Scion tC: Honey, they shrunk the fun!

I can’t believe people are comparing $40,000 BMW’s to a car that’s under $20,000.

It was a sad day when Toyota changed the Scion S/A. The T/C would have been my second choice. I bought a used S/A manual, 5 speed. Handling, gas mileage and reliability have been excellent. And I travel with 4 dogs…one is an English Mastiff. Have plenty of room.

As for the tC’s intended demographic: teenagers, most buyers are adults 30-45.
Toyota quality isn’t that great considering most cars are built here in the US. Unfortunately, Toyota has so much money, they can advertise the hell out of something, and get almost anyone with decent money to believe and buy one. Toyota is the cheapest-best car you can get.
If you want better reliability, design, and quality-go with Honda. They don’t make 10 million a year, only 3 million…therefore they can focus more on the customer. Besides, when it comes to comparison, Honda outdoes Toyota in all areas except price.

Americans are much too car obsessed. The only things that people should consider when they buy a car are miles per gallon, safety and longevity. By encouraging this kind of obsession, we’re only ever going to buy cars that are “fun” which will only “fuel” (pardon the pun) our pernicious driving habits!

I don’t buy that garbage that a car should be an expression of your personality. Whatever. Get some real hobbies. Use the money that you might have spent on useless features like GPS (do you really need GPS to navigate your hometown?) or glove compartment fridge. Do something fun and interesting with that money.

As for teenagers, buy them something slow. Just what we need – more inexperienced drivers with the ability to turn their vehicles into machines of destruction.

Unfortunately for some of us, cars like the tC, et al are not an option. I can not fit in such a small car. The small cars of today are far to narrow. I had a Jetta for a while, but had to give it up due to being too narrow. If Honda, etc would build cars that larger frame people could fit in, I’d buy one.

Gotta comment on Ivar’s “Buy American why you can” comment…sure, the Moderately Large 3 still employ plenty of American workers, but all the big car-makers now have large american operations…Honda employs over 15000 in central Ohio alone – Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai all have plants in Alabama, Nissan and Toyota in Mississippi, etc…

Chrysler, for many recent years, was owned by a German company. So his several chrysler purchases profited Europe more than America.

“Buy american” is overrated. The “Big 3″ have had their tails kicked by imports, and the imports continue to set up local shops for the financial windfalls, and the increased acceptance it brings domestic shoppers.

To each their own. Some like Japanese, some like American, others like European… in the end the reason so many car manufacturers are around is because we humans enjoy variety and choices.

Sure, if we wanted to compare bang for the buck, an individual could buy something with much more horse power, more reliability (probably not as Toyota are very high in that department), more safety options, etc. but then it wouldn’t be the tC which is the topic of discussion in the article.

I’m not a huge fan of Scions in general, but I would most definitely choose that vehicle over Ivar from VA’s Neons and Cirruses which are two huge pieces of trash in my opinion.

Ivar is right though, buy American while you still can. With the way American companies are keeping up with the competition, I doubt they’d be around for long.

What is the snob appeal with Scions? I suppose the idea is that you’re too thrifty to buy a more prestigious import but too good to buy American. As a father of three teenaged drivers, I have owned several Chrysler products (including two Neons and two Cirruses) and have had nothing but combined mileage >30 mpg, decent performance and consistent reliability, not to mention the fact that you can actually seat adults in the back and carry all of their luggage in the trunk.

Buy American while you still can…

“Friends often ask me what kind of car they should get their teenage children.”

I have to comment on this as well. I know times change but I have to laugh at people that agonize over which new car would be safest for their children.

I was born in ‘64, bought with my own money a ‘69 Volkswagen in ‘82 (for 900 clams) and drove it until a careless driver crashed in to me (without side air bags!).

I’m fine and perhaps kids don’t need something new to go from zero to 160 in six seconds for their first car.

I am sorry to say Toyota will never have me under there tent. I wish I would of gotten a brand new car when I was a teen years ago. My Dad bought me a rusted old Buick and some tools for my 16 th birthday and told me that the only way I will ever learn to take of care of something is if I work for it.

