Toyota Corolla Sedan 2007 Review

Excitement Underload

We know about the new Corolla hatch, but what about the sedan? It's time for a tougher test: a road trip. Heading inland.

There are two of them, on the right side of the road. My stone-clattering approach interrupts their grazing, and both grey kangaroos lift their heads and swivel them in my direction. What happens next is predictable, at least for anyone who's driven much in the bush. An alert roo by the side of a dirt road is a roo getting ready to be alarmed. So I hit the Corolla's brakes, hard. They always jump in front of the car. Always ...

Country people generally rate roo intelligence at a similar level to that of the fabulously stupid sheep. One of this pair must be a member of marsupial Mensa - it bounds for safety, away from danger. The other, as anticipated, leaps onto the road.

With the anti-lock chattering, the roo heads diagonally across my bows. There's a moment when contact between car bumper and roo bum seems inevitable. As the Corolla scrabbles to a halt, the animal leaps as though there's a trampoline concealed in the roadside grass, and easily clears the barbed-wire top strand of the fence to our left.

It's a near miss, and a fine demonstration of Toyota's anti-lock brake calibration expertise. The system is tuned damned well for Australian dirt. It surely saved both car and creature from a great deal of damage.

This is exactly the kind of thing we're aiming to find out. From Brisbane to Sydney, mostly via roads less travelled, our objective is to discover how well the Corolla - now firmly established as Australia's second best-selling car - copes with the nation's wide, open spaces. It's a given that Toyota's not-so-small car (see sidebar, opposite) will cope with the city grind. It's well made and pretty well guaranteed to be reliable and durable. But while most Australian motorists rack up their kilometres in suburbia and CBDs, this isn't a tough driving environment. It's true that transmissions, brakes, suspensions and steering work often, but they don't usually have to work hard. And for engines and body structures, low speeds mean low stress.

The country is different, and I'm talking here about rural two-lane freeways. Higher speeds and greater hazards - roadside roos, for instance - mean that systems are likely to be pushed to the limit. The Corolla's popularity means a good number of owners who either live in the country, or visit it occasionally, will expect the car to work out here.

This is why the route I've chosen heads south-west from Brisbane, over Mount Tambourine onto the Mount Lindesay Highway, before turning south at Urbenville to intercept the Bruxner Highway in northern NSW. Turning right and west, Tenterfield is the next major waypoint, where we turn south again on the New England Highway. To make sure that a decent length of dirt road is included in the drive, we turn right off the highway at the little town of Deepwater. Looping to the west through Emmaville will take us to Inverell, and the route includes around 50km of gravel road.

It's just west of Emmaville, minutes after hitting the dirt, that the close shave with the roo occurs. One question may have been answered, but another needs to be asked. Yes, the proficiency of the Corolla's standard ABS brakes has been dramatically proved, but why has Toyota failed to provide even the option of electronic chassis stability in this new car?

Dodging that roo required a small swerve and recover at the same time as working the brakes hard. It's true that ABS makes it possible to stop and steer at the same time, but it cannot guarantee vehicle stability. That's what an electronic chassis stability system, like Toyota's VSC (Vehicle Stability Control) does. Others in the Corolla class, notably the second best-selling small car, the Mazda 3, and Volkswagen's regular Golf, at least offer electronic chassis stability as an option. In a new-generation car like the Corolla, designed from a clean sheet of paper, its omission is astonishing.

Toyota Australia execs admit it was a mistake to not tick the VSC box when Corolla's technical specification was fixed two to three years back. In the meantime, awareness of the technology's life-saving potential has grown, and Toyota Australia is obviously embarrassed by its decision. VSC will be available in Oz-market cars manufactured from August 2008, although whether as an option or standard equipment, or a bit of both, isn't clear.

There is no obvious technical excuse for this failure to include VSC. The system is optional or standard on all Corolla and Auris (the rest-of-the-world name for our Corolla hatch) models sold throughout Europe. It's an option on mid- and top-grade Corolla automatic sedans in the US. In Japan, where our Corollas are made, VSC is optional on Auris and standard on the top-spec sedan.

Night falls as we head south from Inverell towards Uralla. This secondary rural road is exactly the kind of place where good headlights are a source of comfort. I soon find the Corolla's aren't good. The low-beam is very poor, casting a dim and narrow pool of light just ahead of the car even with the in-cabin headlight adjuster set to '0' for maximum elevation. On high beam the lights' range is reasonable, but both brightness and spread are wanting. Mediocre at best.

Earlier in the day, while the sun was high in the sky, the Corolla sedan had been impressive. Most notable was the superb refinement of the bodyshell and the chassis components bolted to it. The Toyota's structural integrity is unmistakable. There's not the slightest hint of flex. In some cars you can hear the lack of torsional rigidity when cornering - creaking, of course, and in extreme cases an increase in wind noise as door seals lift clear of the twisting body side. And the suspension generally does a fine job of isolating the inevitable noise generated by the tyres. There's a noticeable increase in decibels on coarse-chip bitumen, but even so, the Corolla is surely one of the quietest in its class.

