Daihatsu Sirion M300 (2005)

Comfy, spacious and maneuvrable – Love to drive it round the town, amazingly cheap to run, worth its price every penny no doubt, some minor probs with rust at window's legdes, some suspension defects and somewhat leaking trunk after downpours water can be found round the spare wheel- otherwise excellent! It's smooth to drive, easy to drive for a woman!  Show details

Very comfy & smooth – Bought this 6 months ago, a 2004 model with low 35,000 km mileage. (Although mine is badged a Toyota Passo, it's the same as the Sirion). It is high and its doors open wide, making it very easy to enter and exit. What also impressed is its Tardis interior - plenty of room especially width wise. Good legroom and headroom too. No surprise that the… Read more

hatch is spacious and easy to load/unload as it opens wide. Both rear seats can be folded flat and it was great when moving house as it could easily swallow heaps of stuff :)

The car feels structurally robust, which helps explain why its ride is quite supple and comfy on post-quake Christchurch streets. Feels and handles more like a medium sized car. While rather strong on the flat, its weakness is its lack of torque when climbing steeper hills. Just glad it's a 1300 and not a 1000 cc, an engine size which is more commonly imported used from Japan. Probably the rare 1500cc version has the perfect blend of power, torque and ride.

Anyway, will keep readers posted as time passes.

Worst car I have ever driven – Before I launch into this review, I will point out that I have owned a year 2000 Sirion and found it to be excellent, but the newer model (I drove a 2008) is the first car that I have ever driven that is a step backwards from it's predecessor. I drove one of these for a week in NZ and had the following gripes; 1) Noisy. OMG, when the engine… Read more

wasn't shouting at a deafening roar, the gearbox was whining and whinging in an annyoyingly loud manner. Anyone who has driven an old school mini will be familiar with the characteristic whine that the transmission has - we call it retro charm, but the Sirion was just loud, coarse and anything but charming. At 100km/h the gearbox and road noise combination meant that polite conversation was impossible, shouting or sign language was the only way to communicate

2) Slow. I hired a Sirion based on my experience of the older model and it's powerful engine combination. How on earth they managed to take the same engine and make it so that when going up NZ hills in fourth that it slows down is beyond me. Admittedly when I filled it with high octane fuel and thrashed it, the performance did improve a bit, but it was still nowhere near the level of performance the older model gave.

3) Cheap shoddy interior. The older Sirion (which my mum still drives BTW) is a luxury car in comparison to the newer model, it's interior is sporty, comfortable and looks good. The entire interior on the new model however screamed cheap and nasty and would be more at home on a Chinese made vehicle than a Japanese brand that Toyota owns. It was full of nasty cheap looking hard plastics that produced creaks and rattles, and the rear seats were impossibly fiddly to fold down. The boot was also smaller, not being able to taken even one normal sized suitcase with the rear seats up.

4) Fuel economy - I averaged between 5.9 and 6.3 litres / 100 km on the open road. I thought this was very average for a car that is less accommodating and less powerful than it's much more worthy ancestor. For a car that is powered by a 1.3 engine this is pretty poor to be honest, when I have owned a much older (1995) VW Passat with a 2.0 engine that could do 6.5km / 100l on the open road here in Aussie. Absolutely nothing Underpowered, thirsty, noisy, poor quality interior, step backwards from the earlier model.

Excellent – The only way to get a clear idea about Sirion is to discover it closely. it is made by toyota and that is enough. This car is really economic car and the best in its range. Adding more, it is like a magic box looks small from external, and comfortable inside. I got this car brand new for about one and half years. If you just think about the all… Read more

features like, ABS CD player, power steering & electric windows. I really recommend this car for town use and small family uses. The main disadvantage is that the engine power. People mostly like cars with 1.6 or 1.8 engine, but for light driving town purpose no need for high litre engine, except for hot countries like gulf. Anyway I still see this car the best compared with it is range.

Good – We had this sort of car as a hire vehicle for 2 weeks around New Zealand. Driving in severely cold weather it never had a problem. It hardly used any fuel and it always drove well. It would be a perfect city car for its size, would happily fit 4 adults in this car. Seats a little uncomfortable. Great fuel economy. Used around 5.5L/ 100km when… Read more ·  1

driving around semi-city areas. Good boot size for a small car, lots of storage pockets for things. Good vision out of front window. Uncomfortable and hard seats, poor sound system, has no guts up hills.

Fantastic first car – I bought a second hand Sirion for my first car and it has been the best car I've ever driven. It's small size is perfect to park, it still has a lot of "grunt" even for a little car and is zoomy on the highway, it's boot space is big enough to fit your groceries. I never, ever had a problem with my Sirion in the time I owned it. It was always… Read more ·  1

reliable and efficient.

It's what I would consider a "no frills" car. If you want all the extra features that a lot of other cars have then go for something else, but if you want a great little car that won't cost much at the bowser to fill up, can still fit 4 people people comfortably and is zoomy for around town, then this car is perfect.

I was sad to sell my car and I really miss it, especially when I'm now trying to park our big bulky car at the shopping centre. I would easily buy another Sirion any day. Perfect first car. Cheap to run. Reliable. Cost efficient. Zoomy. Easy to park.