I checked out a tC, Civic coupe, Honda Accord coupe, and Nissan Altima coupe. With the exception of the Civic, all are priced similar. I went with the Altima 2.5. The comfort, performance, mpg, and styling beats out the tC. Honda coupe may have the Nissan slightly beat, but if you go to a Honda dealer there is little room for dickering. I agree with Joe from AR when he says Toyota quality has dropped the past few, if not several, years. I think in their quest for world automotive domination Toyo has sacrificed quality for price and consumers are taking notice.

You may have missed the point of the Scion tC entirely. What makes Scion so popular is that they focus on customization and actually encourage individualism in their cars.

The author complained about the tC having a less than adequate sound system. However, in the Scion’s demographic, what is usually the first thing to be changed? The sound system…

Another thing that makes scion so popular is the COMMUNITY. Which is something that can never be reviewed. In Southern California alone, there are over 30 Scion clubs that are VERY active. Scion throws events often and shows that they care about their customers. What other car company allows over 6,000 owners to go the a theme park for free?

In regards to performance, look at Dan Gardner. He’s using mostly stock components, and much of the modifications he’s done to his car are available from the dealer. That having been said, in his first KONI Challenge race, he placed 14th out of 50, beating RWD cars and many “real performance” cars.

A 2008 Chevy Cobalt has 148 hp. A tC has 168. It’s also very easy to make the tC a high performance vehicle. My tC makes 350whp with a bolt on turbo kit on a stock motor. Chris Rado’s tC with just pistons, rods, and head studs makes over 700whp, and he routinely beats AWD Evo’s, Sti’s, and RWD cars like s2k’s and 350z’s.

And with Scion promoting themselves in the race community, and more and more scion owners getting involved in performance, you’re going to see a huge change soon…

I have never heard anyone refer to the tC as classy; if so I think they would say the same about the Pontiac G6. The tC looks a ton like the G6, though a bit small and about 15% more thirsty. So I will go against the authors comments and not give it a recommendation.

27mpg/gallon for a college grad ? My Civic gives me 37mpg in summer and gave 30 in brutal Canadian winter of 2007 with snow tires. Who wants 2.4 L engine, I would rather buy a Matrix which is more comparable to a Civic and has better frontal visibilityand may be more sturdy. We need to cap the engine capacity at 2L if America is to reduce its dependence on foreign Oil and be a good world citizen ( John – Barrack AYT )!!

Wow, that’s a lot of money for a tarted up corolla. It’s a shame that great sport coupes like celica, rsx, 240 are no longer in production.

I actually test drove this car to compare it again the Mazda3 lineup. I preferred manual so that’s what I tested. The transmission felt so electronic and the clutch so milky that I felt more playing video games at home than driving that car. When I got back to the dealership I opened the trunk to realize there was NO trunk space AT ALL and the back seats are too reclined while the windows are really small. Sure it’s a compact, sure it’s a coupe but it looks a lot bigger from outside. And that engine is a joke; 2.4L 4-cyl. Big numbers, small performance, 27mpg? It should do better.

I ended up getting a Mazdaspeed3. Sure, it costs $5,000 and that is a huge difference. However, money aside, I get tons of trunk space, comfortable seats, zoom zoom performance (gotta drive one to understand this), average MPG for the engine it’s built with: 4-cyl, 2.3L turbocharged kicking 260+ ponies using 25-28mpg depending on how you drive it.

Toyota can build economical, reliable, durable cars. But leave performance to others.

I am a former owner of a tC. Bought it the first year they were out, 2005. Thought we had a great car in our driveway, then, about 8000 miles later, we were proven wrong. Toyota’s quality has gone downhill in a hurry if my old tC was any indication of their direction. The hatch bounced around like a mexican jumping bean, whenever you hit a bump it sounded like someone was sitting behind you shaking a coffee can full of nuts and bolts, and underheavy accelleration there was a very loud mettalic rapping noise coming from under the hood. And this all happened in a car driven by my wife who rarely exceeds the speed limit. I will say the 27MPG HWY rating is awfully low if you drive the speed limit. We were able to get 35 consistently using cruise control. The biggest dissappointment was the Toyota dealership service department. Every time we brought it in for our noise problems, they said it was “normal”. At 8000 miles??!! I could only imagine how it would have sounded at 36000! Needless to say we traded it in for a 2003 VW Jetta, and yes, even though VW has had a pretty bad rap, we have had ZERO problems, get better mileage, and are all around much happier. Maybe I got a lemon, that may be the case, but the way the dealerships “handled” the issues was insulting. 3 different dealerships said the exact same thing. That’s not the sign of a good automaker to me.

