Scion to Sciclonic, “He we want to get you in a new 2011 tC for a couple of weeks and let you really test it out”. Sciclonic to Scion, “When?” That was a month ago and it turned out we had the long term test of the Cement tC for almost the entire month of November.
We did our initial test drive of the all-new tC last August during the media launch. We were impressed of course, but a day of scripted driving never does a car full justice. A long term test lets us take it out on our familiar windy roads, the freeways, our local city and even a road trip.
In this case we drove it up to Las Vegas for the 2010 SEMA Show. The nearly 1000 mile trip gave us ample time to get a read on power, handling, gas mileage and what we call crowd wow factor. That is the measure of how people notice and compliment the car at gas stations on the street.
Living with a car also gives you the change to cement all the good points and even pick up on some of the flaws. The good news is that there are very few of the latter, to which we will get to later. The high points? The interior is always a good place to start.
The chairs are top drawer, comfortable, supportive and worthy of a car costing twice as much. Even though they are manual, they adjust just fine and hold you tight when the driving gets fun. And the interior grew better by the day. The new dash layout is clean with materials that really look high quality. Familiar Toyota family switchgear abounds.
Having been around cars for a long time, the interior had hints and themes from classic Toyota Celica’s of the 1970’s. It might just be some fond retro touches but we felt it day in and day out. The modern day tC has great visibility despite the low cut look of the roofline and access to the back seat is excellent with the easy grip hand holds for front seat release.
On the road the tC feels like a far more expensive car than one that only costs about $19,000. The chassis damping and isolation from road noise, vibration, and harshness is far and above most cars in this class. The electrically assisted power steering is direct and precise giving the feel of manual steering. Brakes are tight and have plenty of stopping power.
Our tester had the 6-speed automatic transmission which shifts plenty well on its own, but does have a true manual mode. Shifted manually, the transmission reacts almost immediately to inputs and shifts with authority. When left in auto mode and the gas pedal is treated nicely a green leaf shaped icon lights up on the instrument cluster that simply says “ECO”. On wonders if there should be a red light that says “FUN” when you drive at full throttle.
As far as gas mileage goes this thing is stellar and right on the money for what the sticker says. We averaged exactly 29.5 mpg over the three week period with an average mix of city and highway driving. On the freeway we saw the instant average hit as high as 34-35 mpg before we got into the mountains. That’s pretty darn good.
Around town and especially in the car conscious confines of Las Vegas during the SEMA Show the Cement Scion tC got a lot of attention. Even a guy in a gray market right hand drive Skyline gave it a double take. The color seemed to get more attention than we would expect. No doubt about the fact that the new angular look is fresh.
On thing we did find surprising was the level of wind noise from the glass roof even when closed. Open that baby up and it really gets noisy. Even though there is a pop up wind deflector it can still be a bit much at freeway speeds. Additionally, the plastic sun shades can be left closed when the sun roof slides open and can get sucked out the window.
At the end of our three week tour it is safe to say we know the new 2011 Scion tC well. We talked to some of the aftermarket parts manufacturers at SEMA like Injen, AEM, and Greddy who are all hot on the ball to have products ready for it. It is a new car, but more an evolution of the original. A little more power, a little better handling, a touch more refinement, and a lot more punch.
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