Reassurance required

[DamoGR]

Afternoon everyone

Im due to pick my 23 plate Corolla 2.0 GR TS this coming week 

However I have read some rather worrying things about this model on these forums 

First of all, the thing I am really concerned about is the 12V Battery problems people have experienced. 
I don’t really want to be spending the most money I have ever spent on a car, to find that it won’t start because of the Battery. 

Secondly I have read about the 2 litre model suffering misfires and injector problems. People have said that better quality fuel can help, but this doesn’t seem conclusive.

The other things I have read mainly concern troubles revolving around the massive amount of safety features built in to the car, and navigating around the software side of things.

This doesn’t concern me as much as the other two issues, although it does sound like a lot of reading is required!

Im aware that many people post the negative aspects of the car and usually when things go wrong, but I am having major doubts whether the car is going to be what I had hoped it would be.

Am I being overly worried, as I still have time to cancel the deal and look at other makes?

Ironically I settled on this due to its supposedly excellent reliability record, but now I’m not as confident

Thanks in advance (and hope) for any replies

Kind Regards

Damian

 

[Bper]

Hi Damian,It's totally normal to feel concerned before making such a big purchase, especially after reading some of the negative experiences online. 12V Battery Issues, some owners have reported problems, mainly if the car isn’t driven often. Regular use usually prevents this, and Toyota handles any issues under warranty.The 2.0 Litre Engine concerns,while there have been reports of misfires and injector problems, these are rare. Using a good quality fuel can help, but this shouldn’t be a major worry.The Corolla does have a lot of tech, which can seem a bit overwhelming at first. However, most people find the systems easy to use once they get familiar with them.Overall the Corolla has a strong reputation for reliability. It’s common for people to share more negative experiences online, so keep that in mind. Good luck and enjoy the Corolla.😀

[MC1216]

1) 12v Battery issue isn't a big problem if car used daily or left for a week but you can always upgrade the Battery or buy a Battery booster pack for peace of mind.

2)Injector problems are usually 2020/21 cars

3)Tech on 2023 is fine...if you bought a 2024 model then you would be pulling your hair out

Enjoy it's a great car

[FROSTYBALLS]

As regards the safety systems, the newer the car, the more systems it will have, some of which are mandatory requirements. So cars from other manufacturers will have similar systems and similar issues for the owner.

[TonyHSD]

It’s always a bit of luck when buying a car or getting married. 
The issues mentioned has happened to some people, but not exactly to all owners, therefore it’s not exactly a wide spread amongst the Corolla cars. 
My personal choice for Corolla right now will be 23 design TS 1.8 hybrid. 
But you are buying a car with long warranty and from a brand who currently offer the best cars with petrol engines so you should really be ok and no need to be worrying too much. 👍

[Cyker]

Is the 12v Battery even an issue with the Corolla? I don't remember reading many/any posts about that from Corolla owners.

As far as I know it's limited to the Mk4 Yaris almost exclusively, and even then only the OG ones!

 

[DamoGR]

18 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Is the 12v battery even an issue with the Corolla? I don't remember reading many/any posts about that from Corolla owners.

As far as I know it's limited to the Mk4 Yaris almost exclusively, and even then only the OG ones!

 

I’ve been reading a fair bit about it on here 

i really don’t want to be worrying if when I get to the car it won’t start. It’s inconvenient and a bit embarrassing for a newish car 

Thank you to those who have posted, I’m feeling a little bit more confident now

Regarding the Battery, I guess I will have to purchase a booster pack from somewhere and carry it with me then 

[trashman1965]

I drive my 71 plate Corolla generally once a week, 2 x 1 hour drives on a Saturday, occasionally short trips during the week. Average 8k miles per year. Never had a Battery issue. My previous auris during lockdown I left 3 weeks and it only had a short drive before it was parked. It briefly showed an error trying to go into drive which cleared within a second.

 

I'm also someone who had misfire/injector issues and a truly crappy experience with the dealer and Toyota. Eventually all sorted.

My new 2l Excel is due next month - technically my 3rd attempt this year due to another truly crappy dealer experience.

My previous 2 hybrids, and other Half's 3 hybrid Yaris all no problems whatsoever.

Bottom line, enjoy the car and know that in the rare circumstances you have an issue, it can be sorted.

