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Niro vs Toyota C-HR

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:19 pm
by djbobbins
I was over in Germany last week and was given a Toyota C-HR as a hire car, thus allowing some interesting comparisons with the Niro.

It’s difficult to do a comparison on price / value for money, since I don’t know what spec the Toyota was in comparison to my Niro 2. Overall, I was impressed with the driving position, boot space and some of the gadgets on the C-HR (warning indicators in the mirrors when a car is in / blind spots were particularly useful, not least because rear 3/4 visibility is literally non-existent). The exterior styling on the Toyota is a bit “Marmite” and i suspect many people won’t like it - i actually don’t mind it, but did feel that Toyota have tried a bit too hard on interior.

The quality of the interior felt generally better than the Niro, but the diamond-patterned door inserts and roof lining were superfluous. The Niro steering wheel controls are less “busy” than the C-HR and the design of the interior I think generally better - the touch screen in the Toyota is perched atop the middle of the dashboard, looking like an afterthought. The design elements I could probably get used to, however the functionality of the satnav itself was deeply frustrating - very “laggy” at finding street names, which I am sure would remain deeply frustrating.

Rear passenger legroom in the Niro is far better than the Toyota and as I said before, the design of the rear doors in the C-HR means that anyone putting a young child in the back will be consigning them to staring at black plastic, as they won’t be able to see out of the window.

Toyota fuel economy seems to be lower than the Niro, although it’s difficult to make a direct comparison. My hire car had nearly 5000 km on the odometer and was delivering an average of about 5.9 litres per 100km - I.e. about 48-49 mpg. It had the advantage of an EV button but this seemed to be over-ridden by anything more than a modest tap on the accelerator; certainly EV refused to engage whilst I had the heater set to max for clearing the screen (despite the engine having been running for nigh on 10 minutes) and the rear demist on.

So - up to now, a mixed bag. But the big point - the Toyota hybrid system! Lots of engine noise and seemingly little progress as a result of the CVT system. And not even a particularly rewarding engine noise at that! I am left wondering how Toyota have managed to sell so many of these systems, unless all the other recipient vehicles have much better sound damping. (I had a Prius as a taxi a few weeks ago - that was noisy under acceleration too, so I assume the engine noise isn’t just confined to the C-HR).

The ideal, if it could be had, would be to have the Niro drivetrain and cabin space, with Toyota quality, seating and boot. Until that option arises, I think I will stick with the Niro and my slightly achy back, comfortable in the sense of forward motion when I press the right hand side pedal!

Re: Niro vs Toyota C-HR

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:30 pm
by niroal
Interesting comparison. We looked at a CHR & a new shape Prius when we were first looking (before the PHEV was released so if we got a Niro then it would have been a 1st Edition / Niro 4) and the CHR rear seats were totally impractical for our needs (coming from a Kuga as we had outgrown our Focus) whereas the Prius was fine & the Niro even more capacious.
The Prius (in a sensible spec) was just going to be too expensive so a Niro was what we got.