Welcome to the latest installment of our weekly series: TGIF[R-S], where Features Editor Sami Haj-Assaad details the ownership experience of the Scion FR-S. If you haven’t seen the latest articles, be sure to check out the whole archive of them.
By now you’ve probably heard of every single great thing about the FR-S, like how it has impeccable balance, superior driving feel and stunning value at $25k, but what about the thoughts of an honest-to-goodness owner. Make no mistake, I love this car, but it’s not perfect.
Daily driving has brought to light ten major flaws with the car, from comfort to convenience. Maybe in a few years when the FR-S is updated and includes some updates, I can look back and credit myself for bringing the perfect car to fruition. In the mean time I’ll just complain, like a stuck up automotive journalist.
Some will say that as this is a ‘Driver’s car’ it doesn’t need an armrest and both hands should be on the wheel, but even with your hand resting on the shifter, your arm has nowhere to comfortably rest. Stranger still, the arm rest by the door is nice and padded and well spaced, meaning that there are some concessions in mind for drivers, but only for one arm. Rumors point to an arm-rest accessory, but who knows how much that’ll cost, and if it’ll take place of the storage area between the two seats, or render the cupholders (even more) useless.
With the FR-S, I feel like I’m filling this car up every other day. With an average fuel consumption rating of 28 mpg so far, the FR-S isn’t a thirsty vehicle, it just seems to run out of gas more often than I’m used to. Now I attribute that to the size of the gas tank, which is probably small for weight savings and balance, but still, the car seems to be going only about 350 miles on a tank, when I’m always hoping for a bit more. Most cars with small tanks at least make it up to you with cheaper trips to the station, but the FR-S requires premium fuel, which means I’m spending upwards of $50 every visit.
The FR-S has a little removable hunk of plastic that fits in the middle storage area, that has two circular holes to put your beverage in. Watch out though, they don’t really hold anything, as most cups are too thin to be held by these ‘cup holders.’ Additionally, when you do put your drink in this place, the cups are placed awkwardly, almost behind you so when you decide to grab your drink, you have to bend, or lean uncomfortably just to get at it. Putting it back in the holder is equally difficult, making for a potentially safety hazard when driving. Anyone planning to buy an FR-S should remember to bring along a tissue box to deal with all the spills.
While the rest of this car is very communicative to the driver, the clutch has a vague feel, with minimal feedback. Additionally, the engagement point is quite high up, which takes getting used to. If you switch between three pedal cars often, you’ll no doubt have to recondition your feeling for the clutch.
The car’s display has an average lifetime fuel-economy gauge, and an instant fuel economy gauge, but those aren’t really useful to me while I’m driving. With the car’s small gas tank, I’d like to see a range computer, telling me when I can expect to fill up during my current trip.
At first glance, the pattern on the dash looks like this cheesy fake carbon fiber. Then I found out that it’s repeated everywhere. It’s in the gauge cluster, on the floor mats and even on the front grille. I have no idea what it is, and what it references. Some people originally called it a space-invader shape, and others say it has some heritage to the older Toyota logo, but I don’t see it. Any one have a good explanation of this thing?
Enthusiasts understand what the 86 means, and international FR-S’s are even called the 86 or GT 86. However, here in North America, there is, and never was a car released to market as the ‘86’ which means every-time a casual observer asks about these badges, I end up giving them very a long-winded explanation of the AE86, and the GT 86. The problem is that this car isn’t called a Toyota, or a GT 86, so the heritage just isn’t there.
The boxer engine sounds great, especially in the higher end of the rev-range, but every once in a while it seems a bit too much, especially since it’s piping that tone into the cabin. On the track it sounds great and is handy for recognizing how close you are to the red-line, or when to shift, but at higher speed cruising it ends up drowning out the stereo. When looking in the engine bay, the piping also adds to the clutter, making the area look messy. And it is quite the mess in there.
This wouldn’t be much of an issue if I never saw the rear-end of the international Subaru BRZ or Toyota GT 86 (top image) but it turns out that North American models got a bit of a snip-snip when it comes to the tail-pipes. The international models have these big beefy tailpipes that stick out past the rear valence, while the FR-S has these tiny pipes that hardly fill out the cut-outs. It looks wimpy in comparison, and is unbecoming of the FR-S image. If there’s a kit for the international look, it’s something I’ll be looking into.
In a car where almost everything has its purpose, the speedometer seems completely out of place. The great looking tachometer is the focus of the information cluster, and is animated with every touch of the car’s throttle. The speedometer on the other hand is lazy, and only reaches a third of the way up at highway speeds. Making the speedometer even more useless is that the numbers are tiny, and impossible to read at a quick glance (especially in km/h.)