Toyota listens to customers!

That is precisely what the engineers did as they upgraded the Toyota Yaris to keep it competitive in the hardest fought part of the European car market, accounting for nearly one in four new cars, like the Ford Fiesta and VW Polo.

So when Toyota set about improving the third generation of Yaris, launched in 2011, they asked lots of existing customers for their thoughts, and acted on what they said.

More precise steering, helped by making the front of the car more rigid (hence the stickier glue around the screen), is one of a host of subtle changes that Toyota hopes add up to a car that's been so thoroughly worked on it almost stands as a new model.

Certainly, it's been given a deep going over, with fresh looks front and rear, altered suspension and a set of petrol, diesel and hybrid power units that have all been tickled for better economy and emissions figures. A quieter cabin with more attention to touchscreen technology is added too.

The looks might be the least impressive upgrade in bald engineering terms but they're crucial to a car's success. Toyota research showed style was uppermost in the mind of someone buying a car in the Yaris's class (do you hear a granny sucking eggs at this point?).

So the much made over new car has a stronger look at the front, with a big, aggressive mouth joining the headlights to form a cross shape; the look, you guess, of more upcoming Toyotas too, and a light year away from the quiet reticence of the first Yaris in 1999.

Inside, there is more use of soft touch materials for a more upmarket feel, while hidden changes to bodywork and sound deadening aim to make things quieter all round.

There are four grades of new Yaris, costing from £9,995 to £17,695. The entry price is the same as the outgoing model, but the new version uses less petrol and because of a cleaner exhaust, is now free of road tax. So that's a result.

As big a pleasant surprise comes with the petrol/battery hybrid model (from £16,195, a decrease of £400), which takes an extraordinary near one-third of all Yaris sales across Europe and is below the now tougher threshold for exemption from the London congestion charge.

It may have been aimed at younger buyers but, like all its rivals, it will be older people who find the money for a purchase or lease. Toyota says the average age of a Yaris owner is 55, with most choosing the Icon grade, one up from a most basic Yaris, bought by a mere one person in a hundred. Icon brings alloy wheels, rear view camera, air conditioning, Bluetooth for phone and audio, heated door mirrors and a touch screen on the dash.

Out on the oh-so-smooth German roads picked for the press launch of the new Yaris, the strong selling hybrid model certainly felt a classier act than before, and quiet enough until you pressed the accelerator with conviction, when the automatic gearbox let the revs rise to mildly intrusive levels, despite the fitment of 'noise optimised carpets.' Yes, really.

Payback, around town, is a car that's a doddle to drive and likely to be an economical family friend. A mixed driving route of town and country roads, with a dash of autobahn thrown in, showed 50.3mpg on the trip computer. I might have hoped for a bit more, but most of the time the hybrid was out of its comfort zone, which is firmly in urban settings.

Nicer to drive, around town too, was the 1.3 litre petrol only model with its manual gearchange, which managed 42.2mpg on a purely city based drive, also outside this particular model's comfort zone, where you would certainly do better with some country roads behind it.

Toyota expects half its sales to be hybrids by 2020.

We'll have to wait and see.