Toyota Verso Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Toyota Verso range
Prices: £16,919-£25,182 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 12-19
Emissions: 143-178g/km
Performance: [1.8] 0-60mph 10.4s / Max Speed 118mph
Fuel Consumption: [1.8] (combined) 40.4mpg
Safety: Seven airbags / ABS with EBD / VSC+
Dimensions: length/width/heightmm 4360/1770/1620mm

CHAPTER & VERSO?

Our Rating: 6.9 / 10

Toyota’s Verso is a 7-seat compact MPV you can depend on. Jonathan Crouch checks it out

What do people look for in a compact, seven-seater mini-MPV for the family? Good build quality, neat packaging, a versatile seating system, a reputation for reliability and a choice of frugal engines? Toyota’s Verso certainly ticks all those boxes.

Toyota’s no-nonsense approach to car design works better in some sectors of the market than others but the MPV people-carrying category is one of those where it fits perfectly. MPV buyers have families and the things that matter to them are having enough space to fit the kids inside, having an interior that the little blighters won’t pull to pieces and having running costs that won’t eat into those children’s inheritance when hopefully, they one day become older and more sensible. The Toyota Verso has never been very sporty or stylish but it has always filled these key criteria very well indeed.

The second generation version which sold between 2004 and 2008 started life as a development of the old Corolla family hatchback, which was one reason why it felt a bit cramped at the back when Toyota fitted it with seven seats. This MK3 model is much more its own car, slightly bigger so that all those seats are more usable and now arguably the safest and cheapest to run alternative in a compact MPV class that includes cars as good as Citroen’s C4 Grand Picasso, Peugeot’s 5008 and Renault’s Grand Scenic.

One of the issues with the second generation Verso was the car-like driving position that saw you sitting quite low, not something MPV buyers tend to like. This one doesn’t perch you up 4x4-style, but you do get much more of the kind of commanding view out that you’d expect from this kind of car. Ironically though, the less sporty seating stance is now accompanied by more dynamic road manners. No, it’s not a car you’d go out and drive for the fun of it but firm body control with plenty of grip mean it’s easy to manoeuvre and more reassuring in corners than you’d expect from something relatively high-sided like this. The electric power steering system is particularly good, a clever variable assistance affair into which Toyota has developed a function that detects steering inputs that are too forceful and acts to smooth them out by reducing the amount of power assistance.

Mainstream Verso ownership will see you choosing between 1.6 or 1.8-litre petrol engines and 2.0 or 2.2-litre D-4D diesels, all developing power outputs in the 125-150bhp bracket that’s common to this class of car. The Valvematic petrol engines rev sweetly but are less relaxed than their diesel alternatives and, as you’d expect, deliver significantly less pulling power. Hence our choice of the 124bhp 2.0-litre D-4D unit that most owners will probably choose for this test. On paper, a rest to sixty figure of 11.3s makes it about a second slower to sixty than the 1.8-litre petrol alternative. In practice, the fact that it develops a significant 30Nm of torque more and does it at the bottom of the rev range rather than the top means that it feels a far more willing companion in day-to-day motoring. The diesel engine also perfectly complements this car’s demeanour as an exceptionally refined long distance cruiser.

This car’s styling signature is contained within the novel creases that run along the flanks of its bodywork, from the bottom of the front bumper through the lower parts of the doors and then up towards the rear tailgate is a distinctive swoop. The rear light clusters are particularly attractive with their circles of LED brake lights with indicators in the centre. Inside, the design team have tried to use the same curvy styling theme, the centre console and the central instrument pod sitting on top of a wavy backdrop.

What’s most important however is that this 7-seater Toyota is bigger than its predecessor, though not so large that it can begin to compete with Ford Galaxy or Renault Espace-sized large MPVs from the next class up. Most prospective buyers looking for something nimble enough to twirl around a tight urban environment probably wouldn’t want that anyway. Still, the extra 70mm in length and 20mm in width is very welcome, even if it still isn’t quite enough for a couple of full-grown adults to be properly comfortable if they’re sat in the third row: