It's been a year and a few days since we acquired our Toyota Wigo G.
I'll admit there are days when I sort of regret sticking to my budget and not dipping a bit more into savings to get the Toyota Raize 1.2 E CVT instead of the Wigo. However the price of the Raize at the time was way over the budget I had set myself.
So why am I having occasional second thoughts? Well the simplest answer is the height. The Wigo is a car, and the ground clearance is around 160mm so it is a low car. The Raize is taller and has 200mm (I think) ground clearance. Aside from this, since the Raize is a bit longer you have bigger trunk space.
The height only concerns me mainly when it rains really hard for a long time. When flash flooding happens in Metro Manila, and believe me it happens, I get worried. Fortunately so far none of our routes are affected by floods. Or we can find alternate routes that are relatively free of flash floods.
Anyway back to our Wigo. I guess my plan now is to use this car for its strengths. Those are fuel efficiency, practicality, and size.
Fuel efficiency is still great. Lately it's been getting below 9km/L consumption but that's because traffic has been bad since school started for my daughter. It's still not as demoralizing as the 5 to 6km/L of the Rav4 so I'm still not that annoyed. Just irritated. Last school year consumption was around 9 to 10km/L, but for context the traffic now to drop off and fetch my daughter is way, way worse than last school year.
Practicality. The Wigo is still an excellent city car and daily driver. It has ample space for the usual stuff you need to bring to work or to school. The air conditioner is decently cold. Space is also relatively good for three to four people.
Size. Because of the relatively smaller size of the Wigo I never have to worry about being able to enter or exit the car in parking areas. I will have ample space to park and not worry about me accidentally dinging the car beside me (though I do worry about the cars beside the Wigo dinging us since there are a lot of inconsiderate people out there).
There are some issues now that I'm seeing with the Wigo, but hopefully these can be avoided. Here are some of them.
No front windshield vent defogger and no rear electric defogger. We encountered this issue one time when it was raining hard and the front and rear windshield fogged up. I had to wipe the front windshield inside to remove the fogging just to see.
I shouldn't have added a tint. Backing up and maneuvering is a bitch during heavy rains and dark skies. Or even in dark places. I had a hard time seeing the side mirrors and had to open my windows to get a better view. During rains this sucks since the interior gets wet.
Speaking or rain, I am seriously considering getting rain visors for the windows so we can crack it open during rainy days and hopefully address fogging issues, or open the window enough that we can see the side mirrors with minimal rain pouring in. My only issue with rain visors is that you have to stick them on to the doors, or at least the ones available in Shopee.
Then there's my issue with the (literal) horn. Yes, there's only one high-pitched horn installed in the car. I have the one high-pitched horn that was installed in my dad's Raize but I'd rather get a better set that's louder and more aggressive so it can be heard better.
Overall I'm still happy with the Wigo and I feel that this is a great first car for my wife to get used to driving in. It's still a fuel efficient and practical car and with some upgrades I feel quality of life will be improved.
Out.
