The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Base Corolla loaded with features
Throw in the Corolla’s long-term reliability and indestructible reputation, and you really can’t go wrong.
It marked a significant first — a press car with absolutely no options. No automatic transmission nor an upsell for paint colour.
My Toyota Corolla L was a base stocker with a six-speed manual transmission and a pre-tax price of $19,150.
Back in 2015, the Corolla’s starting point was the CE, a bare-bones ride with no infotainment screen, no Apple Carplay, and no safety aids other than anti-lock brakes and stability control.
In fact, there wasn’t even a standard backup camera. The cost back then for the no-option model was $15,995. Yes, the difference of $3,155 to my tester is a chunk of change, but the level of standard equipment in today’s Corolla more than makes up for the premium.
The 2021 Corolla L has all of those missing items, including a seven-inch infotainment screen that works with Apple Carplay and Android Auto, and the backup camera.
Advanced safety aids like a pre-collision system with pedestrian and bicycle detection, dynamic cruise control, lane departure alert with lane-keep assist and auto high beams are also now standard fare.
None of these aids were offered in 2015. In fact, blindspot monitoring and heated front seats were the only two missing items that should be standard.
The rest of the cabin features soft-touch materials, and comfortable front seats with height adjustment for the driver. This, and the tilt/ telescopic steering wheel, allows the Corolla to fit a wide range of driver sizes.
Likewise, the sightlines are clean and uncluttered. Slide rearward and there’s plenty of space for two adults — there’s decent legroom as long as the front seats are not fully rearward, and there’s lots of headroom.
However, the middle seat is so-so, because the domed seat base and central tunnel limit both room and comfort. Behind is a 371-litre trunk fronted with 60-40 split/ folding seats. As is common at this end of the market, the trunk hinges tend to crush anything placed below them, although the squared-off nature of the space still leaves lots of room for luggage.
Mechanically, the latest Corolla is a very distant relative to its oh-so-beige and boring predecessor. For most, the Corolla L’s 1.8L four-cylinder will be enough, spinning out 130 horsepower and 126 lb-ft of torque.
Those are small numbers, but when teamed with the manual transmission, the engine delivers livelier performance than it does when working with the optional automatic continuously variable transmission (CVT).
What you learn in a hurry is the manual transmission is not as much fun in traffic as it is when working it through the gears on a twisty road.
Some will argue the added control, and the lack of the CVT’S rubber-band effect and annoying engine noise, make the do-it-yourselfer a better proposition. It is, but with a caveat.
On the typical Toronto commute, the constant on/ off the clutch pedal becomes monotonous. The good news is the Corolla’s clutch pedal action is light. The issue is that the bite point comes a little late in the travel, which amplifies the range of motion needed for every shift.
The gearing also means it takes a lot of rowing through the gears, even at city speeds. The Corolla L has three “acceleration” gears and three overdrives, which mandates a lot of jumping between third and fourth gear to keep the engine at a mild boil.
Likewise, urgency mandates yet more shifting to get the engine back up into the responsive part of the rev range. All of this said, running up and down the gears did stir my inner driver.
It is worth noting the Corolla SE with a manual gearbox ups the engine size to 2.0L and the output to 169 hp and 151 lb.-ft. of torque.
The plus here is that the extra horsepower adds just
0.2 litres per 100 kilometres to the city fuel economy number, so the penalty is small. It does grow to 0.5 L/100 km on the highway because of the different gearing, but, again, the bump in driving pleasure makes the increase a nonissue.
Considering the Corolla L I tested produced an average consumption of 6.7 L/100 km, adding a couple of tenths to this number is not going to kill any budget.
The latest Corolla rides on a stronger platform and it finally gets a more sophisticated multi-link rear suspension in place of the old twist-beam setup. The result is a dramatically different drive.
Yes, the Corolla still favours comfort over handling, but it does so with more poise than ever before. Be it the daily commute or wheeling around town, the suspension cushions the ride and eliminates all but the gnarliest of bumps.
The light steering also pays dividends in the close confines of a tight parking lot — it takes just over 2.5 turns to go from lock-to-lock and it has a tidy 10.8-metres turning circle. All of this makes the Corolla an easier city drive than some of its peers.
The handling side does see some body roll through a corner, and the light steering introduces a little vagueness to the feel at speed, but, again, when compared to its dreaded beige predecessor there is a marked improvement.
The vanilla handling has gone in favour of something with a little more spice.
The well-executed cabin is comfortable, it has most of the desirable safety features, and it’s certainly economical to operate.
Throw in the Corolla’s long-term reliability and indestructible reputation, and you really can’t go wrong.