Legendary reliability
Nothing just the normal wear and tear; tyre, brake pads, new battery.
One of the best cars you can get in your lifetime.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 29th April, 2010
Brilliant little car
Drivers door check starp worn at 300000kms.
One of the most reliable and cheap to run vehicles ever.
Over 300000kms with not one oil or coolant leak, only ever required services, tyre's and brakes.
Gets over 100000kms on brake pads.
Owner is mechanic and serviced vehicle for fleet since new.
Very durable interior and comfortable enough on long trips.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 22nd July, 2008
Legendary Toyota build quality and reliability
No faults to date.
Typical Toyota reliability; faultless.
Sufficient room for a family. Comfy and quiet for a diesel.
Engine a bit gutless, hence marking down to a 7. Would not suit the boy racers!
Interior pretty bland and boring.
Handles well considering it is a tall car.
Good fuel consumption, averaging around 48mpg (British).
Previous car was a diesel Civic, which was a break in Toyota ownership for some 12 years (Carina.s) Civic not a patch on either Carina or Corolla for build quality and refinement.
In my opinion anyway.
Toyota is the only car that has stood the test of the state of the roads where I live, that's the best recommendation I can give.
If you want speed, and excitement buy something else.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 3rd February, 2008
Would purchase another
Have replaced brakes twice in 2 years.
Had to replace serpentine belt at 50,000.
Buttons for controls break easily.
Once in a while it does not want to start. After waiting about 10 seconds,it starts. I have taken to the dealer, but they can't find the problem
The car is overall excellent. I bought this car in June 2005 44,000 miles on it. At about 65,000 the motor started tapping, and I was told by the dealer that it was normal. I tried premium gas, but it still taps.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 25th January, 2008
Best car that I have owned
Well I have owned this car from new, and after nearly 5 years and 110,000 kilometers. Nothing has gone wrong until this this week, when a warning came on telling me to go to the garage to check the engine. It appears that there is a small fault with the catalyst converter, but nothing urgent according to the garage, and the car can be driven as normal, but should be checked if the light comes on once again.
I first wrote about this car soon after purchase, and as I said then, this is the best car that I have ever owned, it has been 100% reliable for nearly 5 years, comfortable and relaxing to drive, with a good turn of speed, and quiet. The auto gearbox has performed smoothly without fault, and the kick-down works well, but there is a slight lag before it changes down. I usually change my cars after 5 years, and fully expected to buy another Corolla 4 door sedan, (very few hatchbacks are bought in Israel, and nearly all cars are automatics), but unfortunately the new Corolla (and Auris) sold here now comes with that awful MMT gearbox, and is horrible to drive, so Honda Civic here I come.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 15th August, 2007
Toyota is not as good as they claim to be
The suspention was not the most appropriate to the performance of the car. I began to change the original springs with TTE springs, lowering 3cm. Notice that TTE springs are in fact Eibach springs, as I could check on the springs documentation. The springs would jump out of their correct positions because the shock absorbers were extending more than expected. I changed then for Kony Sport, now limiting the extending of the absorbers in less 2 cms. Now the springs do not move out of their positions.
I had a water loss in the refrigeration circuit. It was not significant, but it was necessary to change a metal pipe that was part of the circuit.
Now comes my huge problem. I always had the car assisted in Toyota's representatives. My car is currently with 119.700Km. Around one week ago I started feeling strange noise from the engine when curving to the left. I went to Toyota, they tested the car and said it should be an exhaust pipe noise, so I could wait a few days for the 120.000 revision to check the problem. 3 days after I was driving at around 4000 rpm when suddenly the engine started to make a huge noise, like when two pieces of metal are beaten one against the other. At the same time, 3 lights turned on - the engine problem light, the VSC light and the TRC OFF light. It was Sunday. I checked the manual about these lights and the instructions were to get the car to Toyota dealer. Nothing was mentioned about not using the engine anymore. I drove back home, for about 25Km, removed all the things I had in the car to prepare it to go to Toyota in the next day. I ordered a tow to avoid extra problems. Late that night I remembered to check the oil level, despite the oil warning light never went on. For my surprise, there was almost no oil in the engine, as I had to add 2 liters to reach the minimum required quantity of oil in the engine. After adding the oil, the noise from the engine was quite reduced. The problem is that now Toyota says that my can engine is quite ruined, needing a repair much higher than 5000€. They have shown me the layers of the knuckles completely smashed. Now my questions are:
1 - shouldn't the oil light be on? A car that never had problems consuming oil should not require frequent oil level checks;
2 - As I took the car to Toyota and they tested it, saying that the reported noise could be resolved in the next revision, aren't they responsible for this situation, as they did not evaluate it properly?
3 - The garage responsible said that I should not use the engine immediately after the engine yellow light turns on, so it was my fault. However, the user manual just says to take the car to Toyota, not to stop using it immediately;
4 - Finally, how did the car spent around 3 liters of oil in 15000 Km, as there is no oil leakage in the engine, there is no smoke in the exhaust pipe, it does not present any oil marks and I park the car in my garage and there in no oil on the floor!!
Does anyone had such a problem? Can someone help me?
So far, I only had a good opinion about Toyota and, despite it is 5,5 years old, I intended to keep it for a long, long time.
The only design problem I could mention was related with its suspension, which was too soft for such a powerful car.
Now my oppinion has completely changed. I do not intend to spend such an amount of money repairing the car, so I consider that Toyota has a great responsibility on what happened. I am still waiting for their statement, but do not expect anything positive for me. I had 4 cars from Citroen in the past and never had such a problem.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know
Review Date: 18th July, 2007
An oil leak may not actually show up on your garage floor. First off, if it is minor, it could simply burn up on the engine block before it drips to the floor. Second, some oil leaks only occur when the engine is revving and the oil is at its hottest. Hot oil is thinner than cool oil, and may leak out only when it is hot and thin, and being pumped through the motor (under pressure). By the time you get the car into the garage and turn off the ignition, the oil is not under pressure, and is not as hot and thin as when you were driving. I could of course be completely wrong, but it sounds like you just have a hard to find oil leak.
I also have a 2002 Corolla, with 100k miles. This is my first Toyota, as usually I owned American cars, which I miss. Last one was a 99' Chrysler Intrepid that I sold for 300 bucks still running with all original parts and 200k miles.
In my opinion, the Corolla doesn't offer anything beside low gas consumption problems that Corollas have. When starting at cold temperature, the engine has a ticking noise, especially when accelerating, until the engine temperature gets normal. When starting the engine from warm, I hear a knocking from the engine for a second or two, and this is not getting any better. If you don't believe me, do a search on google for Corolla engine problems and you'll see it for yourself.
The Corolla is an overrated car, and will be my first and last Toyota.
P.S I also own a 2006 Civic Si coupe and a 2007 Mazda 3. Can't say much about those as they have low km, 15k miles and 12k miles.
26th Jan 2008, 12:06
Well I have the twin to this car the Chevrolet/Geo Prizm and my engine also started making a tapping noise around 70,000 miles and the mechanic said it was normal for these engines. Its been a great I don't think I could have bought anything more reliable than this.