Toyota Etios Interiors And Comfort.
Toyota cars have never had exaggeratedly dynamic interiors; still, they did possess an executive finish because of the top class quality bits used inside but when you enter in Etios, you may feel disillusioned with the plastic quality used, which starts with the door trims itself. The plastics are coarse to touch and lack the soft finish like that of a Corolla or even the Innova, yet they are much better than actual competition, namely Tata Manza and Maruti DZire. The use of black and grey combo somehow manages to hide the cheap look and on contrary looks better than customary beige colour.
The wide opening doors give way to an interesting red contoured driver seats with lavish use of red all around. The moment you are on the pilot seat, it will certainly take some time to take your eyes off the flat bottom steering wheel which looks sporty enough to wake the enthusiast in you. It’s a kind of wheel you will see in most of the NFS cars! The Instrument cluster is centrally placed which may not be liked by enthusiasts, but it is favourable for the owner sitting at the rear to keep an easy eye on their drivers speed. The centrally placed cluster often leads to grumbles of difficulty in readability while on move; however, they won’t crop up in case of Etios. The positioning has been done in such a manner that it isn’t an effortful job to look at speeds and RPMs while cruising at good speeds. The tachometer has been located on the extreme left of the panel which makes it easily readable for those who shift the gears with RPMs but the tiny Speedo needle will take some time to become accustomed. The gear stick is short and sweet to use, It also get a red head in the top variant which goes well with the chrome garnish around the panel. This definitely adds to the visual pleasure.
The circular A/C vents have been chrome garnished which is nice touch; even their location is pretty good. The difference here is twin ac vents stay the centre. The driver side A/C vent has been shifted from its traditional house to the centre but still, it doesn’t affect the cooling at all. The cabin is cooled down within a short span. Although because of the low temperatures out here, we did not try to test the chilled cabin to freeze ourselves. The AC is manual and even the top end VX variant doesn’t gets a climate control, anyways, for the price, it is acceptable. The AC control plastics are flimsy to touch but thankfully, they don’t feel like easily falling off!
When you look at the dash, the two DIN music system will surely catch your interest. This music player is proficient of playing your ripped CDs, MP3 in addition to DVDs and AVI formats which is a great deal, from what is expected from an OE music system. The sound quality too is pretty decent however, an upgrade is recommended to satisfy the audiophile in you. The top end version gets audio controls on steering which adds to the ease when you require changing the song or volume while driving. With DVD music player, you won’t need to carry number of CDs with you, but still if you are a fan of it, don’t worry about the space. When it comes to storage space, Etios is full of it. Whether it the huge boot of 595liters or the cooled glove box, every compartment has some extra space in it. There are numerous cup holders to keep your water bottle and some change. They are deep enough to do the job. The glove box itself is deep and huge and provided with cooling feature to keep your drinks cool whenever required.
Coming to the comfort, as expected from a car from Toyota stable, the seats endow with excellent comfort. They are outfitted with integrated head rests which have been cushioned well enough to provide superior levels of comfort. The front seats offer outstanding comfort and finding a perfect driving position isn’t a tedious job. The rear seats offer decent under thigh support which equates to a comfortable ride even on highways. Just like its elder siblings, Etios offers good comfort due to the inheritance of similar suspension setup. The Mac Pherson Strut at the front and torsion beam at the rear gulps even the small patches really well.