Used Toyota GR Yaris 2020-2024 review

Nothing will top this hot hatchback before the ICE age is over, so buy one while you can

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Of all the exotica launched in 2020, it was Toyota’s GR Yaris that attracted the greatest interest, for it was an all-new, rally-inspired hot hatch that could thrill like a pure-bred sports car at half the price.

This lovable rogue was originally conceived to be a homologation special for Toyota Gazoo Racing’s 2021 World Rally Championship contender (it had little in common with the regular Yaris), but Covid complications meant it would never actually hit the gravel.

Toyota could have stuck a GR Yaris prototype in a museum and left it at that, then, but petrolhead boss Akio Toyoda made sure that it reached production – and everyone was extremely grateful that he did.

Four years on, the GR Yaris is still riding a wave of success, with more than 32,000 examples having been sold – and now you can buy an early one for less than £25,000.

WRC heroes Tommi Mäkinen, Jari-Matti Latvala, Ott Tänak and Kris Meeke helped to tune the GR Yaris into a B-road warrior of unparalleled ability, with its adjustable four-wheel drive system, 257bhp 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo engine and light, diminutive chassis combining to take it to the top of the hot hatch class.

“It’s just hugely impressive, all the time, and interactive and engaging enough with it that even though more near- or on-limit adjustability wouldn’t hurt, it’s still a handling hero of our time,” is how we described the GR Yaris when we road tested it back in 2021.

The Japanese three-door was so light on its feet that it could be fired into a corner with laser-guided precision and shoot you out the other side with minimal inertia, thanks to its short wheelbase, wide track and light weight.

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Not only did it score top marks in our road test, it also won our Britain’s Best Affordable Driver’s Car contest ahead of the VW Golf GTI and Honda Civic Type R.

The GR Yaris represented a high-water mark for fast road cars, offering exceptional levels of grip in both wet and dry conditions, thanks in part to that 4WD system.

As standard, the front-to-rear torque distribution was 60:40, but if you wanted more traction, you could flick it to Track mode for a 50:50 split. Sport mode, meanwhile, tapped into the car’s playful side with a 30:70 configuration.

And while the original GR Yaris felt like a new-age Subaru Impreza WRX or Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Toyota ensured that it came with all the trimmings – although that was determined by which specification the buyer chose.

The Convenience Pack included 18in wheels, softer suspension and mod cons like a JBL sound system, while the Circuit Pack gave the car an extra layer of B-road swagger through stiffer front springs, stiffer anti-roll bars, uber-cool lightweight 18in BBS alloys and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S performance tyres.

That would be our preference, of course. Past that point, it’s just a case of choosing between black, white or red paint.

Superb to drive it may be, but the GR Yaris isn’t faultless. Visibility all round is pretty poor, especially out the back, and while it does have two rear seats, they are rather cramped, irrespective of your passengers’ height. Cabin isolation isn’t the best, either, and you will do well to get any more than 27mpg in mixed driving conditions.

But do these niggles mean you should consider an alternative? Certainly not. The GR Yaris was a triumph and destined for greatness from the moment it first turned a wheel.

And now that the updated GR Yaris has gone on sale at a whopping price of £44,250, the original is effectively a bargain.

So if you want a fun, balanced, sweet-handling hot hatch for £25,000, you know where to look – and can thank us later.

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RELIABILITY

Is the Toyota GR Yaris reliable?

Toyota and its team of former and current rally drivers drove the GR Yaris to destruction during its development in a bid to ensure it could withstand just about anything. That means that overall, it is a pretty reliable hot hatchback that shouldn't be a cause for concern. 

We'd exercise caution when it comes to power boosts. The three-cylinder engine is robust, but huge upticks in power can cause more issues and worst case, engine failure. 

Engine: A drop in turbo pressure is a common issue, typically solved by replacing the boost sensor/solenoid. Take a long test drive to let the engine warm up and make sure power is delivered in a smooth and linear way.

Check the history of any tuned engine and ensure that any new parts are from reputable brands and come with a warranty.

Gearbox: Early cars can suffer crunching gears, particularly from first to second and second to third - a result of hurried changes from cold, which can damage the gearbox. Replacing or rebuilding are the only cures, and you can get them done only via Toyota.

Interior: Standard speakers on Circuit pack models are poor, so many owners swap them out for Focal systems. Fitting Dynamat in the doors is said to help with sound retention. Listen out for any loose bits of trim: the A-pillars, dashboard, glovebox and door cards are all known to rattle.

Body: The rear arches, front bumper and bonnet can get hammered by stone chips, so check these areas for any excessive damage and consider paint protection film.

The windscreen can chip easily too, and it’s specific to the GR Yaris, so you can’t cut corners with a standard Yaris item. The plastic lower grille is prone to breaking and can cost around £400-£500 to fix, because it forms the main part of the bumper.

Also, any debris that gets through the grille can damage the intercooler, which is an ever costlier repair job.

An owner’s view

Nathan Beecroft: “One thing that took me by surprise straight away after driving my GR Yaris was how easy it was to drive. The seats are very comfortable and the car is very compliant overall.

"The adaptive cruise control is also one of the best I’ve used. In terms of running costs, I average around 30mpg on my 10-mile commute, which includes a mix of A- and B-roads, although it will do 40mpg on a long motorway run. I’d be wary of any particularly modified car – a lot of them have been - and it’s always worth doing research on the brands or companies used.”

Also worth knowing

The GR Yaris should be serviced every 6000 miles. If this is done by a Toyota dealer, the car gets an extra 12 months’ warranty every year up to 10 years or 100,000 miles. Using a GR Yaris for track days doesn’t void the warranty.

Oil changes should be done with 0W-20 GF-6A-grade oil, not the usual 0W-16 or 0W-20.

Litchfield offers one of the most popular tuning packages, boosting power from 257bhp to 300bhp, and fits new springs and dampers, the latter offering 25 bump and rebound settings.

DESIGN & STYLING

Toyota GR Yaris 2020 rear cornering road

The GR Yaris wasn't built to please accountants; and unlike the GR Supra or the GT86, Toyota didn’t have another manufacturer with which it could share the development costs – which must have been phenomenal.

For starters, it was built at a new Toyota Gazoo Racing production facility in Japan and was based on a unique, newly designed platform.

This was effectively a hybrid of Toyota’s GA-B and GA-C architectures, which has been specially constructed to allow for the fitment of a more sophisticated double-wishbone rear suspension setup to complement the front MacPherson struts and make way for a driven rear axle.

Speaking of which, the proprietary GR-Four all-wheel drive system was Toyota’s first in nearly two decades.

The lightweight, electronically controlled system could split varying amounts of torque between the axles depending on the drive mode selected.

The default front-to-rear split was 60:40, with a 50:50 split in Track mode and a 30:70 split in the Sport setting. And, rather incredibly, if you pulled the manual handbrake, the rear half shafts would disconnect automatically.

The turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol engine was also new and had been developed to comply with WRC2 regulations. 

Slightly undersquare, and with 258bhp and 266lb ft on tap (deployed to the road via a six-speed manual gearbox), it was the most powerful three-cylinder motor in production. Toyota also claimed that it was the lightest, most compact 1.6-litre turbo unit around.

Toyota’s WRC team had particular input where the GR Yaris’s bodyshell was concerned. Unlike the standard Yaris, it was a three-door model, because that shape was better suited to rallying and could more easily accommodate additional aerodynamic equipment.

The roofline was up to 95mm lower to help maximise downforce and aerodynamic efficiency.

A conscious effort had been made to make the GR Yaris as light as possible, too. Aluminium had been used extensively in the construction of the doors, as well as for the redesigned tailgate and rear bumper.

The roof was made from a lightweight forged carbon composite, and a good prod would cause the bumpers to flex under pressure.

So extensive were the changes to the GR Yaris’s bodyshell that only the headlights, shark-fin antenna, door mirrors, and tail-lights had been carried over from the standard car. This was by no means a regular Yaris that had simply been made a bit sharper and a bit faster.

