2016 Toyota Corolla

By Alex Forrest
April 14th, 2016

Australia’s most popular small car has had a makeover inside and out.

There’s a fresh new interior, which makes it much more competitive against the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Golf, and a sharper front and rear-end design, but there’s more than that.

Deep under the skin, the new Corolla has been tweaked to make it ride and handle better, with revised shock absorbers and stabiliser bar bushes, and the rear suspension has also been retuned with the aim of improved ride quality.

However, the most important new addition to the Corolla is the addition of a reversing camera to every variant, making lens-assisted rear visibility standard across the range.

The Corolla isn’t the first small car to have a reversing camera as standard across the range (Hyundai i30 and Volkswagen Golf have it too), but this is great to see and deserves acknowledgement.

The revisions to the interior are significant, though it must be said there was plenty of room for improvement in the superseded model. The new centrally-mounted touch screen looks and works far better than the previous system, which had small and fiddly controls.

The system is operated purely via the touch screen itself, as opposed to a centre console-mounted knob, which is present on some competitors.

The air vents, interior door handles and gear lever surround have also been redesigned and the result is a much sharper and more premium look and feel – very welcome.

Mechanically, the engine is essentially the same as in the previous Corolla, although the auto transmission has been revised and this has shaved consumption down to 6.1 litres per 100km (from 6.6L/100km) in the ADR test.

The result of all these changes is a Corolla that’s a far more attractive proposition to private buyers than it’s ever been.

The interior revisions are a significant factor here, and a good match for the expectations of the growing group of consumers looking for luxury in a small car package. 

Although the Corolla’s handling isn’t as sporty and engaging as that of the Golf, it does ride well and you know there will be absolutely no questions about its reliability.

You can’t go wrong with either of them. But, in an ideal world, we’d get the 2.0 manual, and change gears just as often, whether it’s needed or not. And, when we feel like it, we’d enjoy the engine’s extra flexibility when it’s time to just cruise.