This is a cross post from a 4x4 Toyota forum that I frequent, thought some here might be interested in what I thought of my first xB drive. Even though my friend has owned his xB for over a year, I've only been in it twice before and never for more than 3 or 4 miles. BTW my truck is a '93 4 cyl 4x4 Toyota extra cab.

A friend of mine needed a truck today to pick up a couch before 3 PM and I wasn't going to be off work in time so we traded vehicles last night. Lucky for him it was a light workday for me so I didn't need anywhere near all the tools I normally pack around in my truck(bucket, bags, 5 saws, 3 drills, 3 sanders, 2 sawhorses, 6' ladder, planer, all sorts of misc. handtools and whatever materials I need for the day normally).

The xB is pretty small on the outside and seems bigger than it is on the inside. I still had to lay the passenger seat flat to get my ladder in there. The seat is like sitting in a kitchen chair in the front row of a movie theater, very upright with a HUGE view of everything in front of you. It's a lot quicker than I would've thought for the whopping 108 hp, definitaly quicker than my truck. The 36 mpg for the 140 miles I drove today handily beats the truck. I was impressed by how nimble it is, too. On the downside, it's fairly light and flat sided so at 80 on the freeway with a pretty good crosswind it wanted to jump all over the place, I'd say it was even worse than my '86 VW Vanagon that I drove for many years.

Even though the xB has been out for a few years I got a lot of looks, waves, and even a double thumbs up from some random dude outside of my complex. The lady at my second stop today was asking all sorts of questions about it and kept calling it "so cute". I'm not really sure if I could deal with all that attention every day

All in all it's a fun set of wheels, but for my uses it's just not a practical replacement for my truck and there's no way I'd give up the tC for it.

 

i had almost the same exact first impressions when I first test drove the car. I gotta say I love the box....

 

It take a certain sort of person to own and fully appreciate the xB pros. It sounds like you got to experience most of them in just one day.lol

 

Ya, I didn't get it till I sat in the drivers seat and was like WHOA....

The interior space and wide visibility are inexplicably contradictory to its sport compact feel.

 

part of the uniqueness of the box

 

I don't think i'd give up my box for a tC.

 

my first impression was

 

I've had people laugh... "Ha ha... Rolling cartoon."...
Till they sit in it.

WW

 

When I first saw one I thought.... "OMG! What were they thinking!" I was about a year later that I was seriously looking at a new delivery vehicle for the business. After many trips about town looking at small trucks, vans, P/T Cruisers and the like we were running around town and stopped at a place across the street from a Scion dealer. What the heck.... can't hurt to look and we had some time. After trying to get over the overall boxyness of the thing a salesman pulled up and asked if we had questions and wanted to take it for a drive. The wife want to try it out so we all piled in and with three of us in the car, A/C on with auto drove up one of the fairly steep hills in the area and had power to spare. So I got it on the highway out of town, again up a long steep hill and except for a Z4 screaming by we kept up with or passed everything else. Hmmm, I thought. She drove it back through some windy roads and really liked it. We ordered one a few days later. After driving it, a PW manual, for a few weeks I decided to sell the Chrysler and buy a TCM w/auto (that I'm still waiting for by the way).

If you don't want one.... don't drive one! It's the only way you can still not like it.

 

i like it because its small on the outside like a car, parks like a car, gets amazing gas mileage...yet it has so much room inside, i can put a lot in the back if i need to...and it also sits fairly high off the ground....i didnt think it would but i can see over cars sometimes and i love that

xB

I would never get a tC, friend has one and absolutely hates his, he hates the noise from the glass on the roof with a passion

oh...my first impression was

 

When I first seen the car I thought it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, and made fun of my friend who bought one. I don't know what happend between that time and like a year later, but after awhile it started to become appealing to me. The more I seen them the more I liked them, and eventually I simply fell in love with the car and its uniqueness and now I am the proud owner of one. They tried to get me to test drive it, but I was like "Where do I sign, I know what I want and I'm getting it". They told me to atleast sit in it and I was like, ok. I sat in it and then said "can we take care of the paperwork now?". Most of the people I know thought they were ugly too, until I brought it around and they seen how good I looked in it and how roomy it is, and how nice and different the interior is, needless to say they all like it now.

 

If I didn't have to pack tools and lots of sheet material(4'x8' plywood, drywall, etc.) I would seriously consider the xB as a replacement for my truck as a DD, but the way things are right now that's not going to happen.