The optional Circuit Pack brought even more changes. Torsen limited-slip differentials featured at both axles; a more aggressive suspension tune was introduced; the car’s EPAS was sharpened; and 18in forged alloy wheels shod in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber replaced the standard 18s and Dunlop tyres.

INTERIOR

To look at, the cabin of the GR Yaris didn’t differ too greatly from that of the regular hybrid model.

It continued to exude that slightly austere, monochrome sense of ambience common to most Toyotas, only with a relatively conservative sprinkling of additional performance-car addenda – think GR badging, Alcantara-like upholstery, and large bucket seats.

Those chairs were firm but comfortable and offered impressive amounts of support for your torso, hips, and thighs. You sat in a fairly perched position, in relatively close proximity to the pedals, but our testers nonetheless agreed that the driving position was largely comfortable.

The only real points of contention were the spacing of the brake and throttle pedals, which some argued made heel-and-toe downshifts slightly trickier to execute than was ideal, and the fact that the rear-view mirror was positioned in such a way that it obscured visibility through left-hand turns.

The largely sensible approach to ergonomics continued with the positioning of the gear lever, which sat 50mm higher up for easier shifts. Directly in front of that was the large rotary drive mode controller, which allowed you to toggle between the three settings with ease.

Elsewhere, just three visible, chunky buttons were housed on the centre console. These controlled the traction control, the stop/start system, and the rev-matching function for the manual transmission.

While the cabin itself felt snug, this only really served to emphasise just how compact the GR Yaris felt on the road – particularly when you took the driver’s close proximity to the car’s primary controls into account.

It might not have been overtly sporty to look at, but it certainly felt like a focused and purposeful driving environment.

Practicality was limited. The rear bench was only really suitable for the smallest children, and the boot had just 174 litres of storage capacity, which was limited even by supermini standards.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

ToyotaGRYaris circuit rear

While less than 260bhp might have seemed like a modest power output by yesterday’s standards, to get a handle on how accelerative the GR Yaris was, bear in mind that we recorded our figures with two occupants and a full tank of fuel, it had no launch control, and it was equipped with a manual gearbox that needed a shift into second well before 60mph.

And yet it still covered the 0-60mph benchmark in 5.2 seconds, thanks in part to an as-tested kerb weight of just 1283kg with a full tank.

Alter any one of the variables inserted by us or Toyota, and we suspected you’d be looking at a ‘four-point-something’ car, which went to show how immune we had become to seeing huge modern power figures.

The Yaris’s little 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo engine developed its power seemingly without great effort, too – 6000-mile service intervals aside.

It failed to be overtly boosty, with only a little lag at lower revs and none at all once you got it past 3000rpm. It revved to 7000rpm in all and made, as one tester noted not unkindly, a sound “like half a 911 at low revs and a kazoo at high revs.”

That was a result of Active Noise Cancellation (which played anti-noise through the speakers to drown out unwanted engine droning) and Engine Sound Enhancement, which played what Toyota thought were the right notes through the speakers.

Thankfully, it was pretty easy to find whichever spot in the rev range best suited your ears owing to the snickety nature of the six-speed gearbox.

You only actually needed second and third to operate within the legal limit, but given the engine’s flexibility (peak torque of 266lb ft arrived from 3000rpm) and the simplicity of flicking through gear ratios, it was entertaining to grab one more gear than you needed on a straight, just so you could heel and toe one more downshift.

Some of our testers thought the brake and throttle pedals were too far apart for easy shifts, but the brake pedal had a firm, even feel, outright stopping power was first class, and resistance to fade was excellent.

RIDE & HANDLING

ToyotaGRYaris pan circuit

There were two elements to this section, and it wasn’t a given that a car that excelled at one of these would necessarily excel at the other.

In fact, the more agile a car felt, the less stable it could be too. However, the GR Yaris was no ordinary car.

Wet or dry (but not really cold), the Yaris’s Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres offered exceptional grip and, with a short wheelbase, wide track, and light kerb weight, the car changed direction superbly.

