There’s a stirring. A sense of enormous power coming to life. And it is enormous. The engine may by tiny, but it produces nearly 260 horsepower, which, in a car that weighs only about as much as a match, means some serious get up and go. Full-bore standing starts are hysterical because it sets off like a ball from the penalty spot.
 
To make sure none of the power is wasted, there’s a four-wheel-drive system that moves the oomph to whichever wheel is best able to handle it at any given moment. There’s even a small readout on the dash to show you what’s going where, but if you are going quickly enough for the system to be working, trust me, you won’t have either the time or the inclination to look at the dash. Let alone reach for your spectacles first.
 
This is a car that made me laugh out loud. I took it into my fields one morning and made a terrible mess, but I didn’t care because it was a complete riot. And once I’d got the hang of how it handled and how the system that enables you to choose between Track, Sport or Normal made no discernible difference, I went onto the roads, which were made from sheet ice. And it was a riot there too.
 
When you feel the traction is gone in a normal car, there’s always a hair-raising moment when you think, “Crikey, I hope I can rescue this situation,” but in the Yaris, with its front and rear limited-slip differentials, you just think, “Oh goody. This’ll be fun.” It’s uncannily easy to control and because of that you feel like a driving god. Like you could win a rally. Like you are doing.
 
This is one of the most enjoyable and thrilling cars I’ve ever driven. It’s like a puppy dog version of the Nissan GT-R and I adored it.
Drawbacks? Very few. The interior is a bit Yarisish and because the sat-nav screen sits on top of the dash under the rear-view mirror, there’s an almighty blind spot. Oh, and you do sit quite high up, but that’s because rallyists like it that way. In Formula One the drivers basically lie down as if they’re in bed playing a video game — which they sort of are — whereas their counterparts in rallying like to imagine they’re sitting upright at a desk, working.
 
There are other examples of this rally thinking too. Instead of an electric handbrake, which would be of no use at all in Corsica or among the lakes of Finland, you get a proper lever; it even disconnects drive to the rear wheels when you pull it.
 
Then there’s the space in the back, by which I mean there isn’t any space in the back. The enormous front seats mean there’s no legroom, and because Toyota’s motorsport aerodynamicists wanted a sloping roof so they could put a rear wing in the airflow, there’s no headroom either.
In other ways, though, there’s no evidence at all that it’s a rally car. It’s got sensors that tug at the wheel when you stray out of lane and all the other appurtenances of modern living. Perhaps the most incredible thing is the way that such a sport-focused car isn’t particularly uncomfortable. It doesn’t glide but it doesn’t jar either. And even on a motorway the silly racing tyres fitted to my test car don’t make a racket.
 
I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that there are 4,175 weld points in the GR Yaris, 259 more than in the normal car, along with 116ft of structural adhesive. The body, then, is as rigid as a cathedral and that gives a sense of great quality and refinement.
I’ve saved the best bit till last, though. Prices for a standard car start at less than £30,000. Even the one I drove with all the bells and whistles and red brake callipers is only £33,495. I can think of nothing, apart from this newspaper and a McDonald’s Happy Meal, that represents such good value. And that truly makes this car perfectly in tune with the times.
 
Today people have a problem with privilege. The famous must beat themselves with twigs, the educated must drop their aitches and royalty must fly in the back of the plane. Which is why wealth must be stealthy. You can only swan around in a Ferrari or a McLaren if you have skin thicker than a thick-cut pizza.
 
You may think, if currently you drive a Porsche 911 or something of that ilk, that the Yaris GR, a small three-cylinder Japanese hatchback, would be quite a comedown, but it really isn’t. It’s that good, but you’ll need to get your order in quickly. Toyota is making 25,000 of them and that’s not going to be enough. Not by a long way.

 

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Thanks Lauren, will have a read. I think you also got in there at the right time.  When I was picking up my 86 from the garage yesterday (boot latch replaced) they were saying there is now a waiting list a year long!

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1 hour ago, Shippers said:

Thanks Lauren, will have a read. I think you also got in there at the right time.  When I was picking up my 86 from the garage yesterday (boot latch replaced) they were saying there is now a waiting list a year long!

Have you seen how much some are up for sale for?.... 

https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/toyota/gr-yaris

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Was that review posted above the Clarkson one? Seems to be written in his kind of style.

 

Also I see Chris Harris has caused some online fallout with his comments regarding a social media person and a GR Yaris.

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8 hours ago, gavin_t said:

Also I see Chris Harris has caused some online fallout with his comments regarding a social media person and a GR Yaris.

Have you watched (or listened) to that particular podcast with Iain? It's a good 'un.

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15 hours ago, Kodename47 said:

Have you watched (or listened) to that particular podcast with Iain? It's a good 'un.

Yes I dedicated my lunch break earlier in the week to listening to that collecting cars one. :)

 

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On 2/21/2021 at 3:49 PM, Shippers said:

Thanks Lauren, will have a read. I think you also got in there at the right time.  When I was picking up my 86 from the garage yesterday (boot latch replaced) they were saying there is now a waiting list a year long!

Yep, May 2022 now. It's just bonkers. So much going on as well. Been busy every weekend trying different maps and prototype testing of air filters, exhausts etc. Still, kept me busy! :)

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Let's see how frequently this issue pops up.  There are subtle differences between gearboxes which make it more or less likely for misshifts to happen. While it is still the responsibility of the driver the design does matter. Just like the design of the buttons for the cooking plates is a factor in how often you turn on the wrong plate or have to look twice in order to make sure.

On the GT86 I found it not trivial to find the 4-gate when downshifting fast or  in block. Had a close call once when i hit second gear instead.

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Most vehicles have close boxes these days, generally driver error. I must admit to having lost sprint wins to taking the wrong gear, reckon @Lauren will point out most bits good or annoying on the new Yaris as she is very thorough with the reviews.

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On 3/11/2021 at 10:07 AM, MovesWithClouds said:

Let's see how frequently this issue pops up.  There are subtle differences between gearboxes which make it more or less likely for misshifts to happen. While it is still the responsibility of the driver the design does matter. Just like the design of the buttons for the cooking plates is a factor in how often you turn on the wrong plate or have to look twice in order to make sure.

On the GT86 I found it not trivial to find the 4-gate when downshifting fast or  in block. Had a close call once when i hit second gear instead.

It's no more or less likely than any other car I would say. It's simply driver error. It may be more likely with a LHD car due to the seat position. The gearbox on the GR is easier than on the GT86 and going from 5th to 4th, the spring of the gate is all you need. Robert has clearly messed this up. 

Best tip is to never ever block shift. Always go through the gears. Absolutely essential on track. 

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