Yep! I guess that I wasn't completely happy with my Corolla and fell for the $4000. discount on the '08 Sonata GL with manual transmission. Saw the car in a dealer lot last wednesday and picked it up the next day!

Here is my story in this thread I opened in Canadian Driver. Scroll down for some pictures of the new beast.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/forum/index....ic,52971.0.html

To all the nice people I met on this board, I say thanks for your insight and passion.

Au revoir!

Sometimes it's not a matter of not being happy, sometimes it's a matter of just wanting something different, or of wanting something Toyota isn't offering right now. I'm thinking of going Hyundai for my next car, too; might even go back to standard shift.

 

I always say that even though my '98 Corolla is the best car I've ever had, that doesn't mean it's the best car I'll EVER have. I like seeing what's out there and taking advantage of all the new safety add-ons.

I, for one, wish you well with your new car.

Yep! I guess that I wasn't completely happy with my Corolla and fell for the $4000. discount on the '08 Sonata GL with manual transmission. Saw the car in a dealer lot last wednesday and picked it up the next day!

Here is my story in this thread I opened in Canadian Driver. Scroll down for some pictures of the new beast.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/forum/index....ic,52971.0.html

To all the nice people I met on this board, I say thanks for your insight and passion.

Au revoir!

Hello Ti-Jean,

Congratulations on your new purchase. What complaints have you had with the Corolla?

It sounds like you'll have plenty of happy kms with the Sonata. By all means let us know how you do with the new car!

Petlow

PS I just turned 88,000 km on my Corolla. Already have new set of Michelin Harmony tires. Wasn't happy with the Goodyear Integritys that came with it.

Yep! I guess that I wasn't completely happy with my Corolla and fell for the $4000. discount on the '08 Sonata GL with manual transmission. Saw the car in a dealer lot last wednesday and picked it up the next day!

Here is my story in this thread I opened in Canadian Driver. Scroll down for some pictures of the new beast.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/forum/index....ic,52971.0.html

To all the nice people I met on this board, I say thanks for your insight and passion.

Au revoir!

you probably liked the longer steering wheel and longer leg room ,,,,

I think next time, I will not buy another corolla, the driving position is stupid on

the 2003 corolla.

Good luck.

Hyundai has really turned around from their notorious Excel in the 80's. It should serve you well.

The Sonata is doing fine but I only have 600 km on it. General level of comfort, NVH, roominess and performance is way ahead of my Corolla, that's for sure.

The Corolla is a perfectly good compact car but my mistake when choosing the '05 3 years ago was going down from a Honda Accord, a car that I really liked.

First of all, everyboydy knows that the Gen 9's driving position is awkward. I had to have my feet too close (especially with winter boots on) in order to have the steering wheel still too far away and the seatback too upright for comfort. I trimmed my dead pedal which helped but the lack of a telescoping wheel made getting the right driving position impossible. My Sonata desn't have the telescoping wheel but the seat-wheel-pedals relationship is good from the outset.

Listening to the radio or CD on the highway was next to impossible. Too much road noise coming from the floorpan, fenderwells and firewall I guess. I put better 3 way speakers in the doors and saw no change. On bad pavement and concrete highways and worst of all, in rainy weather, it was painful. It's a car that made you drive at slower speeds on the highway.

The suspension was a bit jiggly on bad city streets, read everywhere in my area. Things were better with 195/65-15 Yokohama TRZ's I put on it but not the best.

The car got tossed around quite a bit in windy conditions on the highway. Light, narrow and tall cars can't defy the laws of physics no matter what. But as a city car, it was great.

The interior was well laid out but contained too much hard plastic causing various intermittent rattles. Heating/ventilation controls were of the ancient cable operated variety and felt cheap. Too bad because the platform felt very stiff.

Engine management and electronic throttle (DBW) were less than perfect. I had the no-start condition once in a while after being stopped for a couple hours and also began to experience the hunting fast idle last winter in the -12 to -15C range. The fast idle was too fast (up to 2000 RPM) and throttle just off idle was jerky when cold. Also, the engine RPM was always racing up on a fast 3-4 and 4-5 upshift. Like the electronic throttle was behind the curve for a fraction of a second on those occasions and made me feel I was shifting like an amateur, though I drove manual transmissions all my life and never experienced this behavior in any other car.

Gearing of the 5 speed was also less than perfect. 4th was too tall and close to 5th which left a big hole between 3rd and 4th and killed acceleration in 4th.

The Corolla would last for ever but was lacking in general refinement and details surprising coming from a company like Toyota. I would have kept it maybe 3 more years (like I usually do) but the 4K discount on an '08 Sonata was one I couldn't resist. Cash deal mind you and fully paid for so it's not like I did a dumb thing to refinance a car that was not actually fully paid for before re-embarking on another loan or something.

Toyota is taking a big chance by delaying the 10th gen one more year, so let's hope it meets and exceeds all expectations so it can go chasing Civics, 3's, Lancers, Sentras, etc. and have a chance of winning the war instead of relying on the Toyota name and typical Toyota reliability and resale value to enrole new customers. On that subject, I had an e-mail conversation last week with a lady I know (low 50's) who's been driving Hondas for 20 years and she just traded her '04 Corolla for an '07 Elantra. Things are not static and do actually change in the auto-industry with newcomers Hyundai/Kia starting to attract old time Honda and Toyota repeat buyers. I also being one of them.

Good luck and thanks for all your past contributions.

Maybe someday you will come back to Corollas.

Just got hunting idle fixed by TSB on my 03 5-speed CE. Took a while, but Toyota got it eventually.

Corollas have served myself and my son well. I'd buy another when it's time to trade unless too much gadgety crap is added as standard. Then, maybe Yaris.

I don't have a new Corolla, but if the price was right, I might buy one.