Its steering was direct and, by many modern standards, quite heavy, but really pleasingly responsive and linear. It was as if Toyota had tried to make it feel like a rather old-fashioned hydraulically assisted rack, with weight and solidity around the straight-ahead to spare.

Get into, say, a Volkswagen Golf GTI, and you would have found it steered much more quickly and lightly than the Yaris in an effort to make the car feel responsive.

A Renault Mégane Sport added rear steering into the mix to try the same. The Yaris just showed you how to do it instead: rather than feeling agile, it simply was agile.

What was impressive, though, was that this didn’t come at the expense of stability. Hit a patch of standing water or brake on a bad road in not quite a straight line, and there was none of the kind of looseness that you would have found in an old Mitsubishi Lancer Evo or a Renaultsport Clio 197.

Forgive the older car references, but it was those cars and their increased interaction over today’s hatches with which the GR Yaris shared more values.

If anything, that level of stability did contribute to one of the few things we would have changed about the GR Yaris.

Its on-throttle stability and grip were tremendous as its differentials hooked up and speared it from corners, but even in its Sport mode, which diverted more power to the rear than the front, this wasn’t a car that moved around under braking or straightened its line hugely on the throttle.

It was just hugely impressive, all the time—interactive and engaging enough that, even though more near- or on-limit adjustability wouldn’t have hurt, it was still a handling hero of its time.

If we had been talking about one of the GR Yaris’s spiritual forebears – something like a Lancer Evo or Subaru Impreza Turbo – we could have glossed over much of this section.

But despite having as much dynamic interaction and point-to-point pace as anything with a roof and four-wheel drive, the GR Yaris did serve its day-to-day drivers reasonably well.

For one, there was the Active Noise Cancellation, which kept noise levels to moderate levels. A hands-free phone conversation or a chat with a passenger wasn’t the breeze it would have been in most hatchbacks from a class higher or a sports saloon, but it was far from a chore.

Evenly spaced gearing, meanwhile, meant that the engine was turning over at a shade under 3000rpm at 70mph, which drivers of old cars would have recognised as an entirely standard top gear length on a petrol car – giving easy enough economy yet sufficient urge to retain speed.

So there was no hugely overdriven upper gearset to improve combined cycle fuel economy – probably bad for the bottom CO2 line or the ability to receive a call on the M40, but better for drivers.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

Toyota GR Yaris 2020 front cornering road

With all-wheel drive and a highly strung engine, it was thirstier than your average pocket rocket. We saw an average economy of 27mpg during testing, with that figure rising to 39.2mpg under touring conditions.

Unlike the Yaris GRMN that preceded it, this wasn’t a strictly limited-run special.

Toyota originally would have needed to sell 25,000 units to meet FIA homologation requirements for the canned 2021-season rally car, but it had said that it remained open to building more if the demand was there.

We couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be.

VERDICT

ToyotaGRYaris verdict

The boss of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, was no stranger to a race suit and would admit in interviews with a smile that he sometimes had a different view from the firm’s accountants when it came to making driver’s cars.

But his commitment to them was shared by plenty of engineers in the company, and so the GR Yaris was born. A new hot hatch champion of the kind you didn't think people made anymore. 

Such a car was allowed because Toyota sold enough low-emission vehicles that there was room for it in the range while still squeezing under corporate emissions limits.

What would you have wanted to change? It was spookily fast if you were absolutely on it, and so a smidgeon more interaction at lower speeds wouldn’t have hurt, but this was a driver’s car hero that was great fun and approachably priced.

And its worth savouring because, well, who would ever build something else like it?

Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips
Title: Staff Writer

Sam joined the Autocar team in summer 2024 and has been a contributor since 2021. He is tasked with writing used reviews and first drives as well as updating top 10s and evergreen content on the Autocar website. 

He previously led sister-title Move Electric, which covers the entire spectrum of electric vehicles, from cars to boats – and even trucks. He is an expert in new car news, used cars, electric cars, microbility, classic cars and motorsport. 

Sam graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2021 with a BA in Journalism. In his final year he produced an in-depth feature on the automotive industry’s transition to electric cars and interviewed a number of leading experts to assess our readiness for the impending ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.