[hypermiler]

I drive a lot. So much recently, that, I can compete with a cab driver. ~100 km a day, but I am still a petrol-head at heart. The two diesel experience left me wanting more in terms of good service support, maintenance cost, downtime, and heavy clutches made me incline more towards petrol now.

It was time to move to the next segment and the nominees were the new Corolla Altis, Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 TSI, and Hyundai Elantra. Renault Fluence, Chevrolet Cruz (no petrol) and Skoda Octavia were given a miss.

Key factors in choosing the car were:

• It should be easy to drive
• Should be a petrol
• Availability of parts and experienced maintenance personnel – correlates to the number of cars being sold thereby more parts and better experience
• Should be reliable and easy to maintain
• Should be fairly fresh (the looks department)
• Safety equipment

The key contenders:

Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 TSI

The Jetta looks more understated and elegant. The materials are more plush and premium looking. Safety kit and a solid build (My opinion: I still feel that my Ford Fiesta was more solidly built compared to the Jetta, but then again, it is not fair to conclude the build quality of a car by the way the door closes and how skin around the body felt) were the plus points.

Lacklustre service, reliability (the last time I visited the Volkswagen service by mistake when I was considering the Polo petrol against the Dzire / Swift, a service personnel came out as we left and told me not to go for the Polo Petrol 1.2 as it has reliability issues ), lack of Bluetooth connectivity, the impending face-lift expected possibly by the first quarter of 2015 and the lack of a test drive car for the petrol variant put off the selection of this powerful contender.

Hyundai Elantra Petrol

Only the Diesel was available. The Elantra was easier to drive in the city and I felt at home driving the diesel (which was the only demo car available). Though the feature list was quite extensive, I was neither very impressed with the center console nor keen on the way the head-on view of the Elantra looks. Maybe it is a bit too fluidic to my taste and resembles the Verna. The side profile and the rear look good though. Again, I heard there was an impending face-lift in the cards. The DSC Hyundai SA offered a spot on discount of ~45k provided I book immediately.

Both Kun Hyundai, Kun / TVS Volkswagen followed up regularly. Volkswagen later indicated that the Comfortline Diesel Jettas were available for a discount amounting to 80k plus additional deductions if I come in person to discuss with their management team. By this time, I had already set my mind on the Altis and declined politely.

Though the two main contenders (Jetta and Elantra) were quite capable, the lack of a petrol test drive car resulted in my not choosing either of them. Both the dealership indicated that they have the diesel version of the cars and petrol would be fairly similar to the diesel counterpart. I declined as booking a car without test-driving does not make sense unless the car will be chauffeur driven.

Corolla Altis

Enter the new Corolla Altis. This is one car where the Petrol has equal footing while compared to the Diesel as opposed to the other brands.



Service and reliability is also another strong point that a few of my colleagues, friends and other Toyota owners vouch for. In fact, I overheard a few gentlemen discussing their cars at a restaurant when one of them (owner of the older Corolla Altis) commented that he had not spent a single rupee more over and above the regular service trips on his petrol Altis since the past few years which is a testament by itself.

So, off we went to Lanson Toyota (Koyamedu) that was near our home the first week of Dec 2014. It was a Sunday. Neither the car was available nor most of the staff, but met the manager who promised to let me know when the car (and the respective SA) will become available. I came back with the brochure.

A couple of days later got a call from the SA and fixed a time for the TD. The SA indicated that he will bring the car to my home for the TD. But as I mostly pass by the showroom, said that I will drop by some time that day for the TD. At that point of time, Lanson Toyota had only one automatic and a manual which was being shuttled between their different showrooms around Chennai and I could get to do a TD on the automatic only.
First looks

On first looks, the build quality is adequate (not a Fiesta or a Jetta), but more on par with the Elantra, maybe a little better (in my opinion), with no major panel gaps observed. The paint is excellent and the color that we had chosen seems to take on the blue hue of the sky in the afternoons and golden sunset during the evenings. The color being darker, the dust shows easily by the end of the day.

The car when seen head on looks distinct with a wide stance. It kind of resembles the new Honda City a bit head on and looks best when viewed angled from the front quarter side.



Note: Please read through Severus's excellent review of the Altis automatic. I will be covering the differentials primarily with respect to the mid and manual variant.

First drive

The moment we got in, the SA advised both me and my wife to wear the seat-belt. Usually, the driver side belts are the ones that have alarms associated. Not so with the Altis and it keeps beeping at increasing frequencies until both the front passengers wear the seat belts. From my reading of the manual, there is no mention of turning off the passenger seat-belt warning. But I think this is actually a good thing given the fact that the single most important precaution that you should take while driving is to wear your seat-belt. So, as a result of the front passengers wearing the seat-belts mandatorily, my son when he sits at the back wears his seat-belt as well. Very good indeed!