[JasonM]

Hi Damian, I would not worry about those points, the reality is for each negative report on a forum there are many thousands of happy drivers and the Toyota brand and Corolla are pretty much as reliable as you can get.  I previously had Skoda Octavia’s but the whole VW group are suffering from much worse reliability recently compared to Japanese cars.   
 

1) Battery, I suggest charging by leaving in park with hybrid ready light on and air con system off for 20-30 min once a month if you can.  Alternatively invest in a CTEK charger and give the car a charge up once or twice per year and really don’t think you will have any issues

2) As has been said I think the misfire injector issue is very rare and not aware it’s an issue with current gen M20A-FXS engine running on standard E10.

3) I have a 23 2.0L TS and no problems with the software at all, once you get the car paired properly which the dealer can help with.

good luck.  
 

[DamoGR]

11 minutes ago, JasonM said:

Hi Damian, I would not worry about those points, the reality is for each negative report on a forum there are many thousands of happy drivers and the Toyota brand and Corolla are pretty much as reliable as you can get.  I previously had Skoda Octavia’s but the whole VW group are suffering from much worse reliability recently compared to Japanese cars.   
 

1) Battery, I suggest charging by leaving in park with hybrid ready light on and air con system off for 20-30 min once a month if you can.  Alternatively invest in a CTEK charger and give the car a charge up once or twice per year and really don’t think you will have any issues

2) As has been said I think the misfire injector issue is very rare and not aware it’s an issue with current gen M20A-FXS engine running on standard E10.

3) I have a 23 2.0L TS and no problems with the software at all, once you get the car paired properly which the dealer can help with.

good luck.  
 

Thanks Jason

i too had Škoda for many years, and was looking at another before deciding to switch marques.

Nice to know you rate your current car, and you have definitely made me feel a bit more confident 

Thanks for the info as well, I will look into getting a charger and maybe carry a booster around just in case 

[sportse]

The Battery in my 23 Corolla is a decent size, nearly the same as you’d get in an ordinary car. 
 

I believe the earlier models had a smaller Battery. My Yaris hybrid had a tiny one. 
 

the advantage with the 23 models is we can turn off some of the safety systems and they stay off. On the 24s they reset to on after every start. 
 

I still leave the road sign assist on, even though it doesn’t work properly sometimes. On a 23 you can have just the image, without the noise coming back after every start. 
 

I’d always wanted a 2.0 but the issues do seem to only apply to the earlier ears. I was originally looking at 20/21 cars myself before getting the 23 1.8 instead. 

[Chainbreaker]

I believe the injector issues were limited to a bad batch on 2021 cars according to someone on here. Outside of that the 2.0 engines are very reliable and offer a good mix of economy and performance. 1.8 is a good engine as well, depends on how you're using the car. If it's mostly town driving, get the 1.8. If it's longer motorway runs etc get the 2.0.

12v Battery issues are fairly common on all hybrid cars regardless of brand due to using invertors instead of alternators to charge the Battery and the Battery size generally being smaller as it's not used to crank the engine. If you use the car regularly, fine. How many miles a year do you normally do? 

If you only use it to go to the shops once a week and use it infrequently, you'll have battery issues and I wouldn't recommend it.

Edit: As others have already said, sweet spot is a MY23 as the safety systems can be switched off permanently.

[Obsidian Estate]

My 21 plate 2 litre was about 9 months old when I got it. It's now over 3 years old, 22k miles and has been boringly reliable.

[DamoGR]

1 hour ago, Chainbreaker said:

I believe the injector issues were limited to a bad batch on 2021 cars according to someone on here. Outside of that the 2.0 engines are very reliable and offer a good mix of economy and performance. 1.8 is a good engine as well, depends on how you're using the car. If it's mostly town driving, get the 1.8. If it's longer motorway runs etc get the 2.0.

12v battery issues are fairly common on all hybrid cars regardless of brand due to using invertors instead of alternators to charge the battery and the battery size generally being smaller as it's not used to crank the engine. If you use the car regularly, fine. How many miles a year do you normally do? 

If you only use it to go to the shops once a week and use it infrequently, you'll have battery issues and I wouldn't recommend it.

Edit: As others have already said, sweet spot is a MY23 as the safety systems can be switched off permanently.

