Toyota: Corolla 2004 Information from a Corolla S-Type owner

FaisalCorollaS · 09-05 08:05 AM

I bought a Toyota Corolla 2004 S-Type 4 months ago with ABS, Moonroof,
6 speaker cd system and the whole shooting match. I see a lot of
confused people who are not sure why they should get a Corolla as
opposed to a Civic, Focus etc. Very normal stuff. Exactly, 4 months
ago I had finally came to an end with a conclusion after 2 months of
exhaustive research on which car to get. I will clear up the things
that make Corolla stand out in the crowd and what makes this car so
awesome and hopefully I can clear confusions of prospective Corolla
buyers. These are my own observations and not necessarily express the
opinions after looking at facts, but not necessarily everyone should
agree on them. The soul intent is to provide a second opinion about
the car. First thing in my mind was to actually see the build quality
of Corolla. I simply observed the gaps and the way the body was
constructed and the luster in the paint. Corolla stood head and
shoulders above the rest in terms of construction. The interior
plastic and leather was top quality stuff. I gave Corolla full points
for that.

The Corolla has 130 HP engine that produces 126 foot pounds of torque
as opposed to 114 foot pounds by the Civic and 116 foot pounds by
Protege. Corolla now weighs about 2590 lbs whereas, the Civic Sport I
was considering weighed 2670 lbs with a 115 HP engine. The result??
Corolla (manual transmission) according to Car and Driver magazine
showed it's tail lights to most of the other compacts in a few seconds
in a test (except Sentra, which has a 140 HP engine) and clocked at an
impressive 7.8 secs in a 0-100 KM/h test as opposed to a 9.7 secs in a
Mazda Protege and 10.5 secs in a Civic. So, Corolla has ample power
for it's class to accelerate and easily pass much larger cars on the
highway. I took the test model S upto 175 KM/H (auto) in 18 secs.

I parked a titanium silver Corolla Sport ( eventually I got the same
color and type) right next to the other cars and I did not need to
think any further about the looks of the car. Definitely a stunning
car for it's class. My Corolla Sport make heads turn all the time,
which makes it all much more sweet.

The Corolla comes with a speed sensing power steering, which is very
light at low speeds and gets heavier for precise handling after 70
Km/h. I am not sure if they had on the 2003, but toyota.com has
described in the specs of 2004. Corolla has a very comfortable ride
and a relatively softer, but very precise handling. The Civic is lower
and has stiffer suspension, which makes it really good to turn around
the corners at high speeds, but I did not want to compromise on ride
quality for the sake of sharp handling. The best way is to test drive
and try.

The Corolla has some cutting edge technology, which was not present in
previous models. Electronic Brake Force Distribution is one of them,
which eseentially is assisted by the computer of the car, that
assesses the car weight distribution on all four tires and the speed
on each side of the car, which in turn results in a rapid impulse
being sent to all the four tires for brake force distribution. My
model came with ABS, which makes braking very efficient. I am not sure
how different would it be without the ABS.

Corolla has one of the best automatic transmissions around called the
electronically controlled transmission, which essentially reduces gear
hunting while climbing a mountain and it holds the gear much longer.
It essentially learns from driving patterns of the driver and tries to
optimize the shifting to enhance the fuel consumption and reduce
excessive upshifting.

Corolla has smaller gear ratios to ensure fast acceleration as opposed
to longer ratios in the previous models, which makes the sound
permeate in to the cabin at high revving. If you are one of the people
who like completely quiet cabin with no engine sound then might as
well get an American car rather than a Japanese. The Corolla is
extremely quiet once reaches cruising speeds with a bit of road noise
and very little wind noise. I am one of those people who enjoys a
sweet revvy sound (whiirrrrrrr kind of thing) when the car is
accelerated hard and very quiet when I am not feeling like driving
fast because I am tired or whatever. The Corolla does exactly that.
The engine because of the variable valve timming and lift
intelligence(VVTI) needs a few revs before it really comes out.

