2008 TOYOTA Yaris

Feels like it was just built at 108k

Comfort Rating: 5 Performance Rating: 4 Interior Rating: 4 Reliability Rating: 5 Safety Rating: 5 Technology Rating: 4 Value Rating: 5

A hand full of these had intermittent water pump failure. this was pretty rare, but if you're looking used inspect near the water pump for pink crust, it's a dead give away. That out of the way, I am a regular sized college student. I got this to be reliable, hearty, and get good fuel economy. I have slammed 15000 miles on it in the year I've owned it, and It has had literally nothing wrong. No squeaks, rattles, nothing. I put oil in it. That is it. If you're a guy living in america, your buddies may jag you off about this car at first but the fact of the matter is I drove to my friends house to help him fix his Lincoln in my little Toyota. Another friend with a jeep attempted to join us but his car caught fire. You will outlast anything but perhaps old Honda motorcycles with this car. For some anecdotal stuff: -I have driven in one pittsburgh winter and with half life all seasons I had no trouble getting up steep, 4 to 5 inch deep snow packed gradients. AWD cop cars were sliding down the hill past me, but the yaris kept on going. -I put my girlfriend, her dog and it's crate, and a week and a half worth of food in the back (Seats down) and drove 790 miles to Maryland and averaged 39 mpg doing it. coming back i actually got 42. On a straight highway drive at 60 miles per hour i can actually get 49 mpg reliably, with the 5 speed manual. -I learned to drive stick in this car, and even with me buggering the clutch repeatedly while learning, The shifts are quick and easy, and the clutch is a little on the tighter side when new, but it wears nicely and lasts a long time. There is nothing difficult about working on this car, and usually i don't need to jack it up for routine maintenance because it sits rather high on it's wheels, which also gives good visibility. The suspension isn't sophisticated, but it works pretty well, and the seats are awesome. You can take some pretty serious bumps without suffering in this car. Had one minor accident, sun got in my eyes and I lost sight of the road and at about 15 miles an hour slammed into a lady in a big old saturn station wagon. No damage whatsoever. Tires are cheap as dirt, and so is just about everything else for this car. Overall I love it. and If you're worried your more "Merica" friends will give you garbage, they probably will, but by the time their dodge has eaten it's 9th transmission in 45k miles, they'll come to love the car of the person who's repeatedly bailed them out and helped keep their scrap on the road :) Comfy, reliable, cheap and easy to fix and run, and everything is bolted together to a german- like standard of build quality, with a toyota- like standard of precision and engineering. Fantastic car.