Wheels magazine - June 2006
Holden Barina
Wheels' star rating: 2.5/5.0
What Wheels liked: class-beating value; decent passenger room; ample equipment
Not so much: agricultural gearchange; engine noise; pedal placement; cabin plastics
Hyundai Getz 1.6
Wheels' star rating: 3.0/5.0
What Wheels liked: superb drivetrain; slick gearchange; impressive forward visibility
Not so much: craves better tyres; unwavering understeer; driving position; resale
Toyota Yaris YR
Wheels' star rating: 4.0/5.0
What Wheels liked: disciplined ride; competent handling; refinement; economy; safety
Not so much: deserves more power; taut low-speed ride; only one vanity mirror
First, a warning: There are two bottom lines to this comparison. No, we're not avoiding the issue of which supermini is the best car -- this is a fearless Wheels comparo after all -- but for most buyers in the econo-box segment, price is so critical, nothing else matters. Holden's pencil, sharpened by a Korean cost-base, delivers the lowest sticker price in Australia. At $12,990, the Barina can't help but represent outstanding value for money for the cost-conscious. Except, of course, that doesn't automatically guarantee the best car.
To save you flipping to the end of this comparison, the Barina doesn't win. That prize belongs to Toyota's terrific new Yaris. But a $500 price advantage over the Hyundai Getz, and a $2000 bonus over the Yaris, takes on an importance that's impossible to overestimate.
If the Barina were truly nasty, no amount of price advantage could compensate, but it's not. Although it's not that simple. Pricing policies, option structures, and engine sizes all collude to complicate the issue, and this comparison. Anti-lock brakes, a safety feature that we believe should be standard on every car, are part of a $1190 Barina option pack that includes alloys (strangely wearing identical rubber to the 15-inch steel wheels). Point is, if you believe in primary safety (and 40 per cent of buyers do), suddenly the Barina is $14,180. Or $690 more than a base 1.4-litre Getz that doesn't offer ABS, even as an option.
Anti-lock brakes are standard on the Yaris, and all 1.6-litre Getz models. (Getz buyers can also opt for a $1290 safety package that brings stability and traction controls, plus front side airbags.) Because Getz demand is 85 per cent biased toward the 1.6-litre, we chose to compare this $14,490 Hyundai to the one-engine-only Barina, and entry-level 1.3-litre Yaris YR, all as three-door hatches. Why not the 80kW 1.5-litre Yaris? Because the extra 198cc and 17kW add $1800 to the 1.3-litre test car's $14,990, further distancing the Yaris from its rivals in terms of price. To the buyer of a $12,990 Barina, the $16,790 Yaris YRS might as well be a Ferrari.
ABS issues aside, nobody could regard our bargain trio as poverty models. In '06 Australia, air-conditioning, power steering, electric mirrors, remote central locking, adjustable steering wheels, power windows, dual airbags, and MP3-CD audio systems are taken for granted as the equipment baseline.
The Getz and Barina, Korea's first attempts at contemporary European-style superminis, so closely follow the same blueprint they could almost be alternate proposals for a single model. Still, helped by bright colours, both are neat and attractive, if derivative, in their styling.
Toyota's second-generation Yaris -- Australia rejected the Echo badge in favour of the European designation -- preserves the DNA of the hugely successful original. Except the new model is notably bigger -- 110mm longer overall, up 90mm in wheelbase -- and, like the first, styled in Europe. Visually, the resemblance with the Echo is clear, yet it looks newer, more polished and professional than its Korean rivals. The Yaris is shorter than the Barina and Getz, but it's also taller and wider, with the cleverest interior packaging.
The similarity between Barina and Getz extends to their engines: both are twin-camshaft, four-valves-per-cylinder, 1.6-litre in-line fours, differing only by one cc in capacity, one kilowatt and one newton metre in output, and with the same 6500rpm redline.
Any resemblance evaporates on the road. Where the Getz engine is responsive, smooth and eager, heightening a sparkling performance that encourages the driver to enjoy a gearchange that's longish but also slick and fast, the Barina's Family One lump turns coarse, even harsh, above 5400rpm, while the vague gearshift baulks and discourages any swift movement. Not surprisingly, the Getz takes on a lively, optimistic character and feels much quicker, despite our test numbers trailing Hyundai's ludicrous claimed times -- 9.6 seconds to 100km/h and 16.4sec to 400 metres -- by a significant margin (0.7sec/1.1sec slower respectively). No longer is the Getz stupidly overgeared. The Barina's cause isn't helped by being the heaviest (1116kg), up 39kg over the Getz and 91kg over the Yaris. If only the Holden's ageing engine sang rather than screamed.