Corolla has very good features inside. Ergonomics are excellent. I am
5'10" and I am very comfortable after moving the seat back and
adjusting the steerinc column. My friend who was 6'7" 300 lbs was able
to sit on the passenger with his head close to the roof ( mind you
mine has a moonroof so lesser head room). I have a beef with the thick
pillars which are as thick as they are in order to ensure the roll
over resistance, but it makes enormous blind spots in the back and
makes shoulder checks hard. Oh well, there is a trade off there.

Corolla is one of the greenest vehicles around with lowest emissions
possible. It has a great reliability record for 30 years and very fuel
efficient. I get about 700 KM in a tank ( 50 liters).

Provided all the good features I was totally convinced that Corolla
S-type is the car for me as opposed to the Civic, Protege and Focus I
had researched.

Hope that helps

Jim · 09-05 01:08 PM

I have a 2003 Corolla S. Simply put, the car rocks. There is nothing in its
class that can compare.

--
Jim Mueller
Tech Support
mp3homestudio.com
"FaisalCorollaS" <com> wrote in message
news:google.com...

Chris · 09-05 05:33 PM

I agree... I've got a 2004 S and its a great car. I'm 6'3" and can fit
comfortably (still leaving a bit of room for a rear passenger). The only
real complaint I have so far(after 13 days of ownership) is the reccommended
shift point from second to third (22mph) is a little TOO economical, I hold
out until about 30mph or so so that I still have a bit of merging power in
third gear. Other than that, an all-around great car that I expect to be
happy with for years to come.

"Jim" <rr.com> wrote in message
news:vQ%5b.52081$rdc-kc.rr.com...
its

Chris · 09-05 05:38 PM

I just got my Corolla two weeks ago and find the engine noise to be quite
manageable, espically considering the last two cars I owned are both over
thirty years old and extremely loud. I was most impressed with my ability
to carry on a conversation with someone while under light acceleration.

"Philip®" <net> wrote in message
news:9I36b.328$news.pas.earthlink.net...

FaisalCorollaS · 09-06 08:21 PM

Joseph Oberlander <net> wrote in message news:<net>...

Yeah, I saw the Nissan Sentra. Nissan is a great company. They have
came out with really nice cars lately and the way they turned things
around for themselves after returning from the brink of bankruptcy is
nothing less than amazing. That is very true that Sentra is more
powerful than the Corolla, but I have family members living in North
Carolina and they have an 2000 Altima. Most of the issues with the car
have been about reliability. My brother-in-law is not too fond of the
car since the distributor went out at 16K miles. Besides, comparing
Sentra to Corolla I could see the Corolla Sport styling as very
aggressive and eye catching. I was a bit iffy about the back of Sentra
etc. It is purely a matter of choice here. Corolla has a great gas
mileage. I can get about 700 KM in a 50 litre gas tank (works out to
about 38 miles per US gallon with auto trans.) so my decision to go
with a Corolla was that it had a bit of everything. The Corolla engine
although not as fast as the Sentra, yet is so efficient that 0-60 mph
tests done by Car and Driver magazine showed that 150 HP Sunfire and
150 HP Cavalier could not compare to the performance of the 130 HP
primarily because of Corolla's better torque.Then again, I totally
agree with you that Sentra has some good points and it really depends
on where your priorities are.

FaisalCorollaS · 09-06 08:50 PM

Regarding your question about reaching 175 KM/h, Philip. I made a
U-turn on a highway to find the lane going opposite side completely
empty and it was test drive so the Toyota salesman invited me to floor
the gas without worrying about the radar nazis. How could I pass on
that?? :-) So I did a turn at about 5 KM/h and then floored the gas.
The engine kicked into high rev right away and then I clicked on my
stop watch on the wrist. So I managed to reach 175 KM/h in sub 18
secs. My sales guy also showed me on a manual transmission, he pulled
the Corolla up to a 100 KM/h in second gear (no lies here, I swear to
God on my holy book this is true), but the tachometer was at about
6000 rpm since the engine was revving too much. Regarding Civic
suspension, Civic has fully independent suspension, whereas, Corolla
has full independent suspension at the front and semi-independent on
the back. I took my drivers ed course with a 2002 Civic and I enjoy
the feel of the Corolla's Semi independent with stbilizer bars,
responsive handling and precise turning much more than the Civic's low
ground sporty feel. It really depends on which feel you enjoy more.
Not surprisingly, before this model Corolla was my least favorite car
because of lack os spice and a degree of blandness in the previous
models. That is why Civic has been the one, which has been dominating
the modification of stock car field. Although, when I beat the Civic
Si Sport (127 HP coupe) on a traffic light run, I try to prove a point
that the Corolla is now a beast that Civic cannot handle!!!!!

