Around this time, Toyota (and others) was having terrible problems with paint peeling and flaking off its cars. My best information suggests that there was a problem with the paint supplier’s quality, and the result was paint that was absolutely falling off affected cars, sometimes in sheets. White cars seemed to be the biggest offenders, but other colours were affected, too.

With that in mind, I’d be taking the car to a paint specialist who will be able to determine if your car is one of the affected ones or not. If not, then you may indeed have paint damage due to water sitting on the paint, but that seems a fairy remote possibility if the car has been garaged most of its life. If the cause is a case of the paint quality problem, then you need to talk to Toyota Australia’s customer service department. Even though the car is out of warranty, this may be classed as a pre-existing problem and subject to some form of warranty claim. That said, I wouldn’t be holding my breath…

That’s an awful lot of kilometres for a 2012 model car. Do you know the history of it? Was it a sales rep’s car? Those are really the first questions you need to answer as the car’s background might give you a good idea of how it’s been looked after.

Put your detective’s hat on and take a close look at the car. Does the rear seat look pristine or is it about as worn as the rest of the interior? If it’s the latter, you could be looking at an ex-Uber taxi. Does the car have a permanent smell of pizza? Guess what? Basically, if the car is simply a high-miler with a good service record, then maybe it’s worth a punt. But if its history suggests a raft of different (but all underpaid) drivers and lots of stop-start city driving, then it could well be a liability in the short term.

To be honest, the fact that it’s already done almost 400,000km and is still going suggests that the previous owner has, in fact, cared for it and serviced it properly. But even so, if the car is an ex-rental car or delivery vehicle it’s probably not a great car to own as it heads into its sunset years. And if it’s an ex-car-share vehicle, run in the other direction as fast as you can.

The other documentation you’d really want to be able to examine would be the service history. Any skipped services over that period are bad news and will lead to problems down the track.

As for what might need replacing; at that mileage the short answer is just about everything. It’s not just engines that wear out with kilometres, transmissions, suspension, brakes, bushes, bearings and everything else that can wear, will have begun that process. Again, how close it is to the car’s use-by-date being up will be down to how well it’s been maintained till now. At least parts for a Toyota Corolla will be relatively affordable compared with some of the competition.

You should be able to prise open the key’s plastic body and then gain access to the battery-case within. But be careful, as older plastics become brittle with age and you don’t want to snap any of the locking tabs or the body itself (if you do, replacement keys are available online). If that all sounds a bit difficult, you could take the key to a shop or kiosk that cuts keys (and sells watch-bands and batteries) and they should be able to supply and fit the new battery for you. If you do it at home, make sure you dispose of the old button-battery safely as these pose a real threat to babies and toddlers.