OK, read through this forum, spent about 8 hours reading both here and across the net for information. Crash results, reliability, etc etc.

I currently drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee, so used to an SUV with incredibly visibility. (I've driven alot of cars, and nothing comes close to the visibility I have in that jeep!) While I love the jeep, it's also on it's last legs, and needs to be replaced soon.

So, in looking, I came across the scion xD. Test drove it, and pretty much loved it from the get go. Also tried the Honda Fit. didn't like it as much, for many of the reasons that have been discussed here in the past.

I have a couple concerns with the xD though, and am hoping you can assist me in alleviating those concerns:

Visibility
First and foremost, is the visibility out the back. Coming from a car with superb visibility, I see a problem with huge blind spots. Has this ever posed a problem for you while driving? Or did you just find ways of compensating for it?

Gauges.
Specifically, engine temperature, alternator, and oil pressure. They don't exist anymore. I've seen teh ScanGauge site, and it's very unclear on what is supported in what cars. Cant I use that to view my engine temps, oil pressure, and alternator? (I hate idiot lights...LOL)

Reliability/Maintenance.
I know, it's a Toyota, I expect low maintenance, good dependability, etc. Also read that Scion is ranked top of it's class for dependability. Then read that J.D. Power and Associates gave teh Scion xD a 5/10 for reliability, which concerns me. Mixed reviews are something I don't like. So has anyone here had any issues aside from the dashboard squeak? And at what millage. I'd love to get ~200K from this thing. (I hold on to my cars. LOL)

Long trips:
I make trips over 7 hours driving fairly regularly. (Well...sevral times a year) How do these feel for those long trips compared to say...a Celica? (eg: celica seats turn into a brick after about 3 hours)

I appreciate any and all answers guys! Thanks!

 

personally i've never had a problem with a car hiding in my blind spot, i always check it before merging. my only dislike is that since the back of the roof slopes down, to see up a hill behind you, you either have to turn around or use a side mirror, the rear view mirror is somewhat useless in this case, but that's hasn't been an issue for me, it's just something i've noticed

if you really want gauges you can get gauge pods and install them yourself, i forgot who, but there is a guy on this forum that has about 5 gauges mounted over the center vents. for me i just use the rpm to let me know when my car is warm enough to start driving, and the little light to let me know when it's warm enough to start driving hard if i need it.

my guess for the 5/10 is that since the whole interior is made of plastic and some parts do rattle almost from the very beginning. which is a little annoying, but can be easily fixed with felt tape. mine only has 10K on it, and it drives better than the day i got it (i drive an MT and the transmission is broken in now so it shifts a bit smoother) i expect to get at least 200K out of this car, because toyota is supposed to be better than honda, and i got 196K out of my honda before i traded it in, so i expect more out of this car.

the longest i've driven mt xD for is 2 hours and it was great. sorry i couldn't be more help in this field, but if we're going on a long trip we usually take the wife's car because it's an AT so she can drive it if she desires to.

 

the blindspots.... lets see

1) use the side mirrors (and adjust it so you don't see any part of your car)
2) or you may invest in some Broadway mirrors (hangs over rearview mirror)

 

I don't have any blind spot trouble with the car and I know about blind spots...cuz my lady drives a new eclipse and that car is TERRIBLE as far as blind spots go..As for long trips I've taken it from Houston to Dallas a few times,(which is about a 4 hour drive) and its comfortable to me all the way there and back.

 

scangauge does not read oil pressure on our cars

 

J.D. Power is the most bull____ car survey in existence.

1) "Initial Quality" is an extremely short time period. I forget if it's 3 months or 6 months, but it's something absurdly short like that.

2) The sorts of things that get a score on that survey are absolutely stupid. "Initial Quality" refers to how satisfied the owners are with the car. So, if the owner doesn't like the sound the hatch makes when he slams it, that counts as a ding. If the owner doesn't like the smell the AC system has the first time she turns it on, that counts as a ding. It doesn't factor in reliability AT ALL, even though it's usually in people's top five requirements.

So it's entirely possible for a great rating to be scored by a car with a pleasing turn signal chime, even though the transmission is going to fall out at 50,000 miles. Seriously. Not kidding.

