Nissan Sunny vs Toyota Yaris Sedan: Which one is more practical?

There is a fierce competition prevailing in almost every segment of the automobile industry. Whether you talk about supercars or budget cars, sedans or hatchback, SUVs or compact SUVs, in terms of competitiveness and rivalry, each and every category is experiencing more or less the same atmosphere - fierce competition.

It would not be wrong to say that today the automobile industry has become similar to the smartphone industry. There are so many products out there in the market which makes it a cumbersome task for the manufacturers to design and develop a different model. And in a quest for having their product stand-out-of-the-crowd, car companies tend to give many features in their products which the customer would never use.

Two vehicles that are too caught up in this competitive environment are the Nissan Sunny and Toyota Yaris Sedan. They both belong to the same category and have got various features to offer. But which out of the two is really a practical or utilitarian car? Let us find out.

There are a few factors or design elements that we would need to get out of the way at the beginning itself. These elements would not help us to find the practicality of these cars. Some of these elements include headlights, tail lights, bumper design, alloy wheels, rear spoiler, use of chrome, etc. These are meant to give appealing looks to a car and are of no practical use. We will talk about three main categories - interior space, storage, and safety features.

Interior or cabin space:

So let us start with the interior, and by that, we mean not the luxury but space and its management. Nissan sunny is advertised as a compact car, yet it offers a non-compact car-like interior space. It is 4.425 meters long, 1.695 meters wide, and 1.5 meters in height. It has a wheelbase of 2.590 meters. These dimensions allowed Nissan to make the cabin of the Sunny pretty spacious. There is a good amount of headroom for the front occupants. The passengers on the rear seats would not face any discomfort as they, too, have ample amount of both legroom and headroom. The truck capacity of the Nissan Sunny is a good 490 liters. So that should sort out the weekend trips.

Toyota Yaris Sedan also measures somewhat similar to the Nissan Sunny. The dimensions read (4.425 x 1.730 x 1.475) metres (length x width x height). It offers a good amount of space for the people sitting at the front, however, if three grown adults are to sit at the rear then they might have to move around a little bit. It has a boot space of approximately 500 litre, which is close to that of the Sunny.

Storage areas:

This is another important aspect when it comes to the utility of a car. Most of us do not even bother to pay heed to this until we actually need it. Yes, that is the bitter truth. The Nissan Sunny has got decent sized door bins in the front which could easily take in a small water bottle and perhaps a notebook or diary or map book. It also has a spacious glove box where you can keep all your necessary and/or important documents, tickets, etc. Then there are a couple of cupholders at the rear and little door pockets. But Nissan decided to skip these for the front passengers.

The Toyota Yaris Sedan is not much different than the Sunny in this category. It also does not have any cupholders for the front passengers. And to make things worse, there is a single shared cupholder at the rear. Other storage areas include small door pockets in the rear doors and a decent sized glove box. The front doors get a small bottle holder.

Safety features:

Nissan Sunny is offered with safety features like dual front airbags, Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), Brake Assist (BA), and Electronic Brake-Force Distribution (EBD). On the other hand, on top of the aforementioned features, the Toyota Yaris Sedan comes with Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), Child Restraint System (ISO-FIX), Tyre Pressure Warning System (TPWS), Rear Window Defogger.