2018 Toyota Corolla vs 2019

What's the difference?

Toyota seems to be mostly waking up to what it takes to cut through in the contemporary car market. While the local arm sits on a pretty big pile of brand loyalty forged over years of delivering a solid-if-unspectacular product, its lunch is danger of being eaten by the various mouths of its rivals.

Have a good look at a Hyundai from 10 or more years ago - an attempt to clone Toyota's middle-of-the-road approach. Now they're a distinct brand with a strong focus on styling, dynamics and equipment. Toyota has grabbed two of those values and is lurching towards getting the third right.

Toyota will sell a squillion of these and probably for the first time I won't be wracking my brains trying to remember what it's like to drive. And while it's missing a few obvious bits and pieces, and the hybrid is very slow, the new car confirms how good TNGA is. Maybe, just maybe, Toyota is finally breaking free of building boring cars.

I liked the hybrid-engined Corolla but I think I prefer the petrol-only ZR. It's nicer to drive and has a bit (if not substantially) more pep, without a huge impost at the pump. The new Corolla is a much more appealing proposition than the old one, but it has to be - the rest of the segment is so good, especially with the astonishingly good new Mazda3 knocking it out of the park.

Toyota seems to be making an effort to not only build cars well but to respond to what customers want. It's still missing techno must-haves like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and there's that curious omission of rear parking sensors, which vexes me, and yet it's still a car I can suggest without a long list of buts.

Well, here's something - a Corolla with genuine character. I'm not completely convinced (styling is subjective after all) but this is certainly a Corolla you can say is good looking.

The front is aggressive - particularly here in the ZR - with the right number of lines rather than the overdone designs of some other Toyotas. The big 18-inch wheels add a bit of dynamic tension to the look, its backside is almost shapely and the profile quite wedgy.

The bit that gets me is where the rear doors meet the C-pillar. It looks like the design team couldn't work out how to make it elegant, so they just closed their eyes and hoped for the best. Bit of a shame, really, given the clarity of the rest of the car.

The cabin is a huge step forward. Contemporary and shapely rather than a cheap plastic cliff face, it makes all the right moves and is made of good materials. The seats are absurdly sporty and equally comfortable, although even up here in the ZR they feature manual adjudstment.

The interior is so good that small, unfortunate details jar, like the clumsily placed seat-heater switches, which look and feel like they're straight out of a 1988 Toyota Crown. The big 8.0-inch screen dominates the dash with almost cinematic scale.

The new Corolla isn't all that new any more. When I first saw it I wasn't that impressed - I didn't really see the point of building an essentially all-new car with a silhouette virtually identical to the previous one, which was dull beyond belief. New platform, why not a change-up in looks? And yet, when I cast aside my cranky pants and had a good look, I discovered the Corolla is quite a bit cooler than before. It's not pretty like the 3, nor is it as anonymous as an unadorned Hyundai i30. The new headlights are very funky, particularly with the LED running lights. There's more personality in the design than there has been for years. And far fewer random lines.

The cabin is lifted immeasurably by the excellent, racy front seats with the red inserts, Alcantara trim and metallic slots. There are still some unsubtle examples of parts-bin switchgear that no other manufacturer would touch, but everything is where it should be. The screen, unfortunately, grated my gums a bit (sorry, another metaphor - I did not try to eat the screen) - it's really big, sits too high on the dash and is framed by some really cheap-looking and feeling switches.

The new machine has a few more centimetres in each direction, but not many of them have been lavished on the occupants. Front-seat passengers have plenty of space but I did feel like the chunky dashboard towards the right-hand side makes getting in a bit more of a job than it perhaps should be.

Rear-seat passengers really aren't as well looked after as they are in some of the Corolla's rivals because those front seats - as brilliant as they are - have super-chunky backs. All of that bulk means it's pretty tight for me, all of 180cm, to sit behind my own driving position. My beanpole son wasn't a particularly happy camper back there, with his head brushing the ceiling and legs akimbo.

Front and rear-seat passengers score a pair of cupholders each and every door has a bottle holder. In the ZR you get a Qi wireless-charging pad, which is super handy if you have the right phone except you don't get a "Your phone is still in the vehicle" message, which would be good because you can't really see the phone once its in there.

The boot is pretty ho-hum in the rest of the range at 217 litres, but as the ZR goes without a spare tyre, there's a rather more generous 333 litres.

The Next Generation Architecture -based Corolla is a bit bigger in each direction, but it hasn't suddenly rendered the Corolla roomy for all. Front-seat passengers are in pretty good shape once they're in, but long-legged folks will have to remember not to bash their knee on the dash as they get in.

The chunky front seats eat into what little rear legroom is there and for me to sit behind my driving position (I am, unsurprisingly, 180cm no matter where I sit) is a bit of a tough assignment for longer journeys.

There are cupholders for front and rear seat passengers, for a total of four, and bottle holders in each door. The rear bottle holders look like cupholders because the shape of the door means there's no room for a pocket-style holder.

The boot boasts a 333-litre capacity, owing to its space-saver spare - the rest of the range labours with 217 litres, but gets a full-sizer.

For $30,370 you can have the top-spec ZR Corolla in 2.0-litre CVT. This is very competitive, if you're not worried about engine power. You're also just $1500 away from the ZR Hybrid Corolla, if you're interested.

You get 18-inch alloy wheels, eight-speaker stereo, reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and start, active cruise control, sat nav, LED headlights, heated front seats, head-up display, heated and folding electric mirrors, wireless mobile phone charging mat and a space-saver spare.

Hitting you like a freight train (this is a visual metaphor, obviously) is the huge 8.0-inch screen. The still-dodgy software runs the eight-speaker stereo and USB, Bluetooth and DAB but (deep breath) still no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Toyota says this functionality is coming to the range, so here's hoping it lands in the Corolla sooner rather than later.

