Toyota vitz 1999-2001

[Indrajith Gamage]

Hi, after some considerations, I'm thinking about buying a Toyota vitz 1999-2001 model as my first car. Any personal users of the 1000 cc manual? Is it good? 

Every foreign site lists it with atleast 15 kmpl, and saying it's actually a very good car even after 15 or so years of use. This is the reason I considered it in the first place. However, I'm confused with what I found here. I have done searches here and I'm all confused about certain facts like fuel economy. I have seen many people quoting figures like 7-8 kmpl. Isn't that simply absurd for a small 1 ton car? We had a 2002 Toyota Corolla 121 1300cc & 1994 Toyota Corolla AE100 1500cc as family cars and they consistently did more than 11 kmpl. Is there something wrong with the vitz? I thought it was an excellent choice for the price range. ~2 million. Especially considering it was the replacement for starlet which was already a great car. 

Reliability and fuel economy is my biggest concern since I'm buying it on 5 year lease and hope to use for all those years without major problems. 

Are your personal experiences different from what I have heard from other foreign sites? Any other suggestions? 

Edited December 23, 2018 by Indrajith Gamage

[trish_auto]

13 hours ago, Indrajith Gamage said:

Hi, after some considerations, I'm thinking about buying a Toyota vitz 1999-2001 model as my first car. Any personal users of the 1000 cc manual? Is it good? 

Every foreign site lists it with atleast 15 kmpl, and saying it's actually a very good car even after 15 or so years of use. This is the reason I considered it in the first place. However, I'm confused with what I found here. I have done searches here and I'm all confused about certain facts like fuel economy. I have seen many people quoting figures like 7-8 kmpl. Isn't that simply absurd for a small 1 ton car? We had a 2002 Toyota Corolla 121 1300cc & 1994 Toyota Corolla AE100 1500cc as family cars and they consistently did more than 11 kmpl. Is there something wrong with the vitz? I thought it was an excellent choice for the price range. ~2 million. Especially considering it was the replacement for starlet which was already a great car. 

Reliability and fuel economy is my biggest concern since I'm buying it on 5 year lease and hope to use for all those years without major problems. 

Are your personal experiences different from what I have heard from other foreign sites? Any other suggestions? 

Indrajith,

There was a thread on this. Please refer it first : 

This is very reliable model . In different countries it was introduced in different names, Yaris, Echo, Vitz etc. 

This runs in 1SZ-FE is 1.0 L four pod engine with early stage VVTi technology. Compared to modern engines, these engine is bit under powered. Specially when you overtake with four people on board you will notice it. 

Fuel efficiency depends on lot of things. In these cars you get optimum efficiency around 50-60 km/h driving speeds. Again if you try to accelerate too hard, it consumes lot of fuel. Another thing to check is gearbox.  Most of these came with conventional 4spd gearboxes. By now most of these models should have done over 100k. So gearbox also matters for the fuel economy. If you can find a mannual gear, that problem is not there. 

There is another sedan model called Echo or Platz, same era.  But a very few good cars with mileage below 100k you can find.  It has both  1.0L or 1.3 L engine variants.  1.3L models are very good in fuel efficiency. 

Edited December 24, 2018 by trish_auto

[hrm]

1sz engine is actually a 4 cylinder engine. It might be doing little low on fuel compared to more modern 1kr engine but it's more silent and  has less vibration being a 4 cylinder.

[Indrajith Gamage]

1 hour ago, trish_auto said:

Indrajith,

There was a thread on this. Please refer it first : 

This is very reliable model . In different countries it was introduced in different names, Yaris, Echo, Vitz etc. 

This runs in 1SZ-FE is 1.0 L four pod engine with early stage VVTi technology. Compared to modern engines, these engine is bit under powered. Specially when you overtake with four people on board you will notice it. 

Fuel efficiency depends on lot of things. In these cars you get optimum efficiency around 50-60 km/h driving speeds. Again if you try to accelerate too hard, it consumes lot of fuel. Another thing to check is gearbox.  Most of these came with conventional 4spd gearboxes. By now most of these models should have done over 100k. So gearbox also matters for the fuel economy. If you can find a mannual gear, that problem is not there. 

There is another sedan model called Echo or Platz, same era.  But a very few good cars with mileage below 100k you can find.  It has both  1.0L or 1.3 L engine variants.  1.3L models are very good in fuel efficiency. 

Thanks, that's the thread I was referring to. I find those figures really absurd. If you're looking for driving style as a factor for the fuel consumption, it's a driving style that gets 11-12 kmpl out of those two cars. (Corolla 121 1.3L, Corolla AE100 1.5L) So any guesses on what might be the fuel consumption for this one? Is 15-16 unreasonable? AE100 had done like 180000km and 121 had done like 125000km when I took those figures. Vitz cars I have found are in the 120000-150000km range. 

Also, the car I'm referring to has a 3 cylinder 1000 cc VVTi engine and a five speed manual gear box. I'm not sure about the nomenclature but obviously not something with 4 cylinders and 4 speeds.

Thanks in advance. 

Edited December 24, 2018 by Indrajith Gamage

[hrm]

13 minutes ago, Indrajith Gamage said:

Also, the car I'm referring to has a 3 cylinder 1000 cc VVTi engine and a five speed manual gear box. I'm not sure about the nomenclature but obviously not something with 4 cylinders and 4 speeds.

What's the engine it's having?

Edited December 24, 2018 by hrm

[osanda19]

It's a really good car we had one for about 12 yrs.unregisterdly bought by us from Toyota Lanka (reconditioned)in 2004.after 11 yes only reapair we did  is changing the MAF sensor.id did very good on fuels figures like 14-19 in outstation.