[VinsWagen]

What is the process for canceling an online pre-booking for Hyryder? Should we have to go in person to the assigned dealer or can it be canceled online?

[smilingakash]

Originally Posted by rr06

I did a test drive at Millenium Toyota, Thane on Monday. No set delivery dates yet, but he is expecting to get deliveries before Diwali.

Can you share your Test Drive experience? Will help all the fellow TBHPians

[rr06]

Originally Posted by smilingakash

Can you share your Test Drive experience? Will help all the fellow TBHPians

There was a literal queue to get the test drive, so couldn't drive it for more than a couple of kms or a total of 10-15 mins inside the car. Here are some observations:

• e-cvt is pretty awesome (not sure how enthusiasts feel about it). It's like driving gearless scooters like activa. You can zip past others at the turn of green at traffic signals. I didn't even realise that I have already hit 35-40 kmph.
• The road was decent with some speed breakers, so can't say much about the ride quality on bad roads.
• Front seats are comfortable & ventilated seats work very well.
• Visibility from the driving seat is good
• 360 camera is okish. It keeps on for very little time when moving forward & it then switches off / goes back to infotainment screen.
• Infotainment screen is pretty responsive. I could only try wireless carplay & it works seamlessly.

I will try to get another longer test drive tomorrow & post the updates here.

[tjsi]

Can some please help me on this one little situation I'm facing now.
I really want this car by this November or December but yesterday my dad, who's dealt with all sorts of car related stuff back in his days, suggests that I should buy the car in January since "it will be a 2023 car".
I even searched up the forum and found this one post (Discounts in December or new model year car in January?) but it's for a car that has been out in the market for quite long with discounts.
I don't see why it should be relevant in this case because
1.The car just came out and is a new release.
2. December-January is just a 30 day difference and only the registration can be 2023.
3. Can't get a freshly baked car out of the Toyota oven right in January.
4. For it to be a 2023 model it should get a face-lift in 2023. So if I'm selling the car off after 5 years then I don't think I can label it as 2023 car to get a better resale.
What do the more experience members think?

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

I liked the fact that unlike Maruti Suzuki, Toyota hasn’t given the HyRyder Smart Hybrid and Hybrid badges which can become confusing to judge the powertrain.

White looks very good on both the Hyryder as well as the Grand Vitara. In the GV there are more elements that set off the white color better I feel.

Drive on,
Shibu

[ashwin.terminat]

Test drove the Hyryder a few days ago. I drove the top-end strong hybrid variant.

- Doors seem very, very light
- Boot is not very big. But they had kept two big suitcases there to demonstrate available space
- Rear bench is suited for 2.5 people
- Car can easily accommodate 4 people. 5 is a squeeze
- Headroom at the rear is limited. Best suited for people <=5'9"
- Seats are comfy
- Rear floor hump is massive! Middle passenger is going to be in labour position a lot
- Car looks a whole lot nicer than the Grand Vitara
- Ventilated seats are nice!
- The black looks really, really good

About the drive,
- Car turns on with zero sound
- Let the brakes go and it starts creeping forward
- Overtakes in the city will be effortless
- Turned off AC and music but still couldn't hear the engine
- Didn't realise when the engine had fired up. Very very seamless transmission
- Road noise does get through but overall refinement is very good
- Easy to drive and good suspension setup for the city
- Felt different from a conventional CVT wherein there was no feeling of gears being shifted at all
- I am a sedate driver and definitely thought the engine had enough poke to keep you interested in the city. It felt peppier than the K15C-equipped 2022 Brezza I drove a month or so ago

All in all, doesn't work for my requirements because my family is pretty tall. But I would totally recommend this car to someone who wants a low running cost, fuss-free ownership and a family of 4/4.5 that are <=5'9".

[feodore]

Today was the 'official launch' of the Hyryder at a nearby dealership and there was an absolute ocean of people there. Couldn't get a test drive today so it was just a walkaround/ingress/egress and here are a couple of thoughts for what they are worth:

• The car looks good in person where it looks pretty vanilla on the website. Sober but far from anodyne.
• I'm 6' 1" and can't possibly sit in the rear without fearing a concussion or two. The SA claims it is down to aerodynamics . Didn't have my family along so can't comment on the bench width (didn't look any worse visually than what I saw recently with the German twins) but there was decent room to spare for my knees.
• The headroom in the front isn't bad, on the other hand, but the door opening has been squashed which means that I had to sway to my right during both ingress and egress. It was either that or bash my head against the door opening top point.

I'm told I can have a test drive in a day or two but I don't know if I can look past the dodgy headroom.

