Toyota C-HR 2022 review: GR Sport

Value here will depend on how much you appreciate the C-HR’s edgy new look, because it mirrors most of its equipment level to the identically-priced Koba hybrid grade.

Both variants wear MSRPs of $37,665. As the GR Sport is hybrid only, the choice at the price is whether you want the sporty bits this car offers, or the more luxury bits that the Koba offers. I know which I’d pick.

And yes, you read that right, unlike its Hyundai Kona N-Line rival the GR Sport doesn’t get a more powerful engine option, stuck with Toyota’s efficient but somewhat anaemic 1.8-litre hybrid powertrain in front-drive only. More on that later.

Value here will depend on how much you appreciate the C-HR’s edgy new look. (image: Tom White)

Credit where credit is due, at least the GR Sport doesn’t cost more than the Koba, and its standard equipment is great for the small SUV space.

The most immediately noticeable items include the GR Sport bodykit and 19-inch chrome alloy wheels clad in aggressive Yokohama Advan tyres, LED headlights and new fog light clusters, and GR Sport badgework on the front and rear. The only inkling of a performance upgrade is the 15mm lower suspension with a stiffer tune.

Items unchanged from its Koba sibling include an 8.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. (image: Tom White)

Inside, the Koba’s synthetic leather-trimmed seats are swapped out for GR Sport branded synthetic suede sports seats, a new leather-trimmed gear selector, and an aluminium pedal set. Unlike Japanese versions of this car, there’s no new steering wheel or dial cluster.

Items unchanged from its Koba sibling include an 8.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, built-in sat-nav, six-speaker audio, a 4.2-inch digital screen in the dash cluster, keyless entry and push-start ignition, dual-zone climate control, and an auto dimming rear vision mirror. It misses out on the Koba’s heated seats, however.

Safety inclusions are good, too, and while some may be disappointed to hear about the sole hybrid powertrain option, at least it’s frugal. More on these factors later.

There are a lot of ways in which the C-HR is more practical than its Corolla hatch sibling, but some areas where it could definitely do better in the small SUV space.

While many will appreciate the ride height on offer from the C-HR, the front of the cabin feels quite claustrophobic thanks to the abundance of black trim, and the design of the dash cladding and centre console means it suffers from the same lack of storage as its Corolla relation.

The big swooping piece of plastic trim down the centre only houses two large bottle holders, a small centre console box, and that’s about it.

The front of the cabin feels quite claustrophobic thanks to the abundance of black trim. (image: Tom White)

Where this area meets the dash, there’s a lot of cladding bits where there should be a storage cutaway. There’s even an odd little shelf, but I’m not sure what it’s for because it’s tiny and hard to access. Odd.

Like the Corolla, this car’s climate controls float atop the angled dash piece, tastefully finished in that signature rhomboidal pattern.

And thankfully the new and improved screen is much easier to use than the small one it replaces from the pre-update model. It even has dials for volume and tuning as well as toggles for temperature and fan speed.

There are decent bottle holders in the doors with smallish pockets, but that’s where storage in the front cabin ends.

Rear access is impeded by the common Toyota issue of the door itself not extending anywhere near a 90-degree angle. (image: Tom White)

The seats are comfortable, adjustable, and offer a decent view of the road up front, although I’m not sure how well the synthetic suede trim will age in this GR Sport compared to the hardy synthetic leather in the Koba.

The back seat is interesting. For a start, the rear door is smaller than the front, another element designed to make the C-HR look and feel more like a coupe than an SUV.

But rear access is impeded further by the common Toyota issue of the door itself not extending anywhere near a 90-degree angle. This may make it tricky to fit child seats or load luggage into the rear row.

The seats continue with the GR Sport synthetic suede, but interestingly the seat base is almost in line with the front seats, instead of significantly elevated like it usually is in a small SUV.

This is good because it leaves plenty of headroom, but the space feels closed-in anyway thanks to the very high belt-line, tiny and heavily tinted rear windows, and abundance of black trim.

It’s hardly the most pleasant place to be as an adult, and kids might not even be able to peer out of the windows they’re so high.

There is, again, a lack of storage for rear passengers, with just a single bottle holder in the doors, small pockets on the back of the front seats, and no power outlets or directional air vents.

Boot space comes in at 318 litres (VDA). That’s small for the segment, but the space is quite useful thanks to the lack of wheel arch claddings on the inside, so it’s more useful than it first appears.

The C-HR GR Sport has a single engine choice, a 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder petrol hybrid, which drives the front wheels via a continuously variable automatic transmission.

This engine is renowned for its efficiency and ease-of-use, but with just 90kW of combined power output, it seems to fly in the face of what this car is trying to communicate from the outside.

The C-HR GR Sport has a single engine choice, a 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder petrol hybrid. (image: Tom White)

It’s not just the powertrain either. There are no performance enhancements to be found anywhere. No bigger brakes and barely tweaked suspension. This car represents Toyota’s Gazoo Racing (GR) in name only.

Toyota’s 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle hybrid engine is renowned for its fuel efficiency, and on this front at least the C-HR GR Sport delivers.

It has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 4.3L/100km which is excellent. And on my week-long test which had a good mix of freeway and urban driving the car’s computer returned a real-world figure of 5.1L/100km.

I think any other small SUV would have trouble beating that, even Subaru’s hybrid XV couldn’t best 7.3L/100km in my most recent long-term test.

You can fuel the GR Sport’s 43-litre tank with base-grade 91RON unleaded petrol.

The C-HR range is covered by Toyota’s five year and unlimited kilometre warranty, while the hybrid battery components are covered for up to 10 years.

The servicing, as with most current Toyota models, is a real strong point, with each service due every 12 months or 15,000km coming in at just $200 for the first four services.

The best in the small SUV segment? Unless you count some full-electric models which offer free servicing, then yes, it is.