"Philip®" <net> wrote in message news:<9I36b.328$news.pas.earthlink.net>...

Philip® · 09-07 12:30 AM

FaisalCorollaS wrote:
invited

You MUST have been accelerating down at least an 10 percent
downgrade! A '99 Celica with the 1.8 VVT-i engine (2ZZFE) shows 29.9
seconds for 0-100 acceleration. Using those Imperial "seconds," aye?
LOL.
http://www.syclone.freeserve.co.uk/rivals.htm

For giggles, the four speed automatic Corolla shifts 2-3 at 73 mph at
6,000 revs.

Regarding Civic

Civic's rear suspension is tied together with a stabilizer bar so ...
it is not "fully" independent. Corolla's new rear suspension is NOT
even -semi- independent. It is "trailing arm" with all the benefits
(cost and simplicity) and shortcomings (excessive roll stillness and
inability to keep both rear tires on the pavement when lots of
irregularities occur in one track line and not the other)(race tracks
do not offer cracks, potholes, tar snakes, expansion joints, etc).
With this trailing arm system, removing the stabilizer bar does not
allow the left and right wheels free to move independently while in
the Civic it would. For comparison, examine earlier Corollas and
current Camry.
--

~~Philip

"Never let school interfere
with your education - Mark Twain"

Joseph · 09-07 12:33 AM

FaisalCorollaS wrote:

Yeah I agree, but the 2004 - they fixed that. Looks nice, now.

FaisalCorollaS · 09-07 02:12 AM

com (O3ToyotaCorolla) wrote in message news:<aol.com>...

Yes, I felt Civic was too low especially for highway driving. Not
surprisingly, Corolla has better safetly ratings than the Civic
according to National Highway Transport Safety Assoc. (NHTSA)( You can
see the detail report on both vehicle by NHTSA on www.msn.com in the
auto section). You can see that by comparing the front of both
vehicles. Corolla has a much bigger and thicker front. Corolla and
Civic both have 5 star ratings ( the previous Corolla was only 3 stars
and was deemed not very safe) in the front and rear collision reports.
Corolla fairs better on the front side impact than the Civic where
Corolla had 'Excellent' for rating, whereas, Civic had an 'Acceptable'
for rating. Corolla had devoted a lot of time and energy on making
Corolla the safest possible compact car and I think it shows now.
Also, Corolla was completely tested in every aspect for a year in
Europe in the year 2001 before the North American launch in Feb. 2002.

red · 09-07 02:11 PM

"The Corolla comes with a speed sensing power steering"
+ "Electronic Brake Force Distribution"

Are these on the CE is well or just the S-type?

I'm also surprised that I haven't seen anything in
writing about the auto transmission except the letters ECT.
Postings I've seen here have said far more than anything
I've read from Toyota.

"the luster in the paint".

One thing I've noticed that even brand new my 2004 Corolla
paint doesn't bead water very well. My old 92 Corolla beaded
up beautifully for the first 3 years. Maybe it is the more
environmentally friendly paints today.

I've also got a new appreciation for the mileage my old Corolla
got. It was pretty damn good.

How long does it take to get the quoted mileage? I've read in this
NG it takes months but I didn't see that anywhere in the documentation
from Toyota.

50L per 700km is 7.14L/100k. The spec. I believe is 8.1 city and 5.8
highway.
So you are in that range. When my gauge is really low it still only takes
about 43L. So I guess there is more room to go in that tank.

Steve

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