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Traded in my EcoSport for a Hyryder: Pre & post delivery experience

10th March 2023, 10:18 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

It's not a fun car to drive but I try & to make it fun by achieving the best fuel efficiency I can on every drive.

BHPian Cruzn recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Finally received my S variant after 4 months. Before I mention my experience, I would like to also talk about how I came to this decision. I used to have a 2019 EcoSport AT which I treasured. It was an absolute joy to drive and would never have given it up if it wasn’t for the mileage. With the current rate of petrol and a mileage of 10 km/l, I was spending 10k a month just to fill her up.

I heard about the Taigun having slightly better mileage and also the same fun experience, so decided to take a look. I had pretty much decided on the Taigun and doing the test drive was just going to be a formality.

One morning, while my family was getting ready to go for the test drive, I was surfing on YouTube and came across a video for Toyota’s next vehicle. I saw the word ‘Hybrid’ and immediately remembered my experience when I first drove the Prius a few years back in the US. I told my family that we aren’t going anywhere. I decided that I would wait and see how this turned out.

As we all saw, the launch was a disaster with the pricing being so secretive for quite a few days. Nevertheless, I was still adamant about checking the car out.

Pre delivery experience

I had initially booked the G variant with Nandi Toyota (Banaswadi) on October 10th. After my second test drive on October 20th, I noticed the cabin was warmer than usual. Driving the V variant I realised that the sunroof was the cause. I then decided to downgrade to the S variant. Looking at some of the reviews here, I'm glad I did! Apart from the extra airbags, I don't miss the other features missing between the G and the S variants.

My SA Richard was kind enough to keep me posted on the status periodically. My only concern was selling my EcoSport on time so that I can make the payment as soon as the PDI was done.

On the day of the PDI, I received a quote from Spinny but decided to go with Toyota instead so that I could drive in with my EcoSport and drive out with my Hyryder. Unfortunately, that couldn't happen as Toyota's policy was to complete the trade-in process before the delivery. This was the only disappointment in my entire experience with Toyota. I just wished I had another day with my EcoSport.

Post delivery

Received my car on Feb 5th. Now we’ve all read and watched the reviews, so I’m not going to repeat the same. However, I would like to repeat that it is awfully quiet in EV mode. I hadn’t informed my driver and he ended up restarting the car about 4 times before he realised that the car was actually on. Hence, please inform your drivers.

The pros are the same as others have mentioned so will go through some of the cons (some of which have also been mentioned by others) that I’ve noticed so far after 300 km:

The driver's door does not close easily. On average both my driver and I take at least 3 attempts to close it. This was something I noticed during my test drives and PDI as well but was told this is normal. Is it though? The other doors are fine but is there a reason that this happens only with the driver’s door?

It’s 2023 and we still see cars with just 2 airbags. We keep reading about how automakers care about their customers. Really Toyota?

Finally, this is in no way a fun car to drive. But I try and make it fun by achieving the best mileage I can on every drive. My driver and I do get some honking and abuses hurled at us once in a while but that’s alright, we still reach our destination safely, on time and with an average mileage of 27.6 km/l.

Haven’t seen a lot of reviews on the S variant, so please feel free to contact me for queries.