robbieree

Went to SF Toyota today 11/30! Released before 12/1, accidentally went to Richmond and Downtown district with the IQ. Ryan Dong was more then happy to show me the car and let me test drive it too.

They do have some in stock, they had "almost" fully loaded white IQ, rims wing, upgraded stereo (don't really listen to it very much). I thought it looked cooler then the lava colored one...

Drove it through Presidio, nice feature to "down shift" to low gear and then "down shift" to an even lower gear. It's like "sport shift." Didn't really need to brake at all behind the SUV who was riding the brakes.

Had a chance to go up those monsters hills "Driving on Lombard and right onto Webster." GF was scared rolling down the hill... 1st hill, meh... not going fast enough. 2nd hill.. gas it moar! getting okay... 3rd hill floored it, engine is definitely loudest on the 3rd one. Going up these hills scare the crap out of in general....

Turning radius is simply awesome. Turning into the parking lot x2, both times I felt I had overshot it, but turned in just fine, crazy...

I personally liked the CVT, don't know why Motor Trend bashed it, maybe that was why Toyota withheld the car? Make it more acceptable?. Really smooth, didn't really do too many sprinted driving with it, but then again I don't do that stuff anymore.

Keep in mind this isn't going to be a fast car.

Pro's
1. Tiny car, that fit me, GF (had about 2" of knee space") and Ryan with no problems.
2. Turning radius.
3. I liked the dash.
4. CVT = smoothess.
5. Pick and choose your accessories!
6. Asymmetric dash made it seem passenger has a lot more Room.
7. Eco light was just the right brightness to catch my eye.
8. Free maintenance! Yay! for 2yrs!

Con's
1. Price, you sure do get a lot of safety features, but in the end consumers see the price first.
2. Interior, seems cheap. Didn't like the door panels, didn't like the look of the seats either.
3. Engine noise... wow it's noisy, think they should address that
4. Are there even fender liners? Saw the wheels turned all the way and seems wheel wells was half assed Grey/black, I know over time it's just going to turn black....
5. Not body colored mirrors? It's a grey sparkly colored, certain angles it kind of blends in with the glass, but still... at least it isn't "black" telling everyone you got the super low model.
6. Ride is seems worst then a corolla over bumps

Suggestions:
1. Sound damping for the engine for higher speeds.
2. Change the seating material to something more refined. Looks like those cheap seat covers you can get part stores.
3. Knock off 1k-2k.
4. Needs some sort of trd body kit, i'm not talking about add on pieces for the bumpers.
5. TRD supercharger

Overall - I liked the car, didn't love it. If I didn't have 2 cars already (Still debating to trade one of them in), might have gotten it. GF was a no, she doesn't like small cars.
I have been eying this car for a while and loved how the car was done by 5-axis, but seeing the white one with the fog lights and rear spoiler was nice combo.

The car will be perfect for the following:
1. Likes great gas mileage.
2. Lives in an area where parking is impossible to find, but you do see 3.5-4 square spots all the time.
3. Don't mind paying more for "less" (as in size)
4. Collage grad
5. Drives only 2 people 80% of the time.
6. Does not need 3-4 rolls of toilet paper from costco.