2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback: First Drive Review — Cars.com

I’m here with the all-new 2019 Corolla hatchback now the reason that I say thiscar is all-new is because it really doesn’t share anything in common withthe Corolla sedan that’s currently on sale here in the United States theCorolla hatchback is based on the European version of the car which Toyotacalls the Auris and it rides on a brand new platform it rides on Toyotas globalarchitecture and it’s an improvement in pretty much every single way over thecurrent Corolla sedan now under the hood of the Corolla hatchback is a new2-liter four-cylinder and it makes a 168 horsepower that’s a 31 horsepowerimprovement over the outgoing Corolla I am in that car felt a bit sluggish butthis car doesn’t the bigger changes to the powertrain for me actually come withthe transmissions there will be two available transmissions on the hatchbacka CVT or a 6-speed manual and both get changes that make them a bit moredrivable and a bit easier to live with starting with a CVT it is a CVT but atthe bottom of it is what we call a fixed gear so essentially what it has is afirst gear that behaves like a normal first gear in an automatic wood and thatgives it better off the line acceleration one of the big complaintsabout CVT is that you have that rubber band you feel and they’re really badfrom the stop however in the Kuril at hatchbacks is it has a fixed first gearacceleration from a stop feels more linear and it makes the whole car feelmuch more responsive now the bigger change for me comes from the 6-speedmanual in the Corolla I am you were also offered a 6-speed manual but it was nota good one the clutch action was sloppy the throws were long the gates weren’tvery good it was so bad that it actually made me prefer the automatic version inthis case it’s been cleaned up the clutch action is a little bit morelinear and the gates are more well defined it’s an easier manual to driveand it comes with two features that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from myToyota manual the first one is downshift rev-matching so when you’re going fromlike 3rd to 2nd gear or even 4th to 2nd gear the engine will rev up to match thenew gear and it makes it smoother when you’re down shifting services it alsohas some fuel benefits but we don’t have actual fueleconomy numbers for the Kuril a hatchback yet so we’ll have to see ifthat’s true the second feature which will be very welcome for some people isan anti stall feature essentially what happens is if it feels the car is goingto stall in first gear it will actually bump up the revs on the engine slightlyso you don’t stall and this is kind of perfect for those who are learning howto drive manual and the Corolla hatchback might be the most friendly carfor beginners that I’ve ever drivennow how does the Corolla hatchback do in corners it does okay you can drivecircles around the Corolla sedan but it doesn’t quite live up to sporty membersof this class like the Mazda 3 and I think the Civic is a little bit sharperoverall but on the right kind of road you can have fun pushing the Corollahatchback now the hatchback also comes with some new suspension technologycalled active cornering assist and what that will do is it will actually use thethe brakes on the inside front wheel when you’re coming into a corner to helpgive you a better approach angle and will actually help to keep the carflatter and prevent understeer as wellnow another string for the Corolla hatchback would be styling because I amwasn’t a bad looking car but the Kohler hatchbackkind of takes it to the next level I especially like the treatment of thefront grille where there’s this floating body color piece on the bottom thathelps to give the front dimension the whole package looks more aggressiveoverall and even the big wing spoiler found on the XS II it doesn’t overdo itit actually matches the overall aesthetic of the car quite well now theCorolla hatchback also gets a few interior upgrades as well an 8-inchmultimedia touchscreen is standard across both trim levels that would bethe SC and X SE and it does come with engine 3. 0 – whether it is newmultimedia system that includes apple carplay and Amazon Alexa connectivityand those are two features that we’ve been clamoring for for a long time inToyotas one other thing that I appreciate about the Corolla hatchbackis the actual placement of the screen it’s pretty high in the dash so it’seasy for you to look at briefly while driving without taking your eyes too faroff the road and you can reach it from the driver’s seat without having to leantoo far forward so I can just reach out and touch the far right side of thescreen without having to lean forward the dashboard design is very clean andI’m a big fan of it there aren’t too many controls I want Toyota has done isthey’ve pluster them all up pretty high so there’s nothing you have to reallyreach for down low besides the heat warmers all your climate controls areright here and your multimedia controls are here X se models also add a 7-inchdigital display in the instrument panel and it’s high resolution and easy to seeeven in bright conditions like the ones that we have todaynow the Corolla hatchbacks interior has one weakness it would be the backseatToyota actually hasn’t released official specs and dimensions for the backseatarea yet but I can tell you that there isn’t much legroom if I set up the seathere where I want to drive and I’m 511 I can actually can’t fit in the backseatwithout putting my knees into the back of the front seat Headroom is goodthough there’s a some cutouts in the hood and the overall shape of the cargives you a lot of air so you won’t feel claustrophobic but there are no visibleair vents in the backseat either so the back of the center console just has asmall storage bin but no air vents no USB ports there’s only two USB portsone found up here under the dash and the other one here in the central storagebin so there’s no way if you’re in the backseat for you to get air or to reallycharge your devices and for someone like me who has a tendency to get kind ofmotion sick that would make riding in the backdifficult now the Corolla hatchback also carries with it a few important safetyupdates and that includes both new technology and updates to existingsafety technology Toyota has done a very good job of making safety featuresstandard across their whole lineup of vehicles so the last generation of coralthat did have standard features like adaptive cruise control automaticforward emergency braking and lane keep assist but those technologies have beenrefined in the Corolla hatchback and it would be the first Toyota to come withwhat they’re calling Toyota’s safety sense 2. 0 so two of those technologiesthat are worth highlighting are updates to the adaptive cruise control andupdates to the lane cue system so the lane cue system before would keep you inthe lane but it didn’t have any centering now it has centering soinstead of ping pong in from lane line to lane line it actually keeps youfirmly in the middle of that lane now the second innovation is the one thatI’m excited about is someone who lives in Los Angeles where stop and go trafficis a norm the exact of cruise control will now take you all the way down to astop before it turned off at around 15 miles an hour which got annoying whentraffic got slow but in CVT foot models of the Corolla hatchback it’ll take youall the way down to zero now if you do opt for the manual it will still only godown to fifteen because if you drop below that you’ll need to change gearsanyway however it has one helpful feature and that is if you downshiftlet’s say you’re on a hill and you’re using the cruise control it will stillhold your speed but just do so at a lower gear now no official word yet onpricing or fuel economy for the Corolla hatch but we assume that we’ll get thosenumbers closer to the cars on sale date in July of 2018you

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