What’s really unfortunate about this car is the torturous back seat. A friend of mine was test driving one and it was the most uncomfortable seat I have ever experienced in a car… leg room was fine, but the seat was hard as a rock.

Did this story really make it to the front page of CNN business? What is the point?

Economy cars are made for a reason. Buyers’ choice is limited. Either you get a gass guzzler…or you get a gas saver. Speed is the other side of the coin. When you try to bring these two ends together….in other words a “Beam-oyota” you end up paying for it from other aspects of the vehicle. Car manufacturers try to confuse us by bringing up these “hybrid” cars that fit most likely into the category of “wanna-be” high performance cars. Examples include tC, Cobalt, Neon etc etc. These cars do get a good mileage and also have an okay pick up power, however load them up with their full capacity and then watch how they do. As we diverge off to these cars that try to mimic high performance cars and at the same time claim to give a great mileage, have to give some way or the other. This could be done several ways.

In other words, stick with the basics and don’t make your already hard life harder. If you want to save on gas and maintenance, just buy a car that WILL do just that…aka read the consumers reports. Honda Civic, Toyota Corollas, etc are good compact cars that will save you money on gas and maintenance. However if you treat a Honda like a BMW, it is inevitable that you will damage the car.

At the same time, if you need a high performance car, don’t buy a “wanna-be high performace car” because first thing is that someone who actually knows about cars from an engineering point of view can be seen laughing at you if you end up spending big $$$ souping up your neon, cobalt, Focus, and even Honda. Take that money and buy yourself an actual high performance car and you will save $$ and laughs in the long run.

Know what you want from a car and then get one which is known to be the best in that arena. If you start compromising, you will end up paying for it in the long run.

“Friends often ask me what kind of car they should get their teenage children.”

Are you kidding me? People actually buy their kids $20k new cars? That’s a pretty weighty reward for all A’s on the report card! BTW, Yaris gets better mileage – 27mpg hwy is sort of low. But I guess if you can afford to purchase brand new cars for your offspring, you don’t care about missing out on the 15 extra mpg.

I traded a 2006 Eclipse GT ($32k) for a 2007 Scion tC. There is 1 second difference 0-60 but the difference in fuel economy gives the tC about a 38% advantage. The car handles great. You have to “drive it.” It has a great design inside and out. A Cobalt or Neon is not even in the same class for quality, reliability, and performance. BTW, the garish Eclipse and its high octane fuel thirst tired me quickly.

“The front-wheel drive platform, while perfectly competent, isn’t likely to make anybody give up their BMW 1-series.”
The BMW 1 Series is rear-wheel drive and has MSRP >$28K. You cannot compare it to the Scion tC.

I dropped my unreliable 2000 BMW 325 in 2003 (when gas prices started to climb). The BMW, for 30K had no cruise control, no sunroof, no folding rear seats and an A/C that worked occasionally. And it depreciated fast. Yes, the tC is not the car with most pizaz but it has the best balance: low cost, good fuel mileage, good power to weight ratio, sunroof, reclining rear seats, classic lines, and more. And when those rear seats fold flat, I can put in my vendor canopy and load a whole day’s worth of product when I go to a vendor show. And best part of all, the maintanance. It’s Toyota reliable. I just changed the brakes at 60K and there was still some pad left. Besides oil changes, nothing else to do. And I beg to differ on the handling, the tC can move. Get a 5 speed and learn how to carry speed through a turn. The tC, in my opinion, is highly underrated. And best of all, it has hardly depreciated despite the fact that it’s a 2005 and nearly 65K on the odo. When I get my next car, an Audi S5, I will keep the tC as my daily driver. BTW, I’m 35.

Should have test driven the Cobalt/TC or a Neon SRT4 with that kind of price range, you get more bang for your buck.