Hybrid Corollas, as the name suggests, feature Toyota's hybrid powertrain. While the non-hybrid cars run a 125kW four-cylinder, this one has a 1.8-litre with a small battery and a modest electric motor.

As is usual, power output isn't especially straightfoward, so here goes. The 1.8 spins up 72kW/142Nm, which isn't a lot, but the electric motor brings 53kW/190Nm for a combined total system output of 90kW/190Nm.

That's not a huge chunk of power to push 1420kg along, let's be honest.

The e-CVT auto looks after getting the power to the front wheels. The system recharges the small battery when you lift off and when you're on the brakes, with an indicator to tell you what's happening in both in head-up display and the multimedia screen.

As with the rest of the non-hybrid range, the ZR arrives with a 2.0-litre, naturally aspirated four-cylinder developing 125kW and 200Nm. As is now Toyota tradition, the Corolla also has a continuously variable transmission, which the company claims is a 10-speed.

It's also front-wheel drive, as has been the case for around three decades, and it will come as no surprise, I'm sure, if I tell you the Corolla is not very quick.

The Corolla Hybrid's claimed combined fuel consumption figure is 4.2L/100km, which is the kind of number we've all heard before. Happily, a week with me saw the ZR return 5.2L/100km. I was not gentle, either. I'm genuinely impressed.

The Corolla's claimed combined cycle-consumption figure is what I thought was a fairly optimistic 6L/100km, given I got 5.2L/100km in the hybrid version. While I didn't get anywhere near that, 8.3L/100km wasn't a bad result, especially in what was mostly suburban running.

First, let me say this car is quite slow. Despite its warm-hatch clothes, it's all mouth. A flattened throttle produces a reasonably smart step off the line with the electric motor's assistance, but after that it's mostly hydrocarbons and the CVT lawnmower effect.

Does it matter? Not really. As I've already covered, it's extremely light on the fuel and it's not often that you get that big a trade-off. It's also very quiet and if you jam a tennis ball under the accelerator you can switch to EV mode and maybe get two kilometres under electric power.

The new Corolla is by far the best I've driven. Even the previous model was pretty dull to drive, with little feel and a fairly ho-hum approach to ride and handling. It was so middle of the road Toyota may as well have painted double white lines along the car's centreline. The new car moves closer to the correct side of the road, the one where you don't forget what you're driving while you're driving it.

That doesn't mean the new Corolla has the dynamic poise of a Hyundai i30, because it doesn't. The front suspension is by the usual McPherson struts and the multi-link rear goes a long way to explaining the improvements but it's also down to the new platform, known as Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA), already found under the C-HR.

The TNGA platform has delivered a lower centre of gravity, which is critial in helping make the car feel a bit more tied down to the road. It's also stiffer, meaning it's quieter and despite having a ride-focused suspension tune, is reasonably handy in the corners. The 18-inch alloys on the ZR probably have a bit to do with that, along with wider tyres than the lower models.

While the centre of gravity is lower in this Next Generation Architecture Corolla, you wouldn't know it sitting in the driver's seat. It's a bit higher than I'd like and I was never quite as comfortable as I can get in its rivals. The seats themselves are fantastic and part of a pleasing trend of carmakers equipping vehicles with seats that are as good to look at as they are to sit in.

I can only guess the high driving position will appeal to the SUV crowd?

As I may have mentioned in these pages before, I was not enamoured with the old Corolla. While it was built to outlast humanity, it wasn't appealing to look at or drive and didn't set the spec sheet on fire with useful modern conveniences. During that car's lifetime, the segment played host to machines that were appealing in all those areas - the Hyundai i30, the Mazda3 and the VW Golf. Toyota's chassis engineers have risen to the challenge.

The Corolla rides well, has very good steering and is very smooth across the lumps and bumps of our urban environment. The multi-link rear end ensures rear passengers do pretty well, too. I quite liked driving the Corolla, except for my usual complaint - the drivetrain.

The 2.0-litre engine isn't particularly quiet or especially refined and that is compounded by the rev-hungry CVT. In normal driving it's fine, but as soon as you ask anything of the engine it jams itself at around 6000rpm and makes an unpleasant racket. With just 200Nm to move 1400kg, you will work the engine hard if you're loaded up or need to get a move on.

When you do get a move on, an infuriating voice will wag its finger at you to obey the road rules. While that's helpful if you missed the change in speed limits, if it goes the other way, you may find yourself yelling at the touchscreen that you can make your own decisions about the speed at which you travel, thanks very much.

On board are seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward AEB with pedestrian detection and bicyclist detection (during the day), reversing camera, adaptive cruise, lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, traffic-sign recognition and active cornering control.

There are two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchor points.

Most of that gear is available across the range, which is impressive. Bizarrely, there are no rear parking sensors (or front ones, for that matter) which seems to be a Toyota and Subaru thing.

ANCAP awarded a five-star safety rating to the Corolla in August 2018.

Toyota's three-year/100,000km warranty is still with us. Just about every other competitor (except Volkswagen) has five years or more. You can buy up to a further three years and 150,000km if you want to bridge the gap.

The servicing regime is much better, though. Intervals are now 12 months/15,000km (previously it was every 6 months/10,000km) and for the first five years/75,000km, each service is $175 a pop.

Roadside assist is further $78 per year.

Toyota has broken its resistance and moved to a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty. As everyone knows, Toyotas are generally rock-solid, but that extra two years has brought it in line with most of its competitors.

Servicing comes at 12 months/15,000km (previously it was every six months/10,000km) and for the first five years/75,000km, each service is $175 each. Bargain.