New Corolla Estate opinions / alternatives?

[EddScott]

They're good cars. Compared to the BMW you will feel the build isn't that great. Thin Paint work that chips easily. Long journeys can be tire-some as the seats aren't that comfortable.

Still they're reliable, and they're common as anything in the PH world now. I'd recommend one, but only if you can get a weekend 'trial' car before hand to see if it's something you could live with.

Thanks for the reply.

I took the 1.8 GR out for a bit.

Build quality is noticeably lower but I could live with that. The change from ICE to battery is almost imperceptible. My BM has the LCD cluster but the Corrola was far more techy which was cool. I liked the HUD.

The screen in the dash although bigger than the BM looked less advanced. Again, could probably live with that too.

Driving position I got comfortable straight away. My gripe though was the seats. The seat part seems a bit short. I'm not particularly tall but felt my legs weren't supported enough. Something I've also found is I get serious leg ache quickly from some seats and I noticed it starting quite quickly here. If I feel like I'm sat "on" the seats rather than in it, my right leg goes numb quickly. As an example, Recaro SR5s (like out of an Integra) are very uncomfortable for me. I'd need another test to be sure.

Where we fell down was with pricing my BM. WBAC quote £18500 but don't want the grief of being knocked down over little things. I'd take £18K plus £8K for the Corrola but they'd only give me £16K. I just wasn't prepared to let my car go for that.

I'm going to take a look at a Passat estate GTE plug in tomorrow.

 

[Vita]

Thanks for the reply.

I took the 1.8 GR out for a bit.

Build quality is noticeably lower but I could live with that. The change from ICE to battery is almost imperceptible. My BM has the LCD cluster but the Corrola was far more techy which was cool. I liked the HUD.

The screen in the dash although bigger than the BM looked less advanced. Again, could probably live with that too.

Driving position I got comfortable straight away. My gripe though was the seats. The seat part seems a bit short. I'm not particularly tall but felt my legs weren't supported enough. Something I've also found is I get serious leg ache quickly from some seats and I noticed it starting quite quickly here. If I feel like I'm sat "on" the seats rather than in it, my right leg goes numb quickly. As an example, Recaro SR5s (like out of an Integra) are very uncomfortable for me. I'd need another test to be sure.

Where we fell down was with pricing my BM. WBAC quote £18500 but don't want the grief of being knocked down over little things. I'd take £18K plus £8K for the Corrola but they'd only give me £16K. I just wasn't prepared to let my car go for that.

I'm going to take a look at a Passat estate GTE plug in tomorrow.

Passat GTE gearbox lol. Read up on them as I was interested in them.

Could your budget not stretch to a Volvo V60/V90 plug in? I’ve gone to Volvo, and in all honesty. Very impressed and the seats are probably as comfortable as you can get in it’s class.

 

[jpaul]

Passat GTE gearbox lol. Read up on them as I was interested in them.

what's wrong then ? I thought the ev motor effectively created a torque convertor making up for the ills of a DCT ? (slipping clutch, juddery take-off)
although the zf/asin boxes in the like of peugot/bmw/merc phevs would be my preference.

 

[Vita]

what's wrong then ? I thought the ev motor effectively created a torque convertor making up for the ills of a DCT ? (slipping clutch, juddery take-off)
although the zf/asin boxes in the like of peugot/bmw/merc phevs would be my preference.

Read and know of a couple of cases where Mecha unit goes dead in box. Not sure how the most recent ones fair but the earlier ones suffered with it.

Totally put me off tbh, so I avoided it.

 

[HangTime]

They've hiked the price a lot since I made the thread, doing away with the Icon Tech trim which basically means you need the Design trim and just generally bumping the price anyway. So you need to spend £34k list (£29k after discounts) instead of <£25k after discount when I posted on 3rd Jan last year. It's been slowly creeping up, I have it setup on carwow and every few months it tells me the manufacturer configuration has changed and I need to refresh the spec.

Now to be fair they have beefed up the engines a bit, the 2.0L is now 196HP and the 1.8 which was previously useless (122hp) is now a more respectable 138hp. But I think they realised this car was previously underpriced compared to alternatives so have steadily increased the price pretty much every quarter or at least half year. They've been a bit sneaky with the trim changes, engine changes etc basically raising the price by 20% under the guise of some very modest improvements.

That said, despite the rising prices I still haven't found anything to usurp it from my window shopping list, right now the choice is basically between this and a Kodiaq (which I'm aware are different types of car, but both fit my criteria pretty much). The situation is basically now pay £29k for a car I could have got a year ago for £25k except for a slightly better engine map. And yet I still can't find a car I want more for under £30k new, it was a 'bargain' at <£25k.

edit: So I guess my original request from over a year ago for alternatives still stands, as I'm still looking for one

 

[jpaul]

Read and know of a couple of cases where Mecha unit goes dead in box. Not sure how the most recent ones fair but the earlier ones suffered with it.

yes ok - looks like the dry 7 speed dct's are a liability ... just need a good warranty (new to me , recently realised the AA seem to be credible players there)

 

[jpaul]

thought this review of the the new corolla , still hybrid, estate, was ominous - wrt to power on the ground and it's box behaviour
(utube must remember I've watched similar in the past)