Hi

i probably do about 10k a year

i have a short trip of 5 miles to work and 5 back daily, as well as a bit of running around at weekends. 
probably once a month i travel from Sheffield to Edinburgh and back to see my girlfriend,  which is about 550 mile round trip

 

[DamoGR]

2 minutes ago, Obsidian Estate said:

My 21 plate 2 litre was about 9 months old when I got it. It's now over 3 years old, 22k miles and has been boringly reliable.

Hi, thank you for sharing 

I don’t know how many miles was on it when you got it, but it sounds like you don’t do a lot per year?

It’s good to hear you haven’t had any issues in that time though

[simond64]

So many replying that don’t actually own at 23 plate Corolla TS 2.0.  I have an Excel on this plate and it’s fine, only issue is leather seat ballooning, initial concerns about mpg but settled now. Nice features over the 22 model, I don’t think you need to worry it’s an excellent choice

[DamoGR]

2 minutes ago, simond64 said:

So many replying that don’t actually own at 23 plate Corolla TS 2.0.  I have an Excel on this plate and it’s fine, only issue is leather seat ballooning, initial concerns about mpg but settled now. Nice features over the 22 model, I don’t think you need to worry it’s an excellent choice

Thanks Simon

Really nice to hear that you are happy with basically the same car I am getting (apart from trim)

Really appreciate all the replies, it’s good to know that there is a friendly and informative place I can ask questions and hopefully alleviate my worries 

[Chainbreaker]

47 minutes ago, DamoGR said:

Hi

i probably do about 10k a year

i have a short trip of 5 miles to work and 5 back daily, as well as a bit of running around at weekends. 
probably once a month i travel from Sheffield to Edinburgh and back to see my girlfriend,  which is about 550 mile round trip

 

Sounds like you use it regularly, shouldn't have any problems with the 12v Battery with that sort of mileage.

 

43 minutes ago, simond64 said:

So many replying that don’t actually own at 23 plate Corolla TS 2.0.  I have an Excel on this plate and it’s fine, only issue is leather seat ballooning, initial concerns about mpg but settled now. Nice features over the 22 model, I don’t think you need to worry it’s an excellent choice

And? Just because people don't own a corolla (or the specific model of it) doesn't mean they can't contribute to this thread through their experience of toyota hybrid systems and engines, which are shared amongst many models in the range. Plus there are a few non corolla owners here that have a lot of experience (I think one even works for toyota) whose insight is worth listening to.

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, simond64 said:

So many replying that don’t actually own at 23 plate Corolla TS 2.0.

Any member is free to contribute whether they own a Corolla or not. Please move on.

[DamoGR]

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply, it is appreciated more than you realise (I really was worried I’d made a bad choice)

For my piece of mind I am going to carry around a jump starter, does this seem ok?

[fred88]

After 1.5 years of ownership I had an out of the blue flat Battery just over a week ago. It hadn't been driven for 2 days but its last drive had been 2 x 30 minute trips. It's with Toyota this week for "investigation". In the mean time I've purchased a Gooloo GE2000 which I think is what you have posted. Untested as of yet but you don't need something that can turn over an engine, only get the systems booted. Out of the box it was well packaged and purely subjectively seems good. The brand also had a good review on my other post on the subject.

[seetek]

For what it's worth to the OP I did a lot of due diligence when buying my cars which led me to the Corolla GR Sport 2.0 MY20. I have had rear discs and pads changed under warranty as they were seized. I make sure the pins are checked/greased at each service now. I also had a flat Battery one time. This was after not using the car for 1 week.

The Battery on these is much smaller than a normal car as it simply fires up the dash and doesn't have to turn over a starter motor to fire the engine. I would advise you to check where the charge leads go as there is a specific place on the engine for this on the earlier cars. When the breakdown fella came he wouldn't listen to me and spent 30-minutes trying to start it under the bonnet, then taking the back seat apart to get at the Battery under the boot floor from inside the car (couldn't open the hatch). He actually pulled the boot floor lift handle off, which cost the company £240 as you can only get the whole floor! After doing this I persuaded him to do what I suggested and it lit the dash immediately.

So, checking where the leads go is wise in advance. I bought a trickle charger for mine in case I ever have to leave it. I think it would generate sufficient power to fire the dash in a short while but you do need to be close to a power supply of course. Not good if at an airport.

