2017 Toyota Corolla - Rental Special

It's not very often that I get to drive a new car or something that I could can say is  even "modern". And by "modern", to me, that's anything that has Bluetooth. Don't laugh. My "fleet' of wrecks averages nearly 22 years of age and three of my cars have cassette decks. Two of the cassette deck cars don't even have a CD player. So, I jumped at the chance to spend some time behind the wheel of the 2017 Toyota Corolla my wife rented for her weekend jaunt into western New York for her college class reunion. Incidentally, when my wife called me before renting it to ask me if she should rent it, a Hyundai Elantra or Hyundai Veloster, I emphatically recommended she grab the Veloster and leave the two Granny sedans in the dust. Turns out she drove the Veloster around the rental lot and returned it because she had difficulty seeing out of it. At least this Corolla is not not some sullen tan or creme color. Or worse yet, red. 

One look at this fairly tall "little" car and you can immediately appreciate why cross over utilities have the appeal that they do. Despite a "freshening" for 2017, the Toyota Corolla's styling is still as drab and boring as it gets in any vehicle class these days. Toyota may sell a good number of these things but I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who buys one because they like the way it looks. This car has about as much curb appeal as a washing machine; who buys a washing machine because of the way it looks anyway? This is a good washing machine, don't get me wrong, but, again, this car is first and foremost an appliance. Even the most mundane of today's cross overs, let's take the Buick Encore for instance, is hands down more interesting looking than this car. I did not say it was a better vehicle but given a choice between an Encore and this blah looking sedan and you can see why cross overs sell as well as they do.

Inside, behind the handsome steering wheel the dash is arranged so that renters, save for finding the side mirror adjuster, can find what they need intuitively. The TV screen in the middle of the dash, while functional, takes up an incredible amount of real estate and I've yet to see any automobile, low, middle end or high end, that has a dash designed around one of these damn screens that looks any good. The best I've seen is where the monitor pops up and down in the dash and even those are pretty clunky looking.

Why the screen for the backup camera is in the middle of the dash and not center to the driver is beyond me. I hate the idea of looking down and away while moving in any direction but at least you're looking at something that pertains to your driving; as convex as the camera is. I believe Audi is working on an interface where there's a screen in front of the driver that jogs back and forth between a speedo cluster and screen for the backup camera, Nav system etc. These things are here to stay but they need to be integrated into the design of dashboards better. All this stuff is gimmicky and expensive to repair too when it goes on the fritz. And it will. I don't have any of it and I honestly don't want it. Except for Bluetooth. Gotta have Bluetooth.

The seats in the Corolla were firm, supportive and quite comfortable. If my '77 Corvette had these seats I'd drive it more. I'm not a fan of the huge head rests and just like many "modern" sedans that I've driven lately, those tall head rests combined with the B - pillar (post between the front and rear doors) make for a jarring optical illusion that someone's head is lurking over my right shoulder whenever I check my blind spot.

I didn't sit in the back of this car but the front of the cabin felt cavernous. I'd have to imagine that the back would feel a tad squished compared to a Camry that has a wheelbase three inches longer. Might not sound like a lot but even an inch makes a difference back there. At 183 inches long, Corolla is 8 inches less large than a Camry but it feels just as big as a Camry. I never felt cramped in this thing the way that I've felt cramped in a Yaris, Kia Rio or Chevrolet Sonic.

The best part about this car, aside from it being quite feature rich, was its handling and braking. Remarkable. It's so out of this world fantastic that you have to be driving an older vehicle to fully appreciate how well this thing tracks, turns and stops. It's light, smooth and effortless yet also gives plenty of "road feedback". It's hard for me to brag about the work I just completed on one of my Camaros to improve its handling when a modern low end car can run circles around it on the track. Even my Monte Carlo's handling feels leaden compared to the Corolla. The handling on the Corolla is so good and so natural that it's almost too good - the car feels impersonal, clinical almost. That's said, it's really terrific and 20 years ago this car would be considered an out and out sports sedan. Here in 2017, remarkably, it's just another car.

The Corolla's 1.8 liter in line four was smooth but hardly sporty sounding which is fine considering the clientele that buy Corollas let alone it being a rental. Our "LE" was saddled, though, with a wretched CVT or Constant Velocity Transmission. It should be called a CMT for "Constant Moaning Transmission" because it seems that's all it does; it moans and groans as it constantly fights to find a good ratio to maximize performance and efficiency. And it does not sound like its doing such in a pleasing sounding way either. Should it? Well, no but at least you would think it should do what it's doing and not sound like something's wrong with the car.

What's more, from a red light this car feels very underpowered - that's unusual in today's cars and I blame the damn CVT. I'm not a fan of these things and if I was to shop for a new car I'd literally steer clear of anything with a CVT. I think they're horrible. At least they help the car get very good gas mileage. My wife had to return this car with a full tank and she calculated her mileage to be over 46 mpg. While I find that absurdly high, she must have somehow gotten trip odometer reading wrong, no doubt our little bowling ball on wheels here does do very well on gas. EPA rates Corolla at 37 mpg highway.

My wife rented this car from Enterprise out at Hopkins Airport and after I picked her up she couldn't stop gushing about how much she loved it. That's telling because she rarely gushes about a car. She raved about the way it handled and felt safe and secure in it. She loved the super high gas mileage too ; and I wasn't about to get into it with her about how her math had to have been wrong. She said she'd buy one of these in heart beat if it was up to her. It is a lot of car for the money too. Fully loaded you'd be hard pressed to find a Corolla for more than $25,000. A comparable cross over with as much stuff as a Corolla has would run you $40G. And I am not kidding you either.

Just wish there was something we could do about the way it looks. Lexus does a wonderful job of dressing up plebian Toyotas but they don't build a model on the Corolla's platform.