[84.monsoon]

The on-line booking process that Toyota has established is very poor. I tried to book the Hyryder G strong Hybrid and the process started last Wednesday Sep 28th. I selected Lanson Toyota in Cenotaph Road Chennai as the dealer while booking.

• I sent through the web form and tried to make payment through my credit card. The payment page hangs and would not go through after entering all card details. I tried three times and gave up.
• Tried again with g-pay. I had to re-enter all information each of the 4 times I tried to book, as the site has no user log-in or persistence of information. It is just like a google form that collects some info and then re-directs you to a payment page.
• I finally paid via g-pay and all the site provides is a payment confirmation stub of google pay. There is no return to Toyota booking page and no confirmation of the transaction from the Toyota page. This looks like a site and process that a flower shop would design and build to take orders for flowers and make payments. This is not the kind of design one of the world's largest auto manufacturers should hove for booking their 20 lakh rupee cars
• I then received an e-mail from Toyota - a barebones e-mail saying the booking is done, but with no details of the variant booked, dealer booked with, amount paid or booking priority number.
• Two days later I received a call from the dealer. All that the SA knew was that a booking had been done for Hyryder at their dealership. He had no idea of the variant, color or even whether the strong hybrid or weak hybrid had been booked. I had to repeat all this information again and asked for the payment receipt and the booking confirmation with variant details and booking priority number.
• The SA now asks me to send Aadhar Card and PAN card and says this is mandatory to issue booking receipt!
• In the next few hours I received no less than 5 calls/WhatsApp pings from the SA - Each time asking for one additional bit of information. I think he was trying to go through and fill up a booking form and each new field he came to and he realized he did not have the information, he would call me. I asked him if he received the information from the Toyota booking site, where I had already keyed in most of the information he was asking for, and he says he did not receive any details other then the fact that a customer had booked a Hyryder with the dealership! So he wanted variant and color again, then wanted back side of Aadhar card, then the e-mail ID, and then even nominee details! God knows why one needs a nominee when booking a car!
• He then asks for the booking payment receipt and UPI transaction ID. Although I sent him whatever I received as part of the process, he was not satisfied and wanted the UPI transaction ID, which was not available on the gpay receipt nor the e-mail from Toyota. I told him this is all the information I have and you have to work with this.
• I then asked for the payment receipt. The SA then tells me that the google payment would have gone to the "Lanson Corporate Account" and it will take 3 days to reach the dealership account, and only then can he make out a payment receipt!
• After insisting I need something, he sends me a photo of a half-filled written, manual booking form, in which he gets the nominee relationship and age wrong - I inform him of the error and he says he has corrected it. I insist on the corrected form and sometime later I get another photo of another written form - this time the nominee details are thankfully correct.
• Three days go by and I again follow up for a proper payment receipt and booking confirmation. "Sir, payment is not reflecting yet" is the answer. Same answer on the next day and I then got busy with work and forgot about this. I again message him this morning (Oct 8th) about it and finally I received the Computer generated "Customer Receipt" - 10 days after I booked and paid. It has an Order Number but this seems local to the dealer. No national booking ID reflecting priority number is provided.

Compare this to M&M - when I booked the Thar 2 years ago, and also when I booked the Scorpio N recently, I got the complete booking receipt and booking ID immediately after I completed the payment. I can go an check the status of my booking anytime by logging into the portal provided by M&M. I can see the sequence of steps from "Order
under Planning" to "Being produced" to "In transit for delivery" etc. in the portal. With Toyota, I cannot even retrieve my booking on the site as they have no log-in functionality. One has to relay entirely on the goodwill of the dealer to get the status and the delivery.

I think as leading global car manufacturer, Toyota should set up a more robust, customer friendly process. The process should ensure the details of the order reaches the dealer in its entirety. They should also train their SAs to create booking receipts without calling and messaging the customer half a dozen times. These are basics without which a manufacturer has no right to do business in today's times.

[d-g-p]

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

The on-line booking process that Toyota has established is very poor.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

I then received an e-mail from Toyota - a barebones e-mail saying the booking is done, but with no details of the variant booked, dealer booked with, amount paid or booking priority number.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

Two days later I received a call from the dealer that the SA knew was that a booking had been done for Hyryder at their dealership. He had no idea of the variant, color or even whether the strong hybrid or weak hybrid had been booked. I had to repeat all this information again and asked for the payment receipt and the booking confirmation with variant details and booking priority number.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

SA then tells me that the google payment would have gone to the "Lanson Corporate Account" and it will take 3 days to reach the dealership account, and only then can he make out a payment receipt!
.

Originally Posted by 84.monsoon

I cannot even retrieve my booking on the site as they have no log-in functionality..

