While harder to get hold of and more expensive than ever, the latest GR Yaris has meaningfully improved on a brilliant hot hatch: faster, sharper to drive, better to sit in and more interesting to look at, it’s exactly as hoped for. But there’s always room for improvement, even in a car as good as Toyota’s turbo tyke. Step forward KW.
As it did with the first GR, it now has a V3 coilover kit for the Gen 2 Yaris. It’s not simply a repackaged continuation either, as the springs, top mounts and piston rods don’t fit. KW says its new upgrade offers up ‘a sporty harmonic driving behavior with a tight setup that is as necessary and as comfortable as possible.’ Just as importantly, or at least it could be argued for the GR, is that a ride height drop makes the Yaris look even better. There are full touring car vibes from KW’s demo car, and the V3s offer between 25 and 45mm of lowering. Apparently customers with original GRs and V3s ‘rave about the high level of ride comfort, even at maximum lowering.’
Compression and rebound damping is independently adjustable, which KW reckons is notable in the world of aftermarket Yaris suspension as most offer parallel tweaking (where compression and rebound are tweaked at the same time). These V3s offer up 12 compression settings and 16 for rebound at both ends. With compression increased at the front, KW says you’ll get a ‘more direct steering response’; match it with more at the rear and oversteer will be reduced. Cranking up the rebound will reduce body roll and sharpen up responses, with ride quality sacrificed a little. That being said, two-stage valves in the dampers should keep the Yaris comfy-ish; ‘even with the low-speed compression damping fully closed’, says the press release, the preconfigured high-speed compression valve can open over really nasty imperfections to allow the wheels ‘to travel and provide damping without sacrificing performance.’
Furthermore, while KW is of course globally renowned for its suspension wizardry, it has a close alliance with Toyota in motorsport. There are KW dampers in the GT4 Supra, for example, and Reiger suspension - a company owned by the KW Group - underneath the Yaris rally car and Hilux rally raid truck. So another V3 package for the hot hatch was always going to happen. There’s even a V4 Clubsport kit coming for the really keen. But that’s for the future; for now the V3s are available to order, priced from £2,114 on KW’s UK site. That’s the easy part - the difficulty might be finding a Yaris to fit them to…
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