Engine refinement is likewise excellent. Toyota's all-new 1.8-litre four is almost inaudible at idle, quiet and smooth in the midrange, and quite cultured when revved towards the tachometer's redline.

Despite all this, the Corolla's drivetrain isn't as good as it should be. The problem isn't so much the engine, it's the four-speed automatic that's bolted to it. Like the absence of VSC, the absence of a five-speed auto in this new-generation car is a surprise. And not a pleasant one.

The new Corolla's massive weight gain of around 150kg - attributable in part to the car's excellent body stiffness and the five-star Euro NCAP that comes with it - means the engine could really use an extra ratio. The large gaps between the auto's four gears make it feel, and sound, like it's struggling. This impression is later confirmed during performance testing at Oran Park - its 0-100km/h time, for example, is over 10 seconds.

Using the Conquest's standard cruise control on dull stretches of the Bruxner and New England Highways highlights the auto's inadequacies. It's obvious little development was lavished on the cruise control calibration. The result is frequent and sometimes unnecessary downshifts, accompanied by a double jerk as first the torque converter's lock-up clutch is disengaged and then third gear is selected. Adding annoyance, the transmission is prone to hold third gear too long, often sticking with it after a rise has been crested and the road's heading downhill. It's better to leave the car in 'D' and let it respond to throttle depressions, or to manually select whatever gear is appropriate. Other small cars - the Honda Civic for example - have five-speed autos. Some, like the Golf or Astra diesel, have six-speeders. Why can't wealthy, healthy Toyota afford to do likewise?

Still, by the time we reach the pretty little town of Walcha, our overnight stop, neither myself nor photographer Wielecki is feeling fatigued. The car's compliant, decently damped suspension has ironed out the hideously malformed roads of Kyogle Shire. The front seats have been comfortable for hours at a stretch, the driving position is very good and the massive 450 litre boot easily swallowed all our gear with space left over.

Next morning, we point the Corolla south on Thunderbolts Way. This road, which links Walcha and Gloucester, is one of NSW's great little-known routes. It's a wonderful alternative to the New England Highway, further inland. Climbing up and over a spur of the Great Dividing Range, Thunderbolts Way also provides an opportunity to fully explore the Corolla's dynamics.

The Toyota's electrically assisted steering offers the driver weight rather than feel. Although it fails to deliver a great sense of connection, the steering is quick enough and the car responds to inputs with fair precision. Compared with the previous-generation Corolla, the handling is very good, although the car's fat and steeply raked A-pillars do obstruct vision somewhat on curves.

After lunch at Gloucester, we continue south on Bucketts Way, to join the Pacific Highway at Raymond Terrace for the final leg into Sydney. Bucketts Way used to rival Kyogle Shire's roads for roughness, which is why Ford engineers selected it for development work for the Territory's suspension. Sadly, at least from the point of view of suspension engineers and road testers, money is being spent upgrading it.

West of Newcastle, the divided carriageway that continues all the way to Sydney's northern suburbs begins. The Corolla again feels uncomfortable on this freeway's long climbs, but this is the leg of the journey where the Corolla also achieves its best fuel consumption of 7.0L/100km. The worst result was the first stage, where the climbs over Mount Tambourine and Mount Lindesay pushed consumption to 9.3L/100km despite mostly gentle driving. The overall average for the 1000km-plus journey is 8.0L/100km. This is, to be honest, a disappointing result. The new Corolla's bulk and its outmoded auto seem to be the obvious culprits.

Filling the car for the final time, I realise that not once in two long days of driving has anyone expressed the slightest interest in the Corolla. As 91RON unleaded gurgles down the filler neck, I consider the possible reasons for the complete lack of curiosity. Is it simply that Aussies just don't care about small cars, even though more of us are buying them? Or is it something to do with Toyota design? After all, the new Corolla sedan is easily mistaken for a Camry, especially at a distance.

Whichever reason you favour, this Toyota doesn't deserve such indifference. The new Corolla sedan is a much better car than the old one. Its refinement is very impressive, it's comfortable, and at last it has gained a degree of dynamic competence that eluded its predecessor. It's not the sharpest road-carving tool in the small-car drawer, but it will likely more than satisfy the majority of folk who buy it. Still, it would be a car much better suited to all of Australia if it had an electronic chassis stability system (at least as an option), and a five- or six-speed automatic instead of the four-speeder it has. Last but not least, it needs much better headlights. It would be good if they could make a low beam just a little brighter than, say, a roo ...

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES!
My, haven't you grown! While it's obvious the new Corolla is a more substantial car than the previous generation, exactly how much bigger comes as a surprise. Checking the numbers shows Toyota's small car is now larger in almost every way than its medium car used to be.

This 10th-generation Corolla sedan is a longer, wider, taller, heavier, more powerful and faster car than the second-generation Camry launched in Australia in 1987. The two cars, separated by two decades, share just one vital statistic - a 2600mm wheelbase.

As well as highlighting the broad industry trend of inexorable physical growth, the comparison also shows that car size classes are arbitrarily defined and, over time, quite fluid.

*realtime data

Track: Oran Park, dry. Temp: 7°C. Driver: John Carey
* Estimated or Manufacturer's claim