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4 month old Corolla Hybrid 2l GR sports


Louie
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Anyone thinking of acquiring one of these babies do not hesitate. Mine has now freed itself up and is smoooooth and fast. I made the painful transition of migrating from a Golf GTD and although  it was initially painful  i am getting used to the little foibles and love the car. I have even had admiring glances from total strangers which is a bit weird. So go for it you will not be disappointed.

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24 minutes ago, Louie said:

Anyone thinking of acquiring one of these babies do not hesitate. Mine has now freed itself up and is smoooooth and fast. I made the painful transition of migrating from a Golf GTD and although  it was initially painful  i am getting used to the little foibles and love the car. I have even had admiring glances from total strangers which is a bit weird. So go for it you will not be disappointed.

Reminds me a little bit of my first car, a 1987 corolla GT. The 0-60 time is similar to the new corolla 2.0 hybrid, 33 years later on. Looking forward to the GRMN version of the Corolla arriving in the future 😀

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Mines sat at burnaston waiting to be delivered after this is all over 

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I even enjoy giving it a shampoo and set.

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1 hour ago, Louie said:

I even enjoy giving it a shampoo and set.

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I've ordered exact colour 

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Same colour as my Excel HB but I bought a set of adhesive chrome door handles. They slightly compromise keyless locking but they make the car look much better.

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Nice colour!

Is it Scarlet Flare? The colour I like on the Corolla.

I have Island Blue on my Auris. Again looks great.

James.

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Which Michelin tyres are they? I’m threatening getting the Falkens off as I’ve heard that they’re not much good. 

Are the Michelins better? Particularly are they quieter on rough surfaces? That’s my biggest bugbear. 

cheers 

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Spot the extra chrome:

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🙂

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Hi Ian and Andrue

 

Yes it is scarlet flare and did not fancy the black roof combo. The tyres are 18"  225 x 40 WR  Michelin Pilot Sport 4's  see pics. The Falken tyres have poor  stopping distance in the  wet  and they are very noisy on any surface also handling is odd( my opinion).  I am a big Michelin fan and have had the Pilot 4's on my past Golf GTD's which came with crappy Bridgestone tyres with appalling wet handling. The Michelins  have quite a soft compound so clinging to the road is excellent. If you shop around you can get a good deal. I saved around £200 (by flogging my nearly new Falkens to an eBay punter. Price of set of four Michelins about £45. Mine came from ATS which had a deal going at the time. Avoid Black Circles which have keen prices but you have no idea who is fitting you tyres a really bad idea. The Black Circle tyres are delivered to the fitters doooooh sorry i meant cowboys.

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As regards Black Circles, one can choose who fits your tyres from a selection of tyre fitters - which includes branches of ATS Euromaster (which makes sense as Michelin own both Black Circles and ATS Euromaster). 

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Thanks 😊

I looked at Pilot Sport 3s at Costco which I thought looked ok at £80 odd but the 4s seem to be over £100 each from ATS .. is the difference worth it? I don’t have a gripe with the handling but I don’t really push my car at all - it’s the noise and the slightly vague straight ahead feeling that bugs me. 

so they’re worth the upgrade then?

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My experience of Black Circles was a bad on few occasions. OK  so you chose your tyre fitter from the list BC supply you with but i failed to do my homework and had tyres fitted by cowboys. First time one the wheels became loose second time the tyre pressures were dangerously out of wack. The moral here is no matter what famous name you have on the garage door you have no idea who they are employing which in some cases can be dangerous. Nowadays i do a bit of research and rely  personal recommendation which does not go amiss.

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Hi Ian

You should be paying just under £100 or thereabouts including fitting/balancing  for these.   Does  Costco price include fitting/balancing if  so its very cheap must be a catch somewhere. The Pilots are a huge improvement over the Falkens worth every penny. 

 

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23 minutes ago, Louie said:

Hi Ian

You should be paying just under £100 or thereabouts including fitting/balancing  for these.   Does  Costco price include fitting/balancing if  so its very cheap must be a catch somewhere. The Pilots are a huge improvement over the Falkens worth every penny. 

 


I think I’ll have to take the plunge - I’ll ask at my dealer too as I worked there and they might do me a deal ... 

I’ve looked again ... if you pay £7 extra each then that covers fitting. So about £90 each all in with £80 off if you buy 4. I won’t do anything till I can go I suppose but it’s good info. They’re the Pilot Sport 3s not the 4s but I’m sure they’ll be fine. 

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Hi Andrue

19 minutes ago, shufman said:


I think I’ll have to take the plunge - I’ll ask at my dealer too as I worked there and they might do me a deal ... 

