Car Review: 2006 Toyota Corolla

For our road trip last week, we decided that renting a car would be better then racking up the mileage on our own rides. When we got to the rental place, the guy offered us a Ford Focus, and we said “Meh.” Then he offered us, for a little more green, a Hyundai Sonata, and I was momentarily tempted, but the 6-cyl engine would have used too much gas for our trip.Then the guy offered us a 2006 Toyota Corolla, and we said sure. It gets almost 40mpg, so we hoped that would help us save a few bucks on fuel. I was curious, as I also drive a four cylinder Toyota. (my sister has a Corolla, too.) In fact, they have almost the exact same engine, just tuned in a different way. So we took it for a 2000 mile, week long test drive.The steering wheel in the Corolla is the same as it is in my car. It’s also the same steering wheel that’s in the Matrix, which fellow bloggers Dennis and Scott use to cruise in their respective hoods.So, enough about the gross overuse of the Toyota common-parts bin; How does this car drive? The answer is pretty good. It’s a much, much taller car than mine, so it feels like you’re up in a truck sometimes (until a truck passes you). For a 4cyl automatic, it gets out of its own way quickly, even loaded down with all our gear and Ikea stuff. I was unable to test the acceleration against other vehicles from a stoplight, but it never gave the impression of sluggishness.Compared to the Celica, cornering in the Corolla (like on an on-ramp) was not as good. This was probably because the Corolla is taller and has a higher center of gravity. I also was bummed out by the lack of cruise control, but it’s apparently an available option.The trunk was huge! Storage bins inside the car were numerous and pretty useful, plenty of places to put ipods and cellphones and stuff. Like the Dodge Charger (reviewed last month), this car had no input thing in the radio to plug in your music player, but I predict this will be a standard feature on car stereos in the future. There was a second power port, we were able to charge cell phones and ipods at the same time, very cool.Would I get a Corolla? Sure, but I think I’d want the 6-speed, 164hp XRS model. That, or a right-hand-drive Toyota Mark II (like we had on our honeymoon. Hmmmm… automatically retracting side-mirrors…).