Comfort/Involvement Index: 2012 Toyota Yaris SE Five-Door

Variety: **

Controls: **

Drivetrain:

Handling: **

Character:

Involvement Notes: An endearing, tossable nature that is slightly muted by mediocre steering feel and uncomfortable driving position. The new Yaris is a pleasing improvement over the previous generation.

Still, issues from the last-gen Yaris remain. In particular, its 1.5-liter, four-cylinder is a noisy, underpowered engine that doesn’t match the nippy handling characteristics of the chassis. We also aren’t particularly fond of the manual transmission. It feels overly notchy, and the clutch functions like an on-off switch, with very little modulation.

Visibility: *

Space/Seating: *

Ride/Handling: *

Acoustics:

Controls: *

Comfort Notes: An intelligently designed interior provides more front and rear room than you would expect. Lack of driver interface adjustment had us always searching for a more comfortable driving position.

From a comfort perspective, the ride is roughly average for a subcompact. Noisy engine with an abundance of road and wind noise is the biggest issue in terms of the in-cabin experience.