mmarshall

By request, a Review of the 2015 Toyota Corolla

http://www.toyota.com/corolla/

IN A NUTSHELL: Ubiquitous, reliable transportation, and one of the best-selling cars in history.


CLOSEST U.S.-MARKET COMPETITORS: Honda Civic, Mazda 3, Mitsubishi Lancer, Ford Focus, Chevrolet Cruze, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza (though Imprezas are AWD), Dodge Dart, Jeep Compass (the Compass is actually a redone FWD compact car), Hyundai Elantra, Kia Forte, VW Jetta.


;


;


;


;


;


;




(base interior with manual climate control and without NAV)


;


(NAV/automatic climate control)




;






OVERVIEW:

The ubiquitous Corolla is arguably the best-selling passenger car in history....the closest figures to it probably come from the VW Beetle (both the old air-cooled rear-engine and newer FWD versions), but truly accurate Beetle sales figures may never be known, since the Beetle itself dates back to the mid-1930s, and some of the records in Germany were destroyed by fighting in World War II. And there's a reason for the Corolla's popularity over so many decades...its longstanding reputation for simple, reliable transportation that won't break down before the monthly payments stop. Early models (and, by "early", I generally refer to the ones produced before the 1980s) had a tendency to bounce like a rubber ball over bumps and rust out in harsh climates where lots of salt was used on the roads, but the engines and drivetrains were solid as a rock....particularly with the 5-speed manual-overdrive transmissions, as the ancient 3-speed automatics, without overdrive, tended to buzz the engine in high gear. La ter models solved the rust problem and tamed the bouncy suspension, and then the Corolla developed a reputation for exactly the opposite....a smooth, quiet ride and good refinement by compact-car standards.


The first version was introduced in 1966, with subsequent redesigns (roughly) every 4-6 years..........1970, 1974, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2006, and the, (depending on the market), 2012 as a 2013 or in 2013 as a 2014 model. Various Corolla body styles and spinoffs were introduced over the years, including 5-door wagons, 3 and 5-door hatchbacks, 2 and 4-door sedans, and a few attempts at sport-oriented and AWD versions. General Motors, for several years, marketed rough (but not exact cookie-cutter) re-badges of the Corolla as the Chevrolet Nova and Chevrolet/Geo Prizm, and then, later on, the Pontiac Vibe.....a version of the Toyota Matrix that itself was derived from the Corolla. But probably the most noted of the Corolla spinoffs was the slightly smaller Toyota Tercel FWD subcompact of 1981, which then went on, in the U.S. market, to become the Toyota Echo and then today's Yaris. Corollas themselves, formerly RWD, changed to a FWD platform for 1983/84, and have remained so ever since. I never actually owned a Corolla myself, but have known a number of persons who have, and most have had very good experiences. My late mother, though, had a nice light blue 1996 Corolla wagon until she passed away at the end of 2000 (I helped her shop for it and buy it), and I drove it enough times to get a pretty good feel for it....I liked it, except for somewhat tinny doors and fenders. I've still got the papers and original price-sticker for that car with the documents for my mom's estate (I was her executor, at her request)....though me and my brother sold it after she passed away. Toyota, unfortunately, dropped the U.S.-market Corolla wagons after that version was redesigned...a shame, since it was a nice useful body style (and my mom sure put hers to good use).

The latest Corolla was re-designed a couple of years ago, and, for 2015, for the U.S. market, is offered in L, LE, LE Eco, and (slightly) sport-oriented S models. Base prices start at $16,950 for the L and run to $19,195 for the S model. The 4 basic trim lines, though, also run in Grade, Plus, and Premium sub-levels that can raise the base price. As before, in the U.S. market, only one body-style is offered.....a 4-door sedan. One engine is offered.....an in-line 1.8L four of 132 HP and 128 ft-lbs. of torque (LE Eco models use a modified version of this engine with different valve-technology and slightly different power figures). Two different automatic transmissions are offered in the U.S. market. Base L versions get a quite dated 4-speed automatic (many competitors have converted to a 6-speed automatic), and the others get a CVT. I'm generally not a fan of CVTs, but why Toyota doesn't just use it here across the board beats me.....it would probably make the production process a lot simpler. The web site is unclear whether the base L models can get a conventional 6-speed manual transmission...the specs column says it is not available, but the "Build Your Own" Corolla feature shows it as standard on the L version. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen conflicts or omissions on an auto manufacturer's website......that's something they have to work on.

