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

This is a review for the Corolla Touring Sport 1.8 Design. I got this car in December 19 as a Company Car. I'd had one for a weekend test drive and it seemed pretty good. Now I have to live with it every day, it's a different story. Let me start with the positives. It looks pretty decent. It's comfortable, very comfortable. After 4 hours on the motorway, I got out feeling like I'd just nipped to the local shops. But that's it I'm afraid. The downsides are not too major on their own, but put them together and it makes for an unhappy driving experience. Firstly, the economy. It's an absolute world away from the WLTP figures of between 56 and 62 MPG (MAX) and 55 MPG (MIN) I am getting 44.8 MPG and I am driving as conservatively as I possibly can. Driving along a perfectly flat road at 50 MPH and the economy is sat at around 50 MPG, as soon as you hit the slightest incline it drops to less than 15 MPG which has a massive impact on the economy if the incline is of any distance. Motorway driving is even worse, a 200 mile trip to Wales from my house and I averaged 32.3. I never exceeded 70 MPH and averaged just under 45 MPH over the journey. My previous car was a 2015 Skoda Octavia 2.0 VRS an the same journey at roughly the same speeds would give fuel economy of around 55-58MPG. The rest of this review will deal with the other little annoyances that grind on a daily basis. The collision detection system is dangerously flawed, if you are pulling out at a junction you first wait for all the vehicles to pass, and pull out when safe, the Toyota still sees the last vehicle that went past for a few seconds, lets you pull out and then decides the previous vehicle is still there and applies the brakes, leaving you stranded in the middle of the road like a sitting duck. The Sat Nav is stupid at best, they're never great, but this one is really bad. It always seems to choose the longest or most difficult route whether or not you have selected short, fast or economical. If you move the map to check the road ahead, there is no way to re-center the map... WHY? The heater only ever blows at your feet or at your face or both, it cannot be changed to only blow at the window unless you use the demist setting, and that defaults back to the previous setting the next time you get in the car. The entertainment system... Apple Car Play works fine, but put in a USB stick and it refuses to play the tracks in the order of the album. It ignores the track numbers and plays them in alphabetic order. A nightmare for concept albums, but an absolute joke for audio books because it plays the chapters in alphabetical order too. I have had it back to Toyota, and this CANNOT be changed. Ridiculous. The radar cruise control is also a nightmare, 70 MPH on the motorway and you approach a lorry doing 56 MPH the cruise control slows down the car by braking... hard, really HARD despite the lorry still being much more than a safe distance away. You then pull out to overtake and immediately the car tries to get back to 70 as quickly as possible, literally redlining the revs, because the engine is so underpowered this takes probably 10 seconds, 10 seconds where the car is doing less than 10 MPG. There is no storage space in the cabin meaning everything is crammed into the center console. The Phone storage is directly in front of the switches for the heated seats meaning you have to pass over them to place your phone, 9 times out of 10 you'll catch the switches and the heated seats are on. Then there's the build quality, and this is bad, very bad. The doors rattle when you close them, the cover for the high level brake light falls out almost every time you close the boot, the bolster between the rear seats falls forward every time you brake. The rear seat belt sensors are so sensitive that you cannot put a bag on there (not even a laptop bag) because it thinks someone is sat there and beeps. Oh the beeps!! The beeps will drive you insane. There is one for everything and they cant be turned off. Let me explain, I have turned them off, but it hasn't worked. As for reliability, I cannot really comment as I haven't had it long enough, I have scored it 2 stars though because I genuinely believe that the engine wont last the whole 100k lease because it's constantly pushing max revs. Apparently the Corolla is one of the worlds best selling cars. I honestly cannot see why!