Test drive: 2005 Scion xB

Square to be hip

If the question is: Can I afford it? The answer is yes. With a base price of $13,680 ($17,166 as tested), the 2005 Scion xB is a lot of car for the money. So the next question might be, Can I have any fun in a car that gets over 30 miles per gallon? Again, yes, you can if that car is the 2005 Scion xB. But you do have to realign your thinking about the essence of an economy car. Can you dig it? The xB carries a 3 year/36,000 mile basic warranty and 5 year/60,000 mile powertrain warranty.

First Glance

Take a look at the xB from a distance, and it's a big cube. Get closer and you realize that it's actually a tiny cube - the shape gives no clue as to the size of the vehicle, which is deceptively small up close. With an overall length of 155", the xB leaves a lot of unused space in your parking spot (By contrast, the Honda Civic is 175.4" long). With all the elegance of an ice delivery truck, the xB makes its style statement with anti-style.

Scion is an offspring of Toyota, the embodiment a marketing plan to bring in young buyers with value pricing and contemporary style. Luckily for the xB, the Toyota attention to detail has found its way to the build quality of the new brand. The xB is very well-finished, with good paint and seams. Nothing on the exterior betrays the xB's low cost – except its tiny stature.

Part of the Scion gimmick is the ability to "customize" your car with a wide variety of factory options – not my definition of "custom." The stock wheels and tires look small in the wheel wells, and are a frequent target of buyer upgrade. I drove an xB with a $385 rear spoiler and $350 fog lamps installed -- $735 I would save if I bought an xB. The cool upgrades on the xB are the ones you can't see from the outside.

In The Driver's Seat

With such a small package on the outside, Scion has performed some kind of magic trick with the interior. The xB is incredibly spacious, with plenty of head, shoulder and leg room. Even the back seat is roomy, with leg and hip room for two adults.

Examine the details of the interior, and the price point becomes evident. The fabric front seats are just adequate, not the comfiest place to spend time. Adjustments are manual and few. The dash is decidedly plain, with the instrument pod mounted up under the windshield in a round housing that reads "world car." If you’re looking for luxury features like cruise control and telescopic steering column, you're looking in the wrong place.

If you've ordered your xB with the stock AM/FM/CD player, there's lots of extra empty dash space available for amps, equalizers and other doodads. Overall, the interior is hardy and unfussy. It's a good example of how inexpensive need not look cheap.

Sight lines in the tall greenhouse of the xB are clear and unobstructed, so you can change lanes and park with confidence. The short overhang in the front of the car makes squeezing into small spaces especially easy. If everybody at the mall had an xB, shopping would be a much more pleasant experience.

On The Road

With a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder engine, I figured the xB would be a dog. Surprisingly, the xB turned out to be a blast to drive. Part of that blast has to be the optional TRD shocks, lowering springs, strut tie bar and quick shifter that was installed in my xB. The 5-speed manual transmission was easy to shift with a light clutch feel and positive engagement. The shifter is a little notchy with too much side-to-side play, but tolerable. The suspension, on the other hand, is great. The xB felt like it was glued to the pavement, and handled like a roller skate on the curves. Zipping through traffic made the crunch of rush hour a little less torturous. The only way to get around better is on a motorcycle.

On the open road, the little xB finds its limits. It can keep up with our high speed LA freeway traffic, but it’s so noisy in the cabin at speed that you need to crank up the stereo to the max just to hear your music. With the $299 TRD Sport Muffler installed, a long trip would be a headache. Around town, the xB is great, and with its prodigious storage space, very useful. A delivery service near my house has a fleet of xBs, and it’s easy to see why. The combination of economy, maneuverability and hauling capacity is tough to beat.

Journey's End

Measuring the Scion xB against the competition requires serious thought. In a pure dollars and cents way, stack up the xB against the Kia Rio Wagon, the Suzuki Forenza Wagon, the Hyundai Elantra, the Nissan Sentra and the Mazda 3. The xB is right in the hunt.

Measured against stylish alternatives like the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Honda Element, the Mini Cooper and the Pontiac Vibe, the best design is a matter of taste. The xB is certainly eye-catching. There’s just nothing like it out there -- only the Mercedes G-Class and the Hummers approach it for straight-line right-angle design. It's a bold approach, and more appealing on the tiny xB than on the giant behemoths.

The xB holds its own against any competition in terms of utility, offering great, useable cargo space and fantastic (31 city, 35 highway) fuel economy. You can jack the price of your xB up quickly if you choose to load it down with options and accessories, as Scion encourages its buyers to do. I found the suspension upgrades worthwhile, and I would investigate other performance enhancements if I were buying an xB. For the wallet-challenged (or cheap) buyer, the Scion xB is a great way to get style, utility and economy without sacrificing quality and drivability.