I looked at several new Corolla interiors, but, for the rest of the review and the test-drive, chose a white LE model with a nice two-tone Ash Gray/Black interior and the base-level wheels/tires. I figured this is the way that many Corollas would be sold, as not many people buy the Corolla for sport-orientation, but the base L model is stuck with that dated 4-speeed automatic I figured most people wouldn't want. I figured the S model, with lower-profile tires and recalibrated steering, would ride a little firmer and steer a little quicker, but, again, most people probably wouldn't buy a Corolla for that.

While I was at the dealership, the salesman (a nice older fellow who got me the keys for the Corollas I reviewed) was writing up paperwork on a nice white LE Corolla for an older lady who had not bought a new car since 1973. When he learned I was doing a Corolla review, he invited me over to meet her and help answer any questions she had. A very nice lady (I was glad to meet her).....she was eager to hear how much new cars had changed in 40 years, and what to expect. She invited me to also use her new Corolla as a static-review example, which I did for some of the non-test-drive parts. I gave her (as I often do for people who get new vehicles) a small complementary bottle of SCRATCH-OUT. The salesman verified what a good product it is......he uses it on his own personal cars. (And, luck of the draw, wouldn't you know it...a line of severe thunderstorms hit the area that evening........typical in this area with summer cold fronts. I hope her brand new car, not even a day old, wasn't damaged by hail or tree branches...that's more than SCRATCH-OUT can handle.)



MODEL REVIEWED: 2015 Toyota Corolla LE

BASE PRICE: $18,565


OPTIONS:

Carpeted Mats/Trunk Mat: $225


DESTINATION/FREIGHT: $825 (about average for a car this size)

LIST PRICE AS REVIEWED: $19,615


DRIVETRAIN: FWD, Transversely-mounted 1.8L in-line four, 132 HP @ 6000 RPM, Torque 128 Ft-lbs. @ 4400 RPM, CVT transmission. .


EPA MILEAGE RATING: 29 City, 38 Highway, 32 Combined


EXTERIOR COLOR: Super White

INTERIOR: Ash (Light Gray) Fabric



PLUSSES:

Solid record of good reliability.

Generally low depreciation

Relatively inexpensive and affordable....especially the base versions.

Decent but not sporty road manners.

Reasonably good refinement and noise control for this class of car.

Generally good underhood layout for DIY'ers.

Solid-closing doors and trunk-lid.

Decent, though not excellent, exterior color paint-choice.

Excellent-quality paint jobs.

Generally clear, simple controls/gauges.

Comfortable front seats for a person my size, both in cloth and leather.

Adequate headroom up front for tall persons.

Good interior materials and hardware for a car in this class.
(Better, in fact, than the much more expensive Toyota Avalon)

Relatively well-trimmed cargo area.




MINUSES:

No underhood insulation pad.

Mushy brake pedal.

Manual hood prop-rod instead of struts.

No body-side mouldings for parking-lot protection.

Body sheet metal rather thin (despite the solid-closing doors).

Painted-silver wheel covers in base version look and feel cheap.

Hard, unpleasant sun-visor material.

Tight rear headroom and entry/exit for tall persons.

Relatively small trunk lid limits size of what can be stuffed through it.

Why two different automatic transmissions?.....Doesn't make sense.



EXTERIOR:

The exterior of this latest Corolla, though noticeably different from past models, clearly labels the Corolla as part of the present Toyota family....in some ways, a mini-Camry. Probably the most noticeable (and controversial) feature, at first glance, is the rather large trapezoid-shaped blacked-out grille under the front center-bar and Toyota logo. I generally was not a fan of its looks myself....to me, it had too much of the scowling-mad look seen on the Mitsubishi Lancer and Evo. But, of course, subjective opinions will differ on styling features like this, and, for that reason, I didn't list it as ether a PLUS or a MINUS.

