Toyota / Scion

Scion is a subsidiary of Toyota, so many dealerships that carry one will carry the other as well.  My local dealer does this, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and check out the offerings from both in one visit.  What didn't occur to me is the fact that Toyota and Scion, like most Japanese car companies, are still in very rough shape after the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear problems.  Several Toyota models are built in other countries (including the US), but all the models I am interested in are made at factories in Japan which have been hit hard by the disaster.  The result is slim pickings for small Japanese cars right now.  They had no 2011 Matrixes (Matrices?) in stock, nor any scions besides one lonely xB.  They were also out of the 2-door Yaris, but did have a 4-door version on hand, as well as several Corollas.


Yaris
As one of the cheapest possible options, I was particularly interested in checking this one out.  Yes, my budget is technically $20k, but you can get a Yaris coup with an automatic transmission for under $14k, and who doesn't want to save six grand if they can get away with it?

And I could get away with it - if I had to.  The Yaris was, in a word, tolerable.  I was able to get into and out of it without much difficulty.  It was pretty tight once I got situated, but everything did fit.  My legs only fit in one very specific position though - changing position or stretching my legs wasn't an option.  The seat wasn't painful, nor was it especially comfortable.  It had no real give to it, and I suspect that an hour and a half sitting there would result in a sore rump.  The most noticeable problem was that there was nowhere to rest my arms.  The door had no armrest to speak of, and the window sill was too narrow and too high to comfortably serve as one.  There was an armrest on the right, but it was at least 5 inches too low to be of any use.

If I only had $14k to spend and my choices were to buy a Yaris or walk, I could live with it.  If you're a large person on a very tight budget, the Yaris is definitely worthy of consideration.  But even the (comparatively) low price is an awful lot to spend on something that is just barely acceptable.


Corolla
The Corolla is one of the most successful brands in automotive history.  According to (the always infallible) Wikipedia, Toyota sells one every 40 seconds for a total of over 35 million over the last 40 years.  The 2011 model is in the 10th generation of the platform, and although it's the physically largest iteration ever, it's still not big enough for someone my size.

Much like the Chevy Cruze, it was getting into and out of the vehicle that killed it for me.  The door openings are too small and the seats too low to the ground for a man of my stature.  It's not too bad once inside, but that hardly matters if you can't actually get inside.

OK, that's not entirely fair.  The Corolla wasn't as bad as the Cruze.  But it was quite a bit trickier than the Yaris, which is a much smaller car.  I find this ridiculous, and have to disqualify it from further consideration on general principal.


Scion xB
I had not originally intended to try the xB at all.  Its 22/28mpg rating puts it outside the scope of this exercise.  But it was the only Scion they had at the dealership, and I felt I should at least give it a try.  Getting in and out was super-easy.  The near-upright seating position, wide doors and high roof line mean you don't "climb in" so much as just "sit down".  The high roof and boxy shape of the vehicle give it tons of head and shoulder room.  From the waist up, it felt no more confining than my Expedition.  The problem was with everything below the waist.  I'd be tempted to break my minimum specifications for this car if it weren't for a very strange interior design choice.

Both the oddly-contoured door skins and the center console intrude well into the space where your legs want to be.  There is no possible reason for this other than ill-conceived aesthetics, and the result is that your legs are forced together under the steering wheel - not comfortable when you're fat, let me tell you.  The door skins also teamed up with the center armrest to make my ass feel decidedly unwelcome.  Well if my ass isn't welcome, then neither am I.  Sorry, xB.