Is there anything more ironic than the Toyota guy owning an unreliable Corolla?

Illustration for article titled Is there anything more ironic than the Toyota guy owning an unreliable Corolla?

That was rhetorical. Because no, there is not.

The AC air door blend door actuator failed. Basically, if you want to use the defrost vents, the door that allows the air up won’t work and makes a ticking sound that is so loud, it’s double the anxiety caused by the Beating Of the Hideous Heart™:

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Illustration for article titled Is there anything more ironic than the Toyota guy owning an unreliable Corolla?

This piece of —

[Inhales]

[Exhales]

... this... PART... is so far up the the dash, it took me two hours to get it out. A 1/4" drive socket won’t fit without taking lots of stuff apart. A 3/8" with an adapter won’t work at all. The horizontal metal railing you see on the left will be slicing the back of your hand while you remove the screws. If you got big hands, forget it: you’re not getting up there. Now, you COULD remove the metal rail — if I had a 1/4" drive wrench that was extremely short. But I don’t and the adapter pushes the 3/8" drive up into the vent plastic hosing.

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Illustration for article titled Is there anything more ironic than the Toyota guy owning an unreliable Corolla?

I needed a 5.5mm or 7/32" wrench so small, that you can almost get one quarter of one quarter of one quarter turn at a time. Once broken, I used my 7/32" socket to squeeze and turn by hand.

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I was determined to do this without removing the dash, and I succeeded.

Well, this post reads a little angrier that I had intended, but I reserve the right to be understandably frustrated.