The exterior sheet metal on most body parts had a thin, unsubstantial feel, but the doors and trunk lid still closed with a precise, solid thunk. The twin side-mirror housings didn't snap/swivel/lock quite as slickly as on some other Toyota products, but still were easy to push-swivel if needed. Base models, though with body-colored mirror housings, lack a power-adjustment for the mirrors....you do it by hand. Other models get a power-adjustment, but only the S model gets integrated turn-signal indicators in the mirror-housings (the indicators are a safety-feature that, IMO, should be standard across the board).

There is no standard body-side molding to help ward off parking-lot dings.....but some nice thick ones that appear to be effective are a $209 accessory option (again, IMO, they should be standard or a no-cost option). The choice of paint colors is OK if you look at the whole range......but Toyota's marketing weirdly restricts only 3-5 colors to each trim-model and package....base L models, for instance, get only black, slate, or gray, while other trim-levels get a few brighter colors as well, which differ by model. I see no reason why all of the available colors can't be offered across the board...just silly marketing restrictions. However,the paint job itself is excellent, especially by entry-level car standards.....Toyota and Lexus are known for better-than-average paint jobs, even if some of them have been slipping lately. Base and some LE models get steel wheels with cheap-looking/feeling painted silver plastic covers....other versions get nice-looking dark alloy wheels with a good finish, with wheel/tire size varying by model.



UNDERHOOD:

Open up the hood, and you are greeted with a manual prop-rod to hold it up instead of nice struts. There is no underhood insulation pad, just bare painted sheet metal...unusual even in the entry-level class. The actual fit of the transversely-mounted 1.8L in-line four, however, underhood, was pretty good. Except for the big black plastic engine cover that blocked top-engine access, I generally liked the way things were laid out. There was some room to reach lower-components on the sides of the engine block. The battery, up front on the right, was simple to reach, with its terminals exposed and uncovered for easy access and cleaning. All of the dipsticks, filler-caps, and fluid reservoirs were easily reached.



INTERIOR:

Now that I had time to spend a while and look at it more closely, the interior, IMO, is definitely one of the car's better features...better than the brief cursory inspection I gave it at the D.C. Auto Show in January, where I was looking at literally hundreds of vehicles. There was very little inside that I really didn't like...only the hard, unpleasant-feeling but thick and durable sun-visors and (for tall persons) the somewhat tight rear headroom and entry/exit from the rear seat took away anything from a generally pleasant experience inside. Yes, rear legroom could be a little tight if one had the front seat adjusted way back. But, all in all, not a bad job at all for a car in this class. The overall hardware quality inside, I might add, was noticeably better than in its own big brother, the MUCH more expensive Toyota Avalon....I was very unimpressed with some of the Avalon's flimsy and poorly-done interior parts. True, some versions of the Corolla lack the wood-tone trim inside that some versions of the Avalon get, but it's not meant to be a luxury car.....simply a run-of-the-mill compact.

The front seats, whether cloth or leather, were quite comfortable (though not as large or cushy as those in my Verano) , with soft cushions, especially compared to the ultra-hard cushions you find in some lower-level Japanese and Korean vehicles. The supportive seat-back bolsters felt a little confining at first, but I got used to them after only a minute or two, and they fit like a glove. The seat-upholstery in both cloth/vinyl and leather seats felt of good quality. The gauges were clear, simple, and easy to read (they varied in layout somewhat among the different Corolla versions). The buttons and controls, in the Corolla tradition, were simple and easy to decipher and use....though, in the automatic climate-control versions, I didn't care much for the side-to-side operation of the fan-speed rocker-switch. The three spoke steering wheel was attractive and felt good. Its closeness to the dash gave the interior and driving position somewhat of an Italian feel to it, but that could be adjusted with the manually-operated tilt/telescope feature. The glove box lid (which felt as thin as a piece of cardboard, with an equally flimsy latch, in the Avalon) was much more solid and substantial in the Corolla. The zig-zag shift lever, a Toyota staple, remains...I'm not a fan of that design, but I know subjective opinions differ on it. The big, thick, door-pull grips for the front seats felt tank-solid themselves, though there was a small amount of looseness at their attach-points on the door trim. The interior trim materials varied from mostly hard but durable-feeling plastic on the door panels (with padded elbow-rests) to mostly light-padded on the dash, with an area of shiny black hard plastic in the mid-dash. The stereo sound quality was quite good for a car in this class, though that seems to be the case for most stereo units in most of today's vehicles......it's rare to find a really tinny one.

