New cars for grandparent age group

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › New cars for grandparent age group

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2702125 5-May-2021 10:59

Hi all,

Just coming back to this. I'm pretty much down to the Yaris Cross Hybrid Ltd. Took it for a long test drive period and it works pretty good.

Ticks a lot of boxes, but does feel quite large even though it isn't. Only downsides for me are:

Somewhat overwhelming array of options, with some buttons in odd places etc
Doesn't feel flickable/easy to park - turning circle isn't super mini type radius
Seats and ride are really firm
Sounds like a farm diesel when petrol engine kicks in (3 cylinder)
Some safety features look to require modes to be enabled before they kick in - need to check but think you need to enable cruise control before the lane keep assist works?
Back seats/high window are claustrophobic material, with short stumpy doors making it hard to get in for adults. Rear head rests block rear mirror vision even more.
Entertainment screen is older crapbox resolution and 7" which is small by todays standards. (is really a modern car safety design discussion, as rear windows get ever smaller and visibility reduces)

Heads up display, road sign recognition, 360 camera, hybrid drive, electric tail gate, parking sensors etc all worked really well and helped the grandma confidence a lot.
Ease of access was really good being up a bit higher too, and very noticeable over the more sporty mini design of the standard yaris hatchback.

Will however check out the new Honda Jazz, which is being released this week. Being the Quintessential Grandma car, it's got to be on the list.

Doesn't look to have a lot of the plusses of the Yaris (need to see if it has an electric boot tailgate for example)
No 360 camera or even front camera - once you have used these they really are great for parking confidence.

It's a bonkers design in the hybrid 'LUXE' variant:
Most of the time there is no direct connection between the petrol engine and the wheels, with it rather being used to generate and charge the electric batteries.
At open road speeds though, a clutch can engage to help drive the wheels. Will be interesting to see what it drives like.

Focus as always is on cargo space and hopefully comfort. Has a solid screen, and those magic seats are retained to fold up like a cinema etc.
No front camera but a very large glass area giving great forward visibility.

Again with sht brown as the overall styling objective.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29760 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2702130 5-May-2021 11:14

wow have the prices gone up or what. used to cost 20k new.

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2702138 5-May-2021 11:28

Batman:

wow have the prices gone up or what. used to cost 20k new.

Everything we're looking at is around $35 - $45k for the hybrid options, which are often top of the model range in terms of fitout.

There are cheaper cars, but if you actively do want to go hybrid then you're talking say 10% extra for the privilege.

Still no incentives to address this from the government and it's even at the point where some hybrid options just aren't even offered in our market.
Differences between say UK and NZ in the Ford Puma, which is petrol only here (requires 95 too) vs 'mild' hybrid combo engines offered overseas (albeit manual only?!).
Don't want to get political but there's no action on this here yet.

tdgeek

29740 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2702142 5-May-2021 11:32

jonathan18:

Looking at this it reinforces what a great job Honda has done to get so much interior and boot space in the Jazz

Its awesome. I bought a Fit just for golf, as we were a one car one motorbike household. Its like having a ute! A big plus is when the back seats are down as mine almost always are, its all flat. Most others the seats are raised somewhat, so nit as convenient. The back seats, also fold up (magic seat), another convenient storage/space option

Eva888

2427 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2702148 5-May-2021 11:48

Maybe you are overthinking this from a younger persons needs and aspirations. At grandmas age, priorities would be safety, reliability and ease of getting parts, rear camera and bluetooth. Oldies don’t go out as much and needs diminish with each passing year. Basically a reliable, safe shopping basket that works every day is the biggest requirement.

Toyota Aqua Hybrid is what we have and find sufficient for day to day shopping and short trips. Only issue with it is that it’s not powerful on a very steep hill and so we avoid certain ones like Hungerford Road. We have a second car that is 2 litre that speeds up the hills but we hardly use it and prefer the small Aqua.

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2702162 5-May-2021 12:11

Eva888: Maybe you are overthinking this from a younger persons needs and aspirations. At grandmas age, priorities would be safety, reliability and ease of getting parts, rear camera and bluetooth. Oldies don’t go out as much and needs diminish with each passing year. Basically a reliable, safe shopping basket that works every day is the biggest requirement.

Yeah covered this a while back, but in my case the needs are clearly for city driving, ease of parking and helping to gauge distance - parking sensors/cameras etc , ease of getting into - both drivers and boot tailgate, efficient to reduce trips to petrol station.
Safety, both passive and active, is a big family requirement, so likes of lane assist, airbags, blind spot monitoring, active braking to avoid detected collisions etc all appeal.

Actively wants a lower emission vehicle to do her bit, despite not really using it much anyway.

Has moved into a retirement village and the attached internal garage has a redickulously narrow doorway, and driveway outside is also a fairly narrow 'street'.

Fully agree on the shopping basket description, with the occasional return journey 1 hour away to a neighbouring city.

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2702167 5-May-2021 12:25

Pity to see the prius C / Aqua is no longer a current model.
In general Toyota are selling much fewer Prius models now, as the lessons learned over the years with these are now in all there other standard model Hybrid variants.

Read several articles recently about how the Prius itself, with space age styling etc is no longer actually needed or selling well.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Eva888

2427 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2702172 5-May-2021 12:34

One thing I wish our car had is side mirrors that you can fold in while still inside the car. Ours only fold when locking the car from outside. Especially if the garage is narrow you are less likely to hit them. Maybe another feature to check on.