I’ve looked again ... if you pay £7 extra each then that covers fitting. So about £90 each all in with £80 off if you buy 4. I won’t do anything till I can go I suppose but it’s good info. They’re the Pilot Sport 3s not the 4s but I’m sure they’ll be fine. 

I went for the rear and front door sills in polished chrome I think ?

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Can't say I've noticed anything particularly 'off' about my tyres but then I've been all that attuned to handling. As long as the car goes where I want it to I'm happy. The only time I ever had a problem with tyres was with my first Honda Civic. I forget what make they were (this would be back in the late 1990s) but I soon noticed that they were severely lacking in grip in damp conditions, it didn't take much rain to render negotiating a roundabout scary.

One thing I like about the tyres Toyota have put on the Corolla is the 'kerb guard' where it bulges out around the rim. I've not seen that on a tyre before.

On the plus side at least I'm back on reasonable sized tyres again. My last few cars have been Honda Jazz and the top range models get a silly 'half narrow' profile tyre. Hard to find and pricey. They were 185/55R15 I think. What made it even more silly was that the narrower profile made the already unforgiving suspension feel even harder.

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5 minutes ago, Louie said:

Hi Andrue

I went for the rear and front door sills in polished chrome I think ?

IMG_2757.thumb.JPG.0c985011c68df8a9ada89229a77e8058.JPG

Me too, but I also bought some Chrome door handles ;)

They were pretty easy to fit (adhesive) and the only drawback is that to lock the car I have to actually insert my finger tip into a slot they provide rather than just tapping the back of my hand against the handle. My previous car had a small rubber button you had to press so it doesn't bother me.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07K5XYLD9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think they set off the rest of the chrome quite nicely.

 

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Yes they look the business nice !

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Ian

Dont forget to have the wheels balanced after fitting this should be part of the package,

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24 minutes ago, Louie said:

Ian

Dont forget to have the wheels balanced after fitting this should be part of the package,

Will do thanks, I’ll check at my dealer first when it opens as I’ll be doing some work there and it’s convenient 

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Hi Andrue

For some odd reason my door sill images failed to upload giving a weird -200 error I wonder if anyone else is having this trouble.

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13 minutes ago, Louie said:

Hi Andrue

For some odd reason my door sill images failed to upload giving a weird -200 error I wonder if anyone else is having this trouble.

I only see one - the rear door.

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On 4/29/2020 at 3:33 PM, AndrueC said:

Can't say I've noticed anything particularly 'off' about my tyres but then I've been all that attuned to handling. As long as the car goes where I want it to I'm happy. The only time I ever had a problem with tyres was with my first Honda Civic. I forget what make they were (this would be back in the late 1990s) but I soon noticed that they were severely lacking in grip in damp conditions, it didn't take much rain to render negotiating a roundabout scary.

One thing I like about the tyres Toyota have put on the Corolla is the 'kerb guard' where it bulges out around the rim. I've not seen that on a tyre before.

On the plus side at least I'm back on reasonable sized tyres again. My last few cars have been Honda Jazz and the top range models get a silly 'half narrow' profile tyre. Hard to find and pricey. They were 185/55R15 I think. What made it even more silly was that the narrower profile made the already unforgiving suspension feel even harder.

When the time comes to look at tyres, I always use Tyre Warehouse locally. They look after me very well, recommend the best tyres for what I require ( for either budget, or performance) , and if I ever have any problems, they sort it. Like you, the Falkens seem fine to me, although they were noisy for the first couple of thousand miles. But I don't really push the car hard. Compared to the SAAB, which you really had to drive, the Corolla is pretty solid.

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1 hour ago, Timmon said:

When the time comes to look at tyres, I always use Tyre Warehouse locally. They look after me very well, recommend the best tyres for what I require ( for either budget, or performance) , and if I ever have any problems, they sort it. Like you, the Falkens seem fine to me, although they were noisy for the first couple of thousand miles. But I don't really push the car hard. Compared to the SAAB, which you really had to drive, the Corolla is pretty solid.

Did you ever use the ATS garage at the old station (now gone)? I used them once and they managed to knock the tracking off during the process. I took the car to TW to get that fixed since I didn't trust the ATS monkeys after that.

The last set I got was from one of those mobile fitters and he swapped them in the office car park which was convenient. But with these wheels having pressure sensors TW is going to be likely preference.

I've no idea when they'll be due to be changed. I think it's likely I will continue to work from home until at least next year (and if I can wangle it, for ever). That means the only thing I'll use my car for is visiting local golf courses and the occasional vacation. I think I'm going to be driving less than 3k miles a year! It's going to make quite a change to my normal plans. I normally replace my car when it comes out of warranty but it's beginning to look like it'll only have 20k on the clock by then so replacing it would be silly.

I'll probably have to change them because they are old, rather than because they are worn which will be a first.

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