My over all experience with Maruti Nexa website booking is not much different either. I did an Urban cruiser hyryder booking with Toyota dealer but opted for online booking with Grand Vitara. Calls from dealer came after 2-3 days and almost same process to go through. They too faced same issues with payment confirmation from Nexa. Interestingly while I booked a Grand Vitara Alpha+ Nexa blue AT (Other colour options were not available initially) later I found the same being converted to Zeta MT when I logged in after few days. Nexa SA assured me of converting this to Alpha+ AT or any other variant after price announcement.
At least in Maruti Suzuki Nexa you can log on and cancel the booking from the website itself.

As the service adviser has a target each month, do the bookings from website which are alloted to them, helps in their monthly target?

[Upgrade]

Today I visited Ravindu in OMR, Bangalore for a test drive with an objective of driving it on highway. The following are my observations:
Car looked shorter but when I saw it next to a Creta, they were of same height. So, it is just my perception issue.
The tan colour interior is very good.
The boot space is small. But you can expand it by removing the hardboard and you can even remove the tools section and free up another 50 litres. But you need to find another place to keep them. SA was suggesting that as an option. You can expect some kind of mats to be available soon for the tools section to improve the boot space.
The driver seat can be raised pretty high. With sunroof open, you will get a feel of sitting in a convertible as your head will be so close to the open space.
About the drive - I drive Etios Petrol and found Hyryder responsive. Anyone who is coming from NA vehicle will not find this under powered. I drove till 120 and I don't think highway overtaking will be a major issue in the sport mode.
The big issue is the noise. The noise is at par with my 11 year old Etios even at the lower speed.
The mileage shown on the MID was 15 kmpl. So for a highway drive at higher speed, you may not see major gain compared to other petrol cars and will be more expensive than diesels.

[motorheart]

Today I visited the Nandi Toyota dealer at Whitfield, Bangalore. There was only one vehicle ( Hybrid V version ) for the test drive. I did a 4 KM test drive and I am really impressed with the engine and the noise levels. The switch between EV and IC is very smooth and you hardly notice it. I am really not sure about the mileage of the hybrid as the display was showing 16KMPL most of the times, So we will have to wait and see. One thing the Toyota SAs sell hard is on the Toyota's 3 Years warranty and 8 year warranty on the battery.

I did place the booking for the base variant S of the hybrid as it covers most of the features that i want. There is no update on the delivery timelines as the dealer claims that they have a huge order booking.

[RRU]

Today, i finally test drove Hyryder (strong hybrid) - V in red colour - looks stunning - first at Ravindu Toyota, Avalahalli, Bangalore to get a sense of highway ride and then another short ride at Nandi, Whitefiled. Also, had a peek into strong hybrid G-midnight black, V-blue and Neodrive S-white - all look stunning, especially from outside, well nigh all angles. Here are my thoughts based on TDs:

1) Overall ride quality is very good - more so for city driving and highway drive was not half bad either.

2) Suspension was a wee bit on the tighter side, but absorption of undulations or varied road conditions was never an issue - good.

3) Performance was acceptable (don't want to overstate, but it can be easily construed as "good") in all kinds of driving - drove at 0-122 kmph in almost all conditions. At slow speed up to 50 kmph, it is a veritable EV with absolutely no sound or fuss whatsoever. The switch between EV and ICE is just seamless and so also the e-cvt - you will never notice the continual switch and transmission. That said, to gain this you have to play soft pedal and sudden acceleration or quick throttle response is always accompanied by sound you will likely not like and it indeed beats (pun intended) my Etios 1.5 petrol NA on NVH. Power or response to kick will not be an issue up to 140 kmph (i think this is enough), but that NVH will bother you for sure (3-cylinder engine bane) and more so since it runs on EV at low speed - hence the boom is more prominent.

4) Mileage - Given the TDs were full of varying speeds, sudden acceleration, deceleration and all kind of stress test - overall mileage of the first trip was 15+ kmpl and second ride was 18+ kmpl. Impressive but mind you not a big leap from mild hybrid/Neo drive (my TD of XL6 MPV eked out a mileage of 15 kmpl).

