While Daihatsu may have been less than honest, Toyota remains transparent
So the other day, a friend of mine offered to drive me back home from my hometown as I had not gone back in many months so I accepted. This friend of mine shall remain anonymous but he had taken home his brand new Toyota Vios last August and has been driving it daily so far.
This got me thinking, the new Toyota Vios is built on the Daihatsu New Global Architecture (DNGA) platform which means it should be unsafe, right? Well, we both disagree. Having personally driven it before the launch and sitting in the passenger seat now, I can say that when Toyota assured us its cars were safe, they weren’t lying.
Moreover, I never felt, even for a second, driving the Toyota Vios around the bends in Langkawi that the car could not handle anything I threw its way. Even my friend agreed as he stated he regularly pushes the car to its limits but it never once felt unstable or not planted to the ground.
Now, of course, safety goes beyond just being stable at speed. We all know this, but with very extensive safety features and airbags, the new Toyota models, not just the Vios, are all up to date and the brand has also admitted that it had done its own testing to ensure the safety and quality of all its vehicles.
Whether or not Toyota is telling the truth here is up to you, but I believe them. We have seen all their newer cars in action and it was also revealed that Daihatsu has been falsifying its safety tests for many years now, and as far as I can remember, all Toyota cars in the past decade have been safe and reliable so I believe the brand.
On top of that, we need to also keep in mind that when I asked my friend about whether or not he ever felt unsafe in his car, he admitted that he always felt safe in his car and the only real complaint he had about it was that at speeds the road noise is a bit loud but as far as most B-segment sedans go, this car is one of the quieter ones.
I know this Toyota safety topic has been debated, brought up and tested time and again for a while now, but I simply wanted to offer my 2 cents on the matter. Whether or not you, the reader agrees with me or not, is up to you.
