So as many of you know, got a new job. This job is around 250 miles away from my parents house, where I unfortunately currently reside. All of this means that I would have to go on a house hunting trip to find my next place of residence. No problem, another trip to the coast of Georgia means a rental car. So I called up the HR person who is working on my on-boarding stuff and tell him I’d like to make a trip down there. He says that the company will get me a hotel and to save my receipts and they’ll reimburse me for miles. I say I was going to get a rental as this would be cheaper for both of us and he’s like no problem. We’ll rent that for you too.
Normally I rent from Avis. However the travel agent I set up the rental car with said my company preferred to use enterprise. Not a problem, there is one close to my parents house. So I have them schedule a rental and on the reservation it says Hyundai Elantra or similar:
Great, I’m getting another Hyundai. However, when I get there and the guy getting me the car asks if a Toyota Corolla would be fine, I say yes. I didn’t want another Sentra or a Hyundai.
About a mile into the trip, I look down at the fuel gauge and it’s on half a tank. Really? Hopefully it’s not an omen of how this trip is going to go. The only good news here is I get to fill up and I know the tank is full so I can get an accurate reading on fuel economy, knowing that the tank was topped up.
So I guess that’s where I should start my review, fuel economy. For the first fill up, I went 269.7 miles on 7.670 gallons, and for those of you who still don’t have your TI-84 handy, that works out to 35.2 MPG. I filled up the next morning, and on that tank managed to go 246.5 miles on 7.854 gallons; that tank returned 31.4 MPG. The combined trips netted me 33.3 MPGs. That’s 0.1 MPG better than the Sentra returned. Pretty much all of the first tank was highway driving and the second tank was a mix of highway and city driving, probably about a 50/50 split. I was satisfied with the fuel economy given it’s the best I’ve gotten and I was driving it hard. Now, while I filled up again, I don’t have info for that because I got the car half full and wasn’t going to fill it up to return it, I wasn’t very happy about having a car without a full tank. I know it’s my fault for not checking the fuel level before I set off, but come on.
Anyways, before this turns into a rant about enterprise, let’s get back to the Corolla and talk about power. The model I had was the LE, and apparently it’s got the 2ZR-FE in it, which is a 1.8L 4 cylinder with variable valve timing. This engine produces 132 hp at 6000 RPM and 127 ft-lbs of torque at 4400 RPM. It’s mated to a CVT. Apparently this combination will propel a 2014 Corolla S from 0 to 60 in 9.7, which apparently is the same time they got out of a Sentra. I should note the Corolla S they tested has the same engine as my rental. That’s odd, I felt like the Corolla was much quicker than the Sentra. Maybe that’s because you didn’t have to floor the Corolla to get it to move. I feel like anytime I wanted to actually get up to speed, I had to floor the Sentra, whereas in the Corolla I could drive it like a normal car. The CVT in the Nissan was shit, I thought it was completely find in the Toyota. Yes, while these cars are not about performance, they still need to be able to get out of their own way. I thought the Corolla did a lot better job at this than the Sentra, while returning the same fuel economy.
My first annoyance with the Corolla was noticed a few miles south of Atlanta: cruise control. On flat land it works just fine, you set it at 78, you’re going to do 78. Once you get to a hill, you’re doing 78, then 77, now 76, now 75, then 74 before the computer is like I know I the cruise is set at 78, this mean I need to do something. Oh right, let’s dial up a lower ratio on that CVT and get back up to speed. It did this on every hill. The Sentra didn’t have the problem at all. It’d get to a hill and immediately would do what it needed to do to maintain speed. The Toyota? No. We’re gonna be varying speeds a lot. The simple solution would be to disengage cruise and use your foot; however, I shouldn’t have to. I know this is probably the car trying to be eco or whatever that means, but if I want to say to hell with the economy and do 78, then I want to do 78, the computer should abide. Now I did get tried of it slowing down on the hill, so I massed the accelerator to the floor and the computer seemed to realize that I wasn’t on an economy run and there was much less lag between reduction of cruising speed and set speed after that.
While we’re on the subject of cruise control, let’s talk about the actual cruise control interface. I actually really liked the cruise control stalk. It’s one of the better interfaces I’ve come across, and very easy to use. It’s about the best one, aside from the one in my M3, I’ve come across. They’ve very similar, I just think BMWs does it slightly better. That said this would be a very close second, good job Toyota.
While we’re talking about the interior features, let’s focus on the stereo next. I’ll be honest, it’s not very good. While it’s what were you expecting it’s a rental car, the stereo in the Malibu was actually pretty good. I was actually really surprised how good the stereo in the Malibu was. That said, this would still rattle the rear view mirror, with any song. Without any real quality, the rear view was shaking all the time, it was actually really annoying. It was hard to focus on what was happening what was going on behind me. Maybe I was just listening to my music too loud, or I’ve been spoiled by the M3, but I didn’t like the mirror rattling, maybe if there were some 12s in the trunk, but there weren’t.
Something else I noticed in interior was how scratched up the column was. Maybe it’s cause they still use an actual key like it’s 2007, or all the people who put the 37,633 miles on the car before I got it can’t find the hole. I was just surprised how scratched up this was.
The rest of the interior was just standard Toyota. Nothing really to write home about. The seats weren’t as comfortable as in the Nissan or the Chevy.
I didn’t find the styling to be that appealing. I find a lot of modern Toyotas/Lexuses to be over styled. It’s almost like they’re trying too hard to make their cheap cars interesting and it’s not really doing it for me.
So you said you were going to tell us if it was “grounded to the ground,” is it? Well, I found the steering to be among the better of the cars with electric power steering I’ve driven recently. There wasn’t really a dead spot and it was pretty communicative. I was able to chuck it into a couple corners and it responded pretty well. I was also able to push it to the limit on some of the interstate interchanges without understeering off of the cloverleaf. It’s no M3, but it handles well for what it is. It didn’t take off like a 737, so yeah it’s grounded to the ground, whatever the hell that means.
So should you get one? Between this and the Chevy, it’s a tough call. I’d have to test them back to back to recommend one. I think I’d lean slightly toward the Chevy because of its better stereo, seats, power, and auto gear box. However, if it’s this or a Sentra, get this.
I’m not sure how I should talk about this, but somehow I got a massive dent in the hood. I’m not sure if I missed it because it was overcast when I picked it up, but there was a dent like someone had jumped on the hood. I was worried it happened when I parked like a true BMW driver at my hotel, but looking at that picture, it looks like it was there when I did that. I was also only there for like 15 minutes and the parking lot was basically empty. I have literally no idea what happened, I think someone jumped on it to be honest. I sure didn’t hit anything. No idea when it happened; however, because I had it booked for me, the company had purchased the damage waiver. So the one time I need a damage waiver, I have it. Better to be lucky than good.
If you want to read the other installments of “E90M3 Rents:”