Innova Hycross owner shares his weird incident with a Crysta driver

The response from the Hycross is instant. There is no lag waiting for a turbo to spool up, the downshift and the roar from the engine are instant.

BHPian Cresterk recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I have been patiently waiting till the first service is done to do an initial ownership report but I just drove 100 km combined today, first alone and then with 7 people on board and I'm feeling pretty happy with the car so I just had to share with my fellow enthusiasts and owners.

Something you quickly realise and accept when driving the Hycross is that other Innovas will drive weirdly around you. Crysta owners especially will treat you like you are their wife's ex-boyfriend and they have something to prove by overtaking or speeding away from you.

I have been ignoring it so far because:

1. I wasn't very familiar with the car yet and I do not like taking unnecessary risks.
2. My family would be with me and my mom is the type to start panicking if she sees a car slightly move into our lane 2 km ahead.

Today while I was cruising on the highway, I saw a black 2.4Z Crysta with modified tail lights and heavily tinted glasses in front of me. I had a feeling that this was going to be one of 'those guys'. He hadn't noticed me yet so we were just driving along with the flow of traffic, with me behind him at a fair enough gap. Didn't want him to think that I have got something to prove by driving too close, you know? Traffic was moving at a decent enough pace so I think we were both content to just relax and go with the flow.

Then all of a sudden he moves to the left track and accelerates till he gets right to the truck in front and brakes. There is no gap to squeeze through to the right. I don't make any effort to close the gap he vacated and he quickly moves back into the right track and honks at the poor Swift in front.

Ah looks like he finally noticed me.

There is only so long you can stay ignorant of a large black, suspiciously SUVish-looking MPV with low-set DRLs in your mirror without recognizing it as the new generation of your car. As soon as we pass the truck, he moves back into the left lane and accelerates hard, zooming away just to come across yet another slow-moving car and have to brake again. He swerves back into the right lane but is now stuck behind another car that is only moving marginally faster than the left lane. You could almost hear his impatience as he tailgates the car until the left lane opens up, and away he goes! Only to have to slow down as we are now approaching an intersection and there is a bus that's already halfway across the road.

He has to stop. The cars in front of me in the right lane go through but with the bus inching forward, I stop as well. I'm not going to play chicken with the lunatic behind the wheel of a private bus in Kerala!

All the cars waiting at either side of the intersection use this opportunity to cross the road. I am right beside the Crysta now. The whole road has now stopped and is waiting for the intersection to clear. As soon as the last car makes it past his lane, off he goes! I get a late start but I'm off too after my lane is clear. The highway has now completely cleared up in front since we were stopped for a while. I am keeping an eye on the Eco Meter that Toyota provides instead of a tachometer on its hybrids. I have been trying to keep it below the power zone so far. The Crysta is accelerating hard, showing no signs of letting up as our speeds cross 50, 60 and 70, I'm in comfort mode and I'm glancing down at the Eco Meter to see that the needle has crept past the top of the ecozone and is now slightly in the beginning of the power zone. I finally say, ah screw it, and I push my foot down more. The response from the Hycross is instant. There is no lag waiting for a turbo to spool up, the downshift and the roar from the engine are instant (ahem, well as much as a 2L engine can roar) and the Hycross just shoots ahead, past the Crysta. I see the Eco meter getting close to the top and I lift off and it goes back to EV mode as it starts to regenerate. We are approaching traffic up front anyway so I go back to driving sedately. The Crysta came up in the other lane but he stayed slightly behind me all the way to the signal despite having space to go ahead

I turned right at the signal and he went straight with a little toot of the horn. I drove away with a stupidly large smile on my face.

Here's what BHPian jthomas had to say on the matter:

Yup. This car has enough power when needed. Nice write-up of the drag race with Crysta.

My VX has covered 5900 km in 2.5 months. Had two trips from Chennai to KL and once to Hyd. My brother-in-law wanted to see how fast it could go and for a very brief moment (say 2 or 3 sec), on an empty stretch of four-lane highway, he got the speedo to one-eighty. The engine roared and roared. I prefer to drive around 100 on highways and to overtake any slow-moving traffic and this car has more than enough power. Overtaking on KL single-lane state highway was effortless.

Very happy with the car's performance. It's my daily ride to the office and gives a mileage of 19 km/l. On highways due to my driving style mileage is around 17.5 km/l. A full tank (50 litres) gives a range of 850 km. So coming from Chennai to my hometown (KL) is 640 km and it has enough petrol to go back to TN on the return leg to refuel. The fuel cost difference is almost 4 to 5 rupees with respect to KL.

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