General Comments:

I rented this car and drove it for about 9,000 km (5,600 miles) around parts of the USA and Canada for a few weeks.

It’s good to drive around town. It feels very nimble and easy to drive, although not that zippy on take off. Unfortunately, it’s not very good for long distance driving. The front seat has no lumbar support, so my back started getting very stiff after a few days of driving several hours a day. I ended up having to buy a cushion for my back. The seat cushion is also too flat and my thighs would get quite numb. The tyre roar at highway speed is also very loud, though this could be partly due to the brand of tyres.

The radar cruise control is too sensitive. It seems to react to the bottom of hills, as though it thinks the bottom of the hill is another car. It also seems to shift the transmission down aggressively when going down hill, which sounds and feels annoying. The old style, non-radar cruise control (which can also be selected), just eases off the accelerator. Also, the radar range I set would never be remembered. The default setting was for the longest range, which no one anywhere on planet earth would ever observe. Even the shortest range was still a bit too far away, because I’d approach a car and be getting ready to overtake, but then the stupid radar would slow the car down. I stopped using it on freeways after a few days. Too risky when you need to take advantage of gaps.

I’ve driven several cars with continuously variable automatic transmissions and I really dislike them. This one is too slow to react to a sudden need for acceleration, and when you do need to suddenly accelerate - say, when merging onto a freeway - it screams out with a sound like a slipping clutch. I know that’s how a CVT is supposed to sound, but it sounds awful and embarrassing!

The side mirrors aren’t big enough. Even without any overlap between them and the centre rear view mirror, there’s still blind spots to the sides.

I picked up the car shortly before it clicked over to 20,000 miles. Once it clicked over, the ‘maintenance required’ message that popped up on the dashboard every time I started the car never ceased to give me the poos. It was a rental car. I’m not going to service it! Stop harassing me! Even if I did own it, I do every second service myself, so this would be a continuing annoyance.

Aside from these issues, the car kept going without problems and I guess in the end that’s why people buy Toyotas.

Faults:

None.

General Comments:

We rented a Toyota Corolla for our trip in Los Angeles. We were truly satisfied with this car. Engine performance is just right for the car. The car is powerful for all the driving that you want to do. Fuel consumption is also good. Speaking of comfort, legroom is adequate and your legs won't get strained even after a long drive. Aircon is also very good. The radio is also very good too. All I can say is that the Corolla has always been a great car.

This is known as the Corolla Altis in my home country for the almost 2 decades now. I know many friends and relatives who own these kind of cars ever since. I am also used to driving Toyotas back home. We own a Camry and a Fortuners, and we are also very satisfied with those cars. We have also owned Corollas before (a 1990 small body and my grandparents' 1993 big body). I also had a relative who had a 1990 small body.