For 2015 Toyota gave its entry level Yaris a substantial facelift both inside and out. Most obvious is its new facial design which shares the rounded mouth button nosed look also seen in the 2015 Camry sedan.

At the rear a new fascia design features a single back-up light in the center and a handsome roof spoiler finishes the look nicely. Strangely, for 2015, the chrome exhaust tip was omitted from the SE, giving us a simple plain pipe instead.

The SE does still have some bling though, with blacked out projector beam head lights, LED daytime running lights, fog lights up front with bright chrome trim rings and larger than standard 16-inch aluminum wheels with black accents.


The interior is similar to last year’s Yaris at first sight, but upon closer inspection reveals newly designed and more upgraded surfacing, trims and layout in every direction. Being an SE trim grade, ours had premium cloth seats.

15-toyota-yaris-4Also with the Yaris SE was leather trims on the shift lever and steering wheel which also had audio controls. Standard on all is the 6.1-inch touchscreen audio system which has USB, Bluetooth, and auxiliary input for your devices.

The menu is simple enough to use and the sound quality is adequate, but no premium audio system option is offered here. You can option a navigation system however for an additional $899.

The rear cargo area is somewhat minimal with the seats in the upright position. But you can fold them down in a 60/40 split to a near-flat load floor. Doing this gives you up to 15.6 cubic feet of cargo volume.

Powering the Yaris is a 106 horsepower 1.5 liter four-cylinder engine which is mated with a 4-speed automatic in our tester. You can also have a 5-speed manual transmission in other models.

15-toyota-yaris-14That fuel economy is an EPA rated 30 mpg city, 36 mpg highway and 32 mpg combined. In our week with the Yaris 32 mpg combined is exactly what we achieved using the air-conditioning most of the time.

Stepping up to the SE trim grade gives you a sport suspension which isn’t found in all of Yaris’s competitors. Here you also get better performing four-wheel disc brakes instead of the standard front disc, rear drum setup.

When it comes to safety the 2015 Toyota Yaris performs with “good” ratings in all of the IIHS testing with exception of the new small-overlap test in which it received a “marginal” rating. With these measures and lack of an available crash prevention system, the Yaris does not earn a Top Safety Pick status from the IIHS.

In our test the 2015 Toyota Yaris SE achieved an overall rating at 4 of 5 stars.