New Volkswagen T-Roc vs Ford Puma vs Toyota Yaris Cross: costs
We see if a mid-life refresh has turned the T-Roc small SUV into a better buy than the award-winning Ford Puma or the super-frugal Toyota Yaris Cross...
Buying and owning
Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security
The VW T-Roc slightly undercuts its rivals if you look at their list prices, but you won’t get as much off as you can on the others, making the Ford Puma the cheapest to buy outright after discounts.
Although it holds onto its value the best, the T-Roc is the priciest to run, partly due to its higher insurance bills. The Toyota Yaris Cross will cost you the least to run, in large part thanks to its spectacular fuel economy. It returned 61.9mpg in our True MPG test, compared with the T-Roc’s 44.7mpg and the Puma’s 43.6mpg.
Head down the PCP finance route and the Yaris Cross works out the cheapest, albeit by the narrowest of margins. On a three-year deal with a £2600 deposit and a 12,000-mile annual limit, it’ll set you back £371 per month, with the T-Roc coming in at £372 and Puma £375.
Meanwhile, company car drivers will be attracted to the 25% benefit-in-kind tax rating of the Yaris Cross. This means a 40% tax payer will sacrifice £213 per month to run a Yaris Cross, compared with £251 for the 30%-banded Puma and £272 for the 32% T-Roc.
In terms of standard equipment, all three cars have more than the bare necessities; each of them offers alloy wheels, air conditioning and automatic headlights. Beyond those features, the T-Roc and Yaris Cross give you full LED headlights in place of the dimmer halogen bulbs you get with the Puma.
Similarly, while the Puma has cruise control to help you maintain a constant speed, the T-Roc and Yaris Cross trump this with adaptive cruise control that automatically preserves a set distance from the car in front. The Yaris Cross is the only one that comes with keyless entry and privacy glass for the rear windows.
The Yaris Cross is too new to have featured in the most recent What Car? Reliability Survey. The T-Roc finished mid-table among the 20 models included in the small SUV category, while the Puma proved to be one of the least dependable. Meanwhile, Toyota ranked joint fifth in the league table of 30 brands. Volkswagen finished much further down, in 20th place, with Ford near the bottom, in 27th.
All three cars come with a three-year warranty as standard, but the Yaris Cross also comes with the reassurance that you can extend this up to 10 years or 100,000 miles, provided you keep the car serviced by Toyota according to schedule. All three contenders are well equipped with safety equipment, including automatic emergency braking (AEB) and lane-keeping assistance, and each car has a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating. However, it’s worth noting that the T-Roc was tested back in 2017, when the tests were less stringent.