The Yaris slots midway between two extreme contrasts. Toyota's short-stroke 1.3-litre dohc engine also features constantly variable valve timing to help make 63kW at 6300rpm and 121Nm at a high 4400rpm, predictably somewhat behind the 78kW/144Nm Getz and 77kW/145Nm Barina. However, the sophisticated technology can't compensate for the lack of capacity, though this is a superb city-car engine, tractable and easy to drive smoothly, the gearchange flowing almost as fluently as the Getz. However, all three engines hold up revs between gearchanges, an upshot of cleaner emissions.
For the Yaris to feel lively, the crank demands at least 3500rpm, forcing heaps of foot-to-the-firewall into the 6400rpm cutout, and rowing of the gear-lever on country roads. Massive speedo error -- 92km/h genuine at an indicated 100km/h -- disguises the leisurely performance, and potentially saves your licence, but the engine's low gearing still means there's a steady hum with the digital speedo reading 120km/h.
But over our dynamic benchmark road, the Yaris fundamentally alters this contest. It has the best body control, best ride, best steering, best chassis. Full stop. Gone is the Echo's bouncy vertical motion, and delicate-feeling body, replaced by a tightly damped, expertly controlled suspension that always feels better developed, more competent, than its competitors. The Yaris, like the Barina and Getz, employs the class norm of front struts and a torsion-beam rear axle, while all three ride on cheap rubber. The specs also suggest our threesome's steering is virtually identically geared at close to three turns lock to lock.
That's not the way they drive. The Toyota's electro-hydraulic power steering, super-light at parking speeds, feels artificially weighted, but as speeds build it grows more meaty and, without ever really providing much feedback, is accurate and quick, with steering wheel inputs about half those of the vague, understeering Getz through any corner. And the Yaris has a notably tighter turning circle than either opponent. You establish a rhythm in the Yaris that's impossible to achieve in the Koreans.
Hyundai could, we suspect, transform the Getz by fitting grippy tyres in place of the protesting Kumho Power Stars. Except, it's more than just tyres, as proved by the clear lack of rebound control and under-damped ride. Understeer is the driving constant of one-dimensional dynamics, made all the more frustrating by the excellence of its drivetrain. The driver learns to turn-in early, winding on lock in anticipation of the onset of understeer, a moment that's disguised because the rubber-band steering lacks any semblance of feel. So much of the work is done by the front suspension, the rear seems out of step. Yet, the unerringly predictable understeer never deteriorates into front-end plough. No nasty surprises, then, but equally no driver involvement.
Understanding how the Barina drives takes time and concentration. Disconcerting at first, as if it's not correctly planted on the road, the rear end twitching over bumps, the ride fidgety, the driver learns not to rely on sensations delivered through the steering wheel. If feedback is negligible, conversely there's no kickback. The most accurate guide to how Holden's new baby behaves comes through the seat of the pants. Comprehend this, and you realise the Barina is more competent than first impressions indicate. The steering, numb around the straight-ahead, is slow in the first movements off-centre, then speeds up. This sharpness, combined with front-end roll, initially catches out the driver.
Lift through a corner and the nose tucks in sharply, the rear end snapping into oversteer if you overdo it. Sounds like a hostile environment, yet the Barina is more talented and enjoyable than the Getz, showing, for example, superior stability under brakes.
Holden's chassis engineers worked hard to ensure the conversion from Kalos to Barina retained something of the previous European Barina's on-road charm. They admit, rightly, more remains to be done. Fact is, the Getz and Barina had no trouble in out-pointing a Corolla and Mercedes-Benz A170 on the same stretch of contorted road that reduced the Toyota and Merc to mediocrity a few months ago. The Yaris? In a different class.
If price is everything, you won't feel short-changed by Barina. The Holden is far more than merely reliable transportation, but deserves a drivetrain to match that of the Hyundai. The Getz, on the other hand, warrants a chassis that actually enjoys driving. Which leaves the Yaris as the clear winner. Practical and painless to live with, the Yaris feels more contemporary than the Koreans. In its maturity and polish, the Toyota doesn't need to speak the same value message.
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