Gadgetory

the Corolla is Toyota's oldest nameplate stretching back uninterrupted to about the mid 60s as a matter of fact for about as long as there's been a Toyota in North America there's been a Corolla image lineup and the decades have been good to the Corolla it's enjoyed a long period of success where for many years it's only real competition was the Honda Civic but then things went a bit pear-shaped almost literally the Corolla got little fat got a little lazy in it just sort of stopped innovating at the same pace as the rest of the market yet the Corolla is still one of the most popular cars on the road so we've picked up this 2016 Corolla s special edition to find out just what's so special about it now despite its really aggressive probably over designed exterior the Toyota Corolla isn't really packing what I'd call a modern powertrain for example your average cruller driver is only nominally interested in the fact that the 1.8 liter engine puts out 132 horsepower and 128 pound-feet of torque the 1.8 liter engine is paired in most Corolla models with Toyota's new CVT if' that's continuously variable transmission that has a manual shift program on the road on the highway the engine and transmission combo we're together pretty well for that sort of basic transportation sort of driving style it responds particularly well to smooth inputs so for example if you want to pass someone on the highway don't stab the pedal just sort of roll on to it and even to the gas if you kind of personally treat the accelerator like an on/off switch you're gonna start noticing a little bit of hesitation and uncertainty from the transmission and choosing its ratios which is gonna make the whole car just feel a lot more disappointing now at the base of the shifter we've got a little button that says Sport don't press that don't ever press that as a matter of fact get a screwdriver pry it out of here and forget it ever existed end up with a lot of that sort of rubber band II hunching for the right ratio and hesitation that you typically associate with bad Phebe T's and the car ends up feeling less responsive than as in its normal mode you absolutely must Chuck your Corolla ass into a corner just reach down and flap the transmission into its manual shift mode it's going to give you access to the paddle shifters where you can choose from six fixed ratios much like you would with a standard automatic transmission there's a lot of body roll and squat and dive which ends up making extended passages on a twisty road just feel a lot more fatiguing than they probably should be the curl is interior design is a bit old-school it's got a high dashboard in its infotainment system is down low in the dash where the rest of the market is sort of pushing the infotainment up higher into the line-of-sight and using larger screens here we've got this relatively small Intune system but it's a pretty good infotainment setup it's not what I would call cutting edge but it is snapping in its performance and things are generally where you expect them to be now what I don't like is the base six speaker stereo system that we've got with this Corolla in it's probably the worst stereo I've listened to all year granted most of the cars that come into our office have a premium audio system but my 1999 mazda miata bose system sounds better than this with the top down if you absolutely need more performance than what I just described there here's a really cool trick I'll be your Toyota Corolla head down to your Toyota dealership and then trade it in for a Scion fr-s it's about the same amount of money and you'll thank me later it can be a bit difficult to speak critically about the Toyota Corolla because for many years it set the standard for what this class of vehicle is though it was the standard I'm not sure it's the gold standard anymore vehicles like the Hyundai Elantra in the new Mazda 3 are really eating the Corollas lunch right now and it's old rival the Honda Civic just got a really big update that's looking really good by comparison am I about 18 to $25,000 any of those vehicles is probably a better pick but this one's that's not bad