Toyota Corolla Hatchback Design Hybrid 1.8 VVT-i auto 5d Owner Review

I bought the Corolla to replace my Yaris hybrid which had served me well for three years. There were the usual irritations with the buying process - hard-sell insurance additions, stupid delivery charges for a car bought from the showroom, no spare wheel etc. However, the car is stylish and nice to drive - ok it whines a bit at high speeds and it isn't the most exciting drive - but I'm not the most exciting driver. One of the selling points was the number of useful features. The salesman told me that this included cruise control, lane deviation warning, proximity warning etc etc. Now, for all I know he may have been telling the truth, but the problem is that I just don't know. Why? Well another aspect of Toyota's cheapskate, budget airline approach is that they do not appear to provide an owners manual for UK purchasers. You can access one online, but it is for a left-hand drive North American model. It is also 608 pages long, plus another 56 pages in the "Quick Start" guide!!!!! If you haven't tried to scroll through 650+ pages of a pdf, or to access a specific page via the scroll bar after reading the index, try it - but only if you really can't sleep nights. Needless to say, like most companies which seek to justify mean-spirited cost saving measures, Toyota claim that this is to save waste as part of their campaign of continuous improvement. ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho The Toyota dealer did try to help by getting hold of a hard copy manual by the way, but it turns out he can't get one either! Amusingly, having trotted out the party line about saving waste, he then suggested that I could come into the showroom whenever I needed to understand how anything works. I'm certain he meant well, but wonder whether he realised the irony inherent in driving fourteen miles each time, in order to save waste! So, two weeks after buying a new car for about £26.5k, I still don't know how most of the features work, or even if they actually exist on the model I purchased. I just hope that none of them are safety critical. This may seem trivial, but it has taken all of the joy out of owning a new car, which, on the face of it, feels like quite a good one. My overall perception is that Toyota makes nice cars, but has no concept of customer service and is a nasty company to deal with.