I liked my GR sport so much (or should I say, the wife liked it so much!) that I then bought a MY21 Excel 2.0.

I was worried about reports of injector issues having 2 x 2.0s but so far no complaints. My only gripe with the (top-of-the-range) Excel is it doesn't have a HUD which the GR does and it's great.

Lastly, I would not pay the money Toyota are asking for the new models. Plenty of low mileage earlier cars available. I would like a Rav 4 Dynamic in white next on a 20/21 plate.

[DamoGR]

17 minutes ago, seetek said:

For what it's worth to the OP I did a lot of due diligence when buying my cars which led me to the Corolla GR Sport 2.0 MY20. I have had rear discs and pads changed under warranty as they were seized. I make sure the pins are checked/greased at each service now. I also had a flat battery one time. This was after not using the car for 1 week.

The battery on these is much smaller than a normal car as it simply fires up the dash and doesn't have to turn over a starter motor to fire the engine. I would advise you to check where the charge leads go as there is a specific place on the engine for this on the earlier cars. When the breakdown fella came he wouldn't listen to me and spent 30-minutes trying to start it under the bonnet, then taking the back seat apart to get at the battery under the boot floor from inside the car (couldn't open the hatch). He actually pulled the boot floor lift handle off, which cost the company £240 as you can only get the whole floor! After doing this I persuaded him to do what I suggested and it lit the dash immediately.

So, checking where the leads go is wise in advance. I bought a trickle charger for mine in case I ever have to leave it. I think it would generate sufficient power to fire the dash in a short while but you do need to be close to a power supply of course. Not good if at an airport.

I liked my GR sport so much (or should I say, the wife liked it so much!) that I then bought a MY21 Excel 2.0.

I was worried about reports of injector issues having 2 x 2.0s but so far no complaints. My only gripe with the (top-of-the-range) Excel is it doesn't have a HUD which the GR does and it's great.

Lastly, I would not pay the money Toyota are asking for the new models. Plenty of low mileage earlier cars available. I would like a Rav 4 Dynamic in white next on a 20/21 plate.

Thank you for the reply

I have so much to learn

I have been reading the whole pinned topic about Battery problems and it’s all a bit technical for me 

I’m not clued up at all regarding electrics and amps/outputs etc

I can’t lie, I am still a bit worried that I will encounter problems I would never have expected to on a newish car.

Thanks for the info regarding the Battery location, I will have a look for it when I get the car.

At the risk of sounding stupid, If I do get a flat Battery, then I assume I put the jump starter on the one in the boot?

I just want to drive it as normal and not be panicking about whether it might start… it’s not much to ask surely 😄

[TonyHSD]

Hi, 

No need to panicking or be extremely worried about your new car Battery. 
Just be proactive since you know about eventual Battery problems and do few things to be ready. 
Buy a jump starter pack and store inside the car , glovebox or under seat. 
If you are not driving often and for long 30+ min each time when turning on the car , best practice is to disable all auto functions like auto folding mirrors, home lights , auto parking brake, and if possible these connected services. 
You can use all these functions prior to locking the car, just when parked and before you turn off the car , fold the mirrors, apply parking brake if necessary, no need to do every time if your car is on level ground, just select P and turn it off. 
Then these connected server, do you really need to see in your phone any information about the car when actually your car is front of you on your driveway?! 
When washing the car start and keep in ready mode for the duration of your car wash 30-90 min. for example. Every time you start the car although there is no actual starter motor there are actuators that drain power, computers and relays so Battery gets loaded and discharged, so it needs time to recharge afterwards. It’s not just unlocking and locking the doors or light up the dashboard, these drains very little but the brake booster actually does draw a lot of energy. 
And finally if you don’t drive often and the car gets little use you can keep in ready mode once a week for 30-40 min and you will be alright, or connect to your battery charger. 

Every Toyota hybrid post 2019 is a plug in hybrid. 👌
 

Some charge traction batteries, others 12v batteries 🪫 😅

[Heidfirst]

53 minutes ago, DamoGR said:

 

Thanks for the info regarding the battery location, I will have a look for it when I get the car.

 

On a 2.0 TS the 12V Battery is behind a removeable panel at the rear offside of the boot.

(in the hatchback it is under the floor)