My car for the week [emoji16]
Initial impression - the City E covers all your basic car needs very well. It's a really good package at the 800k price range.
Engine is superb - not once did it feel underpowered, and feels very peppy for city driving. It's a far cry from the Vios which has a noisier but weaker engine. Transmission is very smooth and responsive, and the brakes also have very good feel. In a nutshell, driving feel is closer to the Civic than the Vios (and most other subcompacts and older compacts). FC is quite good at 8.6 km/L for city driving, but I have yet to measure via full tank method to verify.
Surprisingly, the ride is also very good for a subcompact. I was expecting the usual econobox crashy ride, but again, the City is superior to the Vios in terms of absorbing road imperfections. It's no Civic in terms of both comfort and roadholding, but it does very well given its subcompact limitations. Steering is utterly dull though - very light with no feedback. That's good for parking, not so much for spirited driving.
The exterior looks respectable, although being a dime-a-dozen subcompact, it just doesn't have the same appeal as a Civic. But again, its true competition is the Vios, and it certainly looks more upscale than its Toyota rival.
The tide turns when it comes to the interior though - the City E has a very awkward and cheap-looking dash. The VX looks nice with the optitron gauges, piano black center panel, touch screen HU and AC controls, and soft touch plastics. The E has none of those and feels very spartan. This is one aspect where the Vios E trumps the City E, as the mid-level Toyota's interior looks just like the TOTL G's instead of being an unapologetic base model.
Poor interior finish aside, at least occupants will get lots of space as the City has enough legroom that trumps other compacts like the Focus or Mazda 3. And if you look at the feature set, the City E actually ticks all the right boxes - ABS, airbags, Bluetooth, fog lamps. The updated model finally gets a touch screen as well.
Surprisingly, even if it has a higher ride height than the Civic, it scrapes my garage. Just goes to show that ground clearance is not a definitive indicator. Another annoying quirk is the stock horn which sounds very loud inside because of its positioning, but is actually pretty weak. I actually avoid blowing my horn since it sounds annoying. With medium (3M CS20) tint on the windshield, the halogen headlamps look quite weak, but then again I'm comparing it to the Civic's LEDs so it's not really a fair matchup.
Overall, the City E is a really good car, if not for its disappointing interior. Still, its solid drivetrain and ride makes it a better choice than the equivalently priced Vios.
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