All in all, a very good job inside, and I think the interior will do more to sell this car than the outside.



CARGO COMPARTMENT/TRUNK:

The raked rear roofline (as with many sedans nowadays) impacts on the size of the trunk-lid opening, and the Corolla is a relatively small car to begin with, so the trunk-lid opening may compromise the size of some of the packages and luggage that you can stuff through it. However, it opens and shuts with a relatively solid, precise sound and feel, and, inside, the cargo area itself is relatively roomy for a car this size. The split 60/40 rear seats drop down for added cargo room, if desired, but only for things that can fit through the access-hole. The cargo floor is well-carpeted, with a Corolla logo stitched into it and a nice plush feel to the carpet used, though the carpet does not extend up the side walls. Under the floor is the usual temporary spare tire. I used to complain about temporary spare tires in my reviews (and I still think it is cheapness and cost-cutting on the part of the auto industry)....but, at least, it beats the even worse set-up with the compressed-air, Fix-a-Flat bottles that the bean-counters put into some vehicles.



ON THE ROAD:

Start up the small 1.8L in-line four with (on the LE model) a conventional ignition key and side-column switch, and it idles quite smoothly and quietly, as Toyota and Honda-designed fours tend to do. On the road it remains relatively smooth and quiet, with only a small amount of noise as the CVT allows it to rev (again, as CVTs often tend to do). The wimpy 126 ft-lbs. of torque doesn't look like much on paper, but the acceleration is adequate for normal driving when paired with the efficient CVT......I wouldn't want to be stuck with the old 4-speed automatic on the base model, though. The CVT transmission's road-manners, though not entirely devoid of the typical motorboating/rubber-banding, are quite good for that type of transmission...Toyota's drivetrain engineers seem to have worked on it. Road and wind noise was reasonably well-controlled for this class of car....better than some of its rivals, though road noise seemed a little higher than in some previous Corollas from years past that I sampled, perhaps from slightly less insulation in the wheel-wells. Steering response was not particularly quick, but fine for the type of driving this car is designed for........the Corolla S model would probably respond a little quicker. Ride comfort, with the base-level wheels/tires was reasonably good over bumps, though the tires were a couple of PSI over cold recommended pressures from sitting out in the hot sun, and, in some instances, would be even smoother. Some body roll was present with sharp steering inputs, but not bad. As with past Corollas and their mushy brakes, I wasn't terribly impressed with the brakes or mushy pedal on this newest version of the Corolla, either, though the pedal itself was mounted reasonably good enough in relation to the gas pedal that my big, circus-clown, Men's-size-15 right shoe didn't hang up much on the underside of the brake pedal when lifting from gas to brake...a problem for me on some vehicles.



THE VERDICT:

Toyota. IMO, has generally done a good job with the basic design of this latest Corolla, though the idiotic marketing of the two different automatic transmissions and extreme color-choice restrictions within the different trim levels don't make much sense to me. There is also the question of manual-transmission availability on the L model and the web-site discrepancy. Insulation in the wheel wells doesn't sound quite as effective as in previous models, and the bean-counters have left a few other things out that I think should be standard, but overall, it is hard to complain about this car. It gives just as good or better overall quality than some more expensive Toyota sedans, and keeps decent road manners. It is quite comfortable for this class of car, and, if I weren't already driving an even more comfortable Buick Verano compact, would probably consider a new Corolla as an inexpensive daily driver. And, of course, there is the Corolla's good reliability record to fall back on. Overall, it is easy to see why so many Corollas have gone out the front doors of so many Toyota dealerships over the years.....yes, arguably, the best-selling car in history. They have satisfied a lot of people, and have been a wise way to spend their automotive dollars.

