hi I'm Kelsey Mays for cars.com here with the TC a small front-wheel drive
hatchback with coupe-like styling from scion tc has a number of updates for
2014 and it remains a lot of car for the money as 2-door small cars go but there
are some pretty glaring shortcomings will take you through him a pretty
aggressive refresh of the second-generation TC happen for 2014 and
if you didn't know that sion was a property of toyota well now you do
because this really reminisce is the avalon toyota's full-size sedan that was
recently redesigned thanks to things like a very broad lower grille year and
redesigned headlights now 18 inch wheels are standard on the TC and overall
length is about a hundred and seventy seven inches that's a little bit short
of coop versions of the honda civic and the kia forte but sion makes very good
use of the space thanks to this upright roof line here that stays flat it
doesn't even start to really descend until you get all the way to this point
here just ahead of the rear fenders that opens up a lot of backseat room
unfortunately that does also play against forward visibility which pulls
the windshield the a-pillars all the way up here let's take a look inside and
show you what that does everything gets pulled forward in front of a very long
dashboard here in the eighth pillars can kind of sit in your field of vision
looking forward the roofline also very short vertically and so especially if
you sit hi you end up having to kind of crane your neck forward here to see
things like stoplights at the front of an intersection anybody who owned a
first-generation TC in the late 2000s knew that it actually had really really
good cabin quality if the redesign were a movie sequel it would be speed to
cruise control because everything got worse now we had all hoped that sign
would write the proverbial ship so to speak with this 2014 update but I gotta
warn you it still crashes into that beach town up lots of hard plastics here
along the upper doors no trim along even the door handles here even the supposed
padded areas along the door armrests the center armrest have very little of it
this Center armor speaking of which rattles around a lot as you open and
shut it
sion didn't care to control the glove compartment opening it all just kind of
clatters down the climate controls are a clumsy mess you can feel kind of the
louvers changing as you
change the fan direction here engages read gauges they seem like they're about
10 years old and they get lost in the shadows here behind these instrument
portals a pretty ratty headliner here surrounds a dual sunroof a nice touch
but the sunshade for it feels like it's some kind of old tarp drivability shines
especially compared to some of the smaller four cylinders in other compact
two-door cars science 2.5 liter makes a hundred seventy-nine horsepower hundred
and seventy-two pounds feet of torque very smooth even power across the rev
range it doesn't Rev to the highest RPM that smoothly but really easy to drive a
lot easier to drive actually then the FRS which assigns rear-wheel drive coupe
there's a six-speed manual transmission in our test car little bit longer throws
in the FRS less precise than that but still very well geared here it doesn't
dump you out of one gear in a very low RPM for the next year the optional
six-speed automatic transmission Zion says has faster shifting for 2014 and
also now has downshift rev matching sound says it tweaked the suspension and
steering feel for 2014 our test car has optional 19-inch wheels versus the
standard 18 but it still feels less brittle than before
cushions out small things manhole covers poeple stuff like that pretty well now
where it does come on down a bit is over rises and falls in the road where the TC
loses a lot of composure they're handling a pretty decent the car
understeers early on obviously the front-wheel-drive car on that layout is
going to produce that sort of thing but you can work the tail out reasonably
well enough especially if you lift off the gas a little bit mid-corner not too
bad they're pretty entertaining
the thing about the TC is that it's cheap $MONEY including destination
charge the base model can be had for around twenty thousand dollars which
puts it right in the thick of honda civic and kia forte koup territory and
it's a few thousand dollars cheaper then Detroit's muscle cars and about 5 grand
cheaper than scions own FRS now for that it comes very well-equipped standard
features include things like the big wheels the dual moonroof bluetooth phone
and audio streaming a big back seat and a little more room under the hood then
in some of its asian competitors now you have to consider that against some of
the visibility issues and certainly the big issue which is cabin quality in the
bc does that make it worth it it's up to you but there are money we think there
are better choices out there