You should really be going by Consumer Reports or True Delta, both of which record REAL data, as in, how many times the car has to be taken in for stuff. They're both more likely to cover things like, say, if the entire electrical system is going to fry itself after a year (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, VOLKSWAGEN) than stupid little crap (such as "this little blue light keeps coming on," when that's totally normal).

I don't even know what protocol J.D. uses for reliability - the amount of services in their freakishly small timeframe? obviously it's not very good, if they think the 200K Camry engine is just going to fall out of the car.

This ties into your ScanGuage question: I myself came from a domestic truck (Chevy Blazer), and while I was also horrified to see my xB didn't have all the gauges I was used to, I also discovered that I didn't need them.

For awhile I missed the temp gauge, but let's face it - I only needed it in my Blazer so I could have early warning if the car was going to explode. In fact, driving a Chevy truck, a LOT of the gauges were to help me prevent the car from blowing itself up, since the car was actively trying to break down at all times. By switching to Scion, I no longer had the problem, so the idiot lights work just fine for me.

OH, GO ON, BUY IT. :D If you think Jeep people are friendly, wait till you meet Scion people!

I'll try to get my brother to post to this topic, since he actually owns an xD - I THINK he's taken it on a long trip. I certainly haven't heard any complaints about it

I look forward to welcoming you to the community :D

 

Thanks guys.

Just running my Jeep into the ground for a couple more months to wiggle myself debt free and have a good sized down payment ready. I think I'm sold, lol

 

I've had mine for about 9 months with 12,000 miles on it. I haven't had any problems with it at all. You'll love the gas mileage too coming from the jeep. People always ask how I can see out the tiny back window, but I've never had any visibility problems associated with the back window. The back pillars however present a little more challenge when backing out of parking spaces sometimes.

I also found that the other gauges were not a necessity. I've never had a car I had to monitor the temp gauge for fear of it blowing up, but you get used to it and it complicates your life all the less!

Road trips:
I've driven from Florida to Texas and back (1000miles one way, or about a 13 hour drive) in three cars over the years: Mazda Protege5, Mazdaspeed3, and Scion XD. The proetge5 was comfortable, the MS3 was flippen FUN but the formed racing seats wasn't all that great on the lower back after 13 hours, and the Scion XD was also pretty comfortable and very economical. I went with my fiance in the Xd and we had room to spare for a weeks worth of packing. Your not going to take 4 people with luggage to Disney Land, but you could fit 3 if they packed light. I use mine to haul band gear all over the panhandle of FL and my daily commute as well and find it pretty fun to drive a small car in traffic whipping it and whipping it good.

My $0.02
Bryan

 

I too was worried about blindspots, but haven't had any issue. The black perimeter tinting on the rear window makes the window look small from the outside. But, looking out from the inside, you actually have visibility the full width of the glass. The tiny rear wiper only clears a small swath of the roadsalt/dirt from winter driving, making it a little harder to see when backing up. Not an issue if you wash your car regularly or live somewhere warm.

I did a lot of reading etc. too before buying. Couple of nice things I only discovered after buying:
1. At night, when you shut off the engine, the cabin light automatically turns on....it comes up from dim to full on, like someone's turning up a dimmer switch.
2. The cargo area has it's own light in the driver side wall area, down low.

Some features I enjoy more than I anticipated:
1. Radio controls on the steering wheel. Keeps my eyes on the road.
2. Auto dimming rear view mirror (My dealer threw in $500 worth of accessories for free, so the auto dim mirror was one of my choices). I love not having to flip that stupid mirror lever any more.
3. Automatic volume control on the radio. You can set it to automatically increase the radio volume to compensate for highway noise. No more fiddling with the volume control when I exit the freeway.
4. Driver's seat...the formed sides have a sport car kind of feel. Very comfortable.
5. Just plain driving is more enjoyable that it ever's been. I used to drive a 2.4L 4 cyl. van that sucked wind. This car has lots of zip and good pickup. No problems getting onto the highway at all.

One thing I read about but haven't noticed:
1. Road noise. I'd read a lot about the XD having road noise. I guess it depends what you're used to hearing. I'd been driving a van that seemed pretty loud. The XD only seems to have some normal tire noise to me. No whistling sounds etc.

Good luck with your purchase.

