Faults:

The headliner started falling off at about 81,000 km.

The clock light has stopped working.

The cassette deck acts weirdly sometimes.

General Comments:

I bought this car new at Lane Toyota in Glen Waverley in late April 1996. It has served me faithfully over all these years with nary a complaint.

Performance is acceptable considering it's an automatic.

Parts, if needed, are plentiful and cheap, as you can go to the local pick-n-pull and get the parts for chips.

It's easy to park.

Gets about 9L/100km / 26 MPG / 31 MPG in the city and about 6.5L / 36 MPG / 43 MPG on the freeway, so very economical. I would recommend the car.

Oh, and the seats are okay, and being locally produced, I supported local manufacturing at the time.

Faults:

- Distributor

- Timing belt

- Spark plugs & wires

- Battery

- Head light

- Driver's side mirror

- A few other bits and bobs

General Comments:

I bought the Corolla off the previous owner for $300, knowing it needed most of the items I listed (previous owner had already replaced the suspension and brakes only 6 months prior to the distributor letting go). Total cost for the car was $1400.

Once it was up and running, I did some rust repair (which was minor) and it's been running daily since.

Even with 249,000kms, it still gets fantastic gas mileage, getting about 600kms per tank (it only takes $38 to fill from empty!).

The 1.6L engine is okay, it's not the fastest thing in the world, but it's responsive and will give you some speed when you ask for it, although when you are fully loaded (4 people) with stuff in the trunk, you will notice a significant performance decrease.

Contrary to what most people think, I actually like the look of the Corolla. It handles really well, and is your basic from point A to point B daily driver. The only complaint I have with my Corolla is that she does use oil - about 1 liter every 500-600kms (it's valve seals, the car was sitting for about 1 year before I was able to fix it up.)

Overall, this is a great all round car, and is perfect for anything you might need it for.

Faults:

Only thing I've had go wrong is that the battery died (it was the original battery that came with the car).

General Comments:

Excellent reliability, 1.6 engine surprisingly punchy given its age also. Lags slightly with a few people or extra weight in the car (eg heavy luggage)

Faults:

Nothing major went wrong with the car, practically nothing at all!

The starter cap started to go at around 160,000 kms; that's it, and this is a normal maintenance type repair. It gave me fair warning, and the cap never fully went, it just made starting the car on the first try difficult at times, and I had to turn the key many times to get it going eventually.

General Comments:

Words cannot explain my love for this car!

Drove from Canada to Los Angeles 3 times! And many other long distance trips. This car never let me down. Decent on gas, averaging about 400km-520 (Hwy Driving) per tank.

I should mention, this car, previous to myself owning it had 5 rearenders and not once was the car affected from it.

EXCELLENT vehicle (this one was made in Japan BTW) - I have since upgraded to a newer 98 Corolla with A/C, and it has been just as good so far.