And, as always......Happy car-shopping.

MM

JDR76

I've owned two Corollas - a '77 coupe and an '88 coupe. Numerous Corollas in the family as well. My sister currently drives an '06 as her commuter car.

My '77 was a tank. Heavy, and not necessarily fun, but it did what I needed it to do. My '88 was a blast. Back when pop up headlights were cool, it was quite the ride. Fun 5 speed, moonroof, quality, comfy interior, and reliable enough to let me sail right through college without expensive car repairs.

I have a lot of respect for these cars.

mmarshall

Yeah, the mid-late 70s Corollas were some of the toughest ever built from tank-like assembly-solidness. But, like most Japanese-designed vehicles back then, they tended to rust out in bad weather from salt on the roads. That problem wasn't solved for several years after that.

JDR76

By the time I got rid of it (it had been passed down in the family for a while) it was nearly 20 years old. I do not live in a very corrosive environment, and the car had been well cared for, so thankfully it didn't have a spot of rust on it. It had nearly 200k miles on it when I parted with it.

Toys4RJill

How on Earth is it possible that a Toyota Corolla and a Jeep Compass are market alternatives or competitors?

mmarshall

If you are not aware of it, the Jeep Compass was derived from the now-discontinued FWD compact Dodge Caliber, a Corolla competitor for several years before it was replaced by the newer Dodge Dart. The Compass is the only American-market Jeep that does not offer AWD/4WD and/or a version with an off-road Trail-Rating.

The Compass was never meant to be a traditional Jeep...which, of course, it is not. It was Jeep's first attempt to break into other markets, not off-road-centered as was Jeep's forte for so many years.

Toys4RJill

Why are you not comparing the Corolla to the Verano?

mmarshall

Different price class, different market segment, different buyer-demographics. The Corolla, though Toyota did a nice job on the interior and road manners considering its class, is an entry-level compact (as opposed to the Yaris, which is a subcompact). It competes with other vehicles, like the Honda Civic and Mazda3, in that size/price/demographics class. The Verano is not only slightly larger in physical size than the Corolla, but, as an entry-level semi-luxury car, competes in a higher price class....with the Audi A3 and Acura ILX. Of course, all three are derived from lesser-grade compacts..........the Verano from the Opel Astra and Chevy Cruze, the ILX from the Honda Civic, and A3 from the VW Golf and Jetta.

bagwell

Nice review Mike.
I rented an S for a long weekend recently and was really impressed...I really couldn't tell if the tranny was CVT or not...very refined!!!.but being the S, I figured it was. My passengers kept calling it a Camry because if its size and appearance.

mmarshall

Thanks.

Your S, with its recalibrated steering and more sport-oriented wheels/tires, probably had a slightly different feel on the road than the LE I sampled........sharper response and a firmer ride. I sampled the LE because I figured most (or at least a majority of) Corolla buyers would choose that version, as it comes with the more efficient CVT transmission (as opposed to the L model's 4-speed automatic), but doesn't cost as much as the S.

Toys4RJill

Interesting that you will not admit that it is a competitor of the Verano yet you compared it to your own Verano in your review. You mentioned it twice and then said that you would maybe own one of you did not own a Verano.

The fully loaded Corolla is a direct competitor in every way to a mid level or high end Verano.

Toys4RJill

The S model has the exact same engine and CVT as the LE. There is no difference whatsoever from the power train.

balMaster

I think bagwell meant CVT vs 4 speed auto. Not S CVT vs LE CVT. I think he meant this in his sentence --->

chromedome

Talk about parts sharing, the center air vents look the same as in the ES!

mmarshall

If I was to consider a car in a lower price and market-class, yes, the Corolla would be a consideration. But it is not a Verano, any more than a Timex watch is a Rolex.

Sure it is...in La-La Land.