Report Abuse

“cheap,quick and reliable”

written by Mattmax on 05/04/2016

Bought this as a trade down on my BMW335D M sport little to say it is rather a big step down in terms of quality and performance, but to say it you pay for what you get. I've owned a Civic type R a few years back, and at that time it was my dream car ,needless to say its was the hot hatch to have. I have a soft spot for NA cars Personally.

I was never happy with Type R as I found the ride two hard, it suffered from torque steer and I never liked the seating position. I really felt as though Id paid 14k for an engine and a gearbox!. I had a Skoda VRS mk1 as a company car and actually preferred driving it at the time. Back to the corolla, even though the T sport gets continuously slated,you must understand this is a 1800cc NA engine that produces 189BHP not a 2000cc.In terms of performance it feels no difference from the Honda and I find it easier to get this off the line than I did in the Honda. The ride is a lot more comfortable but at a sacrifice for this it loses out in the handling department, body roll etc.
I love the character of the engine, I can poodle around with my wife and daughter in the car and when I'm on my own I can enter the magic 6000rpm range. Please bear in mind I came from a 335d and when I hit lift in 4th on a dual carriage way for the first time I was surprisingly impressed thinking this is Definitely not slow. The other small issue I have is the cars 6th gear is Definitely not long enough, as you find the engine revving quite hard at 80mph.If you want a cheap, quick, comfortable car that doesn't stand out as boy racer and surprises a few faces when you hit lift its the car that make sense and the bonus it reliable!