Early this month, I booked a Toyota Isis version 2005 from Mofaz. It's a CBU unit directly imported from Japan. It is a very basic model - 1 passenger side power door, no sun roof, no security alarm, no rear A/C, no ionizer, no front-rear sensor; but it has most of the important features - ABS, Driver seat and passenger seat SRS airbag, side airbag (probably), Super ECT (Electronic Controlled Transmission) automatic transmission, and VVT-i engine.
I drove it for about 1 week. Apart from 1 of the fog lamp is not functioning, the rest are working fine. I must admit that it's not a very exciting car because it cannot accelerate from 0 - 100 KM/H within a few seconds. Despite that, it has been a very versatile car and very fuel economic because with 3 quarter of fuel, this car can go for about 550 KM. It's interesting to know that the faster you drive, the more miles you will gain.
It's interesting to know that the difference between this Isis with the local assembled MPV is that the Isis has electronic circuitry that helps to conserve energy, while the local assambled MPV does not have this feature. I might be wrong, but from the specification that I found on the local assambled Toyota Avanza and Toyota Innova, I couldn't see such feature being mentioned at all.
The other things about Isis is because it is built in Japan, thus it needs to comply with the Japan's measurement of fuel consumption and gas emission to protect the environment. With that in mind, they need to produce a car that use lesser fuel, emit lesser gas, but at the same time could more power and more miles. This is something that we should learn from.