Round black foam pipe insulation that you can buy at Bunnings for a few dollars, placed on the garage wall just where the car door touches when opened has been totally brilliant for us. Impossible to damage the door no matter how hard you push it open when there’s little space.

jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek

#2703097 6-May-2021 21:20

For a grandfather, the only car must be the Toyota Opa.

Opa is German for grandfather.

I understand that the top of the range model is available with a bifocal windscreen. :)

mudguard

2113 posts

Uber Geek

#2703149 7-May-2021 08:05

Jaxson:

Will however check out the new Honda Jazz, which is being released this week. Being the Quintessential Grandma car, it's got to be on the list.

Grandma car, I'm looking at one for my next work car if a tow bar can go on it! I wonder if that power output is correct, if it can thump down 150kW from both motors at the same time it's gonna be an absolute rocket.

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2703185 7-May-2021 09:19

mudguard:

Grandma car, I'm looking at one for my next work car if a tow bar can go on it! I wonder if that power output is correct, if it can thump down 150kW from both motors at the same time it's gonna be an absolute rocket.

Think the motor to wheels aspect is speed related (need to check this) as I don't think there is a physical gearbox.

At highway speeds a clutch engages to connect the motor physically, but not sure this could occur at low speeds without stalling the motor?

Essentially Honda have built a petrol version of this, just with the added capability of physically connecting the motor to the wheels too in certain situations:

Acceleration example

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2704258 10-May-2021 09:06

Attended the local Honda agent Jazz launch event on Friday night. Took my mother along, so was a fun outing to take a look at the cars.

Sadly came away unmoved.

The car finish was much better than the Toyota Yaris Cross, seats were much more comfortable and everything about the car was great from that perspective.
The space in those Jazz models really is Tardis like, it's quite insane how good the design thinking has been there.
You were spot on @jonathan18 with your comments on this.

Bottom line was the seats were very low, and I saw several elderly buyers struggling to get out of the car.
The Honda faithful were there, who have proudly owned several previous versions, but that low seat height was a big disappointment.

@PolicyGuy was sport on with his earlier observation about the Ractis sitting position and ride height.
Until I read that I had not even considered this, but now I see it all the time. Many low cars are quite difficult for elderly/those with hip issues etc to get into and out of.
Wanted to say thanks for pointing this out as it's turned out to be a major factor and the comment was appreciated.

There is a higher cross version, which was a lot better, but it didn't come in the hybrid format or with some of the nice interior features of the 'LUXE' version.
If the higher version was available in the other configuration then that would have been much more appealing.
The view was good in the Jazz too, as the more SUV style a car gets, the narrower the rear windows become and the less visibility you have around the vehicle.

Yaris Cross still has the likes of electric tailgate (although the Jazz was very light to operate by hand) Heads Up Display of key driving info, 360 and front cameras to aid parking etc.

It's really interesting how the natural progression for car models is to get longer and larger.
The Jazz actually felt larger than what we needed, and was a family type car now, with comfortable seating and luggage load space configurations.
Certainly felt much larger than the earlier model Honda Fit equivalents you see around town.
Much like the progression from the original RAV4 from a small car into the big wagon SUV thing you see today, many of the traditional go to small cars are just not offered anymore.
Those models either grew in size or just stopped being produced altogether.

Bung

6477 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2705277 10-May-2021 10:44

You have to drive some of these to assess how useful the features are. Our Suzuki supposedly has lane assist but I think it has been neutered. You get warnings on the dash that the car isn't staying between lines but no real feedback through steering wheel. Other cars are more active in contributing to the steering but that can be very annoying.

Jaxson

8041 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2705286 10-May-2021 10:53

Bung: You have to drive some of these to assess how useful the features are. Our Suzuki supposedly has lane assist but I think it has been neutered. You get warnings on the dash that the car isn't staying between lines but no real feedback through steering wheel. Other cars are more active in contributing to the steering but that can be very annoying.

I've tried the Toyota one and found it really good. ie aim off the lane 50m up the road and let the car drift out.

Warning occur in HUD and steering intervenes to steer you back into centre of lane. Does the same as you near centre of road.

Only issue I'd have to recheck the manual on is do you need to be in cruise control mode for this to actually work.

For some reason I felt you had to. There are quite extensive settings around this (and a rather clunky interface on the dash to control these various features) but most seemed to work fine out of the box.

How useful the safety features actually were was one of my main concerns going into this.
Was is practical and useful or was it more sales orientated, and technically there but difficult to use or annoying rather than helpful in practise etc.

Happy to report the Toyota experience was really good.
Liked the speed sign recognition for example.
Would be too much for me in a daily driver (lots of you are over the speed limit warnings etc, but for a grandparent this is all really helpful advice to help them focus on the road).

Autonomous braking, rear cross traffic warning when pulling out of car parks with limited visibility, surround air bags etc are all welcomed.

rb99

3422 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2705436 10-May-2021 12:25

'Bottom line was the seats were very low, and I saw several elderly buyers struggling to get out of the car.'

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/honda/jazz-hybrid/

Quote from above - 'The steering is super light but predictable and the driving position can be set really high up for a good view.'

Think thats a review of the ordinary, not jacked up Jazz. Any idea if the model you tried had the seat raised or not ?

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5