 

I will chime in on visibility. Obviously the visibility will be less than you are used to, and it is way less than the Honda Fit IMHO. But it is not too bad. The only complaints I have are 1) as mentioned before, the tiny rear wiper only clears the middle of the window. Not a problem, just annoying. 2) When backing out of some driveways, diagonally, you really miss the rear quarter panel window. You can adjust by moving your head and maybe changing the angle of your car as you reverse, but I do miss the window there. During normal driving, no real visibility complaints.

One other thing I will say is, as far as you coming from a Jeep, you may be concerned about how well a tiny car handles snow and slush. We've been having a terrible winter with snow, and my xD is handling it all extremely well. I do recommend you get VSC though, even if you have to special order it.

 

I was actually more concerned with wet roads and hydroplaning than snow. I'm in Tennessee right now, coming from Florida. So snow it's much of an issue really. LOL

Thanks again guys! Now it's the debate of "get it now" or "Wait a few months, when you have more in the bank"

 

The "C-Pillar" of solid metal seemed to be a bad thing for me... but after driving it, it's not much of a problem. The car is so short that the mirrors can be adjusted to compensate for the majority of the usual 'blind spot woes'. The FJ Cruiser-- now that's a vehicle with HUGE blind spots... mainly due to its size. The view is quite similar to the xD oddly enough.

There is a lamp for engine temp and oil pressure low. The "Cold" temp light will be on upon first start. That basically tells you to warm up the car by driving under 2500 rpm. Once it's off, the vehicle is almost fully warmed up. You can drive normally once it's off. If it's overheating, the "Hot" Temp light will come on. The oil pressure light will come on if it's low. I haven't seen an alternator volt meter in a while. I don't think they are really necessary nowadays. I've yet to have a Toyota alternator go out on my... starting back with our 96 Camry to now. *knock on wood*

JD Power rates the first 90 days of owner ship with problems per car. Basically, the total number sold in 90 days is taken into account then divided by the total number of warranty issues reported in those 90 days and generates a "Problems per 100 cars" number. I'm sure many people had issues with minor rattling and non-mechanical items during those days. Personally, I took it in for warranty on 2 items: the AC Fresh Air/Recirc cable came off... somehow? And the windshield washer motor died.

My other Toyota's warranty problems:
Solara - Fog lamp condensation... but this was at about 28,000 miles and 2 years into ownership
4Runner - Rear seat rattle- There was a TSB for this.

Nothing major thus far.

I've yet to do a long road trip in the xD. I've only gone about 2 hours 30 minutes in a single sitting. It's liveable. It's not the best for hill climbs though (when loaded with passengers/cargo). This is where you'll miss your Jeep.

---

My xD is at 13,000 miles now (6 months old...) and is still going strong. Aside from the problems I've reported above, it's been solid. The engine is new, but the design is great. The Toyota 1.8L (7A-FE, 1ZZ-FE) has always held on the dear life for 200K+ without rebuilds. Hopefully we'll see the 2ZR-FE to be of the same caliber.

 

hm. My temp **** came loose one day too. It was a simple thing to pop it all off and rectify the issue. The square male clipy plug thing had backed out. I thought how in the world could that have happened, since I clicked it back in and it was very secure. I wonder if at the factory perhaps the little clipy plug deals aren't being seated in all the way.

 

I was surprised at the comfort of the xD on my first long trip. I regularly take 2 hour trips on the weekends, but the fiancee and I went out to western MD to stay at a B&B a few weekends ago and it was great. It was about a 5 hour ride, plus lots of driving while we were up there in the "mountains." The only thing I had to get used to was shifting out of 5th on some of the steep hills to maintain speed. My previous car was a turbodiesel Golf which put out over 180 pounds of torque at 1,900 RPM. No downshifting required there!

Also, coming from the Golf, the "blind spots" don't bother me at all. Adjust your right side mirror out a bit. A lot of people set their right side mirror to look at what is behind them. That's what the inside mirror is for! You should adjust the right side so that you can't see the side of the car in it... just a little bit further. That'll cover the blind spot.

 

well...I bit the bullet and bought it.

Let the fun (And payments) Begin!

 

Hope it works out for ya!

 

welcome to the gang

 

congrats! We want pics

 

don't let the payments spoil the fun.

if you can, give us a rundown of the options you got with yours, picks would also be a nice touch

 

I'll be getting some pics either tomorrow night or over the weekend.

Pretty much a stock car at the moment, (With floormats, LOL) I'll be adding a couple things as funds become available though.