5) Inside the cabin - A lot has already been talked about by BHPian friends and experts - only incremental points - first row, driving seat: very comfortable and decent ergonomics for all types of driving position and style provided you are not more than 6'1". Only issue i noticed was left knee rubbing the dashbaord when i put my foot on dead pedal - not sure if others felt, but was not enjoying at all. Co dirver's seat was comfortable with enough leg, elbow and headroom. Second row as averred by everyone was indeed a dampener - 3 average or lean adults can sit comfortably, but ceratainly not in "Seth ji" style. While the comfort of a typical sedan was definitely conspicuous by its absence, it should be acceptable given the segment it belongs to and the design. Headroom was definitely a deal breaker for me and could be for many - however, there is a positive surprise i noticed albeit at the cost of the sought after "sunroof" feature - the S variant of Neodrive (probably strong hybrid, as well; will check), which is sans sunroof - has much better headroom and i really liked - that claustrophobic feeling was not there. Just to give a comparision - i am 6' - my head was rubbing (not touching) the roof of G/V strong hybrid with sunroof when i sat upright in the second row vs a gap of at least 2 inches when seated in the same position in the second row of Neodrive S variant.

6) Boot space was claimed about 250L for strong hybrid, about 341L after removing the trays and about 400L in Neodrive - i am fine with these and will not consider it a deal breaker.

7) Build and Safatey were kind of in the middle - Maruti-Toyota - certainly not usual Toyota type, but strong enough to grab an NCAP rating of 4*.

To sum up - it is a very good package at a little premium price - courtesy all stakeholders, including govts, and competes well with the Korean, German and Indian counterparts.

[Cruzn]

So I went to the Nandi Toyota in Banaswadi for a test drive yesterday. We were the first ones there and while waiting for the SA to arrive, we took a look at the S & the V variants they had on display.

- I’m 5’11 and even with the driver’s seat set to my position (which was all the way back) there was still room to sit comfortably in the backseat.
- Headroom was a little limited both in the front and the back but it kind of grows on you and I forgot about it after a while.
- Space is limited in the back and definitely not for 3 adults.

By then the SA (Richard) reached and suggested we take the test drive as he was expecting other customers to come check out the vehicle soon.

- They had the V variant for TD and as mentioned by many already, you switch the car on and you don’t hear a thing. It was quite amazing.
- Release the brake and the car moves instantly without any lag.
- Before we moved any further, I asked the SA to reset the mileage.
- The drive was pretty good. Way better than I expected. Got to drive through city traffic and potholes as well as a bit of the open road to really see how the pick up was. The pick up is not as great as my ecosport, but it was quite smooth otherwise and managed to get through the potholes with ease. My family in the back said they hardly felt anything.
- We drove for a little more than 3 kms and when I saw the mileage, it was a whopping 24 km/l!! I was on EV mode for at least 80% of the time and the time I realised that the ICE kicked in was when I looked at the infotainment screen which showed the orange engine light up. Otherwise you don’t even realise it.

By the time we got back, the place was packed with a lot of people. I barely got out of the vehicle and had people running over to hop in for their test drive.

I then asked the SA to get a box or a suitcase to check the boot capacity. He managed to find a huge box, the size of a large suitcase. It didn’t fit in.

However, he did remove the parcel tray and it went in just right with a little more room for an extra backpack or 2.

I wasn’t a fan of the thin sheet covering the sunroof. In fact, upon touching the sun roof, it was quite hot even on a gloomy day. As the AC was on, It didn’t feel so hot inside the car. I asked the SA if reflective tints could be installed and he said it could be done. Hopefully this could help keep the cabin cooler.

The SA mentioned that they only started test drives at their branch from Saturday evening and already had 36 bookings since then.

Overall I was quite pleased with the vehicle and left with a booking of the G variant. The waiting period is a max of 6 months and deliveries would commence from Oct 23rd.

[Eco_boost]

I had a quick opportunity to TD the hyrider V Hybrid at a Mumbai branch. They had it in red and it was a looker.
As expected, the place was bustling with people. I had to wait for a while before my turn. It was a very very short drive. Probably less than 7 minutes.
Pros :
1 - Silent until 40 -50 kmph
2 - Pickup is decent and better than I expected looking at the bhp figures.
3- Interiors feel plush. I also like the back seat recline angle.

Cons :
1- Noisy post 50 kmph. Slightly better than my 2013 Cng Wagonr ( Now Sold)
2 - I couldn't find a comfortable driving position. I need to check this one again. Maybe hop in again on a weekday early.
3 - There is a LOT OF FLEX in the door panels. They are also very light. Lighter than my 2018 Verna 1.6D ( Current Ride). I seriously doubt it will score more than 2 stars on a side impact test.

VERDICT
It's overall a very good ' urban cruiser'
Not sure it's safe / capable for the highways.
I'm still confused between this and the Harrier.
( Harrier's poor city FE and poor interior quality are keeping me away from booking it)

[rayjaycleoful]

Anyone who's managed to drive the mild hybrid?
Won't be available till next month according to MGF in Gurgaon :(