My wife mentioned that the passenger seat and space is much more comfortable and spacious compared to the fiesta and my son found it quite comfortable at the rear compared to the Fiesta.

The automatic was easy to drive and I quickly got the hang of driving the automatic. Though I was offered a longer test drive, I just took a quick round around the Koyamedu flyover (~3-4 km) to judge the behavior in heavy stop and go traffic. However, my left hand kept jumping to the gear lever every time I wanted to slow down or accelerate.

There was ample space on the inside and I found the arm rest fairly useful as well. Adjustment of the arm-rest would have been better though.

Apart from the first Sunday, the showroom was quite crowded, primarily prospective buyers looking at the Innova, Fortuner and the Etios Cross. Not so much for the Altis and the Camry though.

A few days later, we caught hold of the manual, in which I felt more at home as I could relate to the other car that I drive. The clutch has a longer play compared to my other cars and the first gear requires a gradual release to get the vehicle in motion with slight pressure to the accelerator.



The gear is slick and slots easily as intended.



After a lot of deliberations, I decided on the manual mid variant. Thought the auto was fun to drive, I was a bit afraid of taking up the automatic as my other car was a manual geared vehicle. There were plenty of instances where I ended up spraying my windshield with washer fluid when I wanted a high beam or 'waved' my wipers instead of indicating a turn (I drove a Fiesta with the indicators to the left and a Dzire with the usual setup) that I could only dread to think of what will happen when I ended up moving the lever to 'P' when I would want extra power to go up a steep slope or press the wrong pedal by foot!

A closer view of the front


and the rear


So, the manual it was. That being settled, the next confusion was, should it be the mid variant or top variant. What I lost out compared to the top-end 'GL' variant was leather / leatherette seats, clutch start, auto-wipers, LED / projectors at the front, power assisted seat adjustments, navigation, reverse camera, rear manual sunshades and R16 radials at the expense of ~1.7 - 2 lakhs. Had there been better safety equipment at the higher end (say 6 air bags) instead of the other cosmetic features, I would have chosen the top-end over the mid readily. But in this case, we decided to go with the ‘G’ with leatherette set covers and the reverse camera as accessories.

Only changes externally are the alloys


And the non-projector lights


Internally, we have the manual drive seat adjust controls


and the non-auto wiper stalk


Initially we were not offered any discounts, the SA mentioning that this car was fairly new and maybe discounts can be offered on the accessories. But a couple of days after my test-drive, Toyota announced the 'Remember December' offer where the car was eligible for 30k of accessories. On inquiry, was informed that only the Diesel warranted the 30k and the petrol was eligible for 20k only. Checked with Harsha Toyota, Kathipara Junction who indicated that 30k was applicable regardless of the type of fuel plus freebies in terms of rust protection, mats etc but the car will be delivered only in 2015 as no stocks were available…

Confronted the SA back at Lanson and in a couple of days, they offered 20k discount on the on-road price and 20k worth accessories. I was promised that I will be able take delivery before the end of the year as well as they expect the color ‘Gray Metallic’ to arrive by then. Both the SAs (Lanson and Harsha) indicated that a price hike was in the cards in January at 2-3% plus discussion was hot on the revocation of the excise duty hike by 2015 at team-bhp got me to seal the deal with Lanson with an initial booking amount of 50k. I opted for the reverse camera and leatherette seats as accessories. Overall cost came to approximately 16.9 lakhs including accessories. The actual on-road price for the ‘G’ variant was 17 lakhs at Chennai, while the top-end manual was at 18.9 lakhs.

By the 23th of Dec, SA indicated to make the necessary loan arrangements / payment after which the car will be billed by Lanson to Toyota and will start the transit. We made the necessary arrangement and the car arrived at the yard. By 26th, we made the final payment. Though the car was ready by the 29th of Dec, we decided to take the delivery on the 31st of December, morning. The SA offered to bring the car home and do an at-home delivery too which was new for us, but opted to take delivery from the showroom.

Standard warranty was 1,00,000 km / 3 years. We opted for 0 depreciation insurance from SBI arranged by the dealer.

The delivery

We drove to the showroom and arrived by 9:30 am and the formalities including explanation of the features, spare keys, insurance etc were completed by 10am. With a customary box of chocolates exchanged between us and the SA, and a sapling gifted (go green!) by the SAs manager, we took delivery of the car by 10:15am. During delivery, the car had 45 kms on the ODO. The dealership gave the car with 3/4 of the tank full which I think is quite good gesture. My Ford Fiesta fuel indicator was below empty, but was given a vouture worth Rs. 1000 to fill up. Same case with the Dzire as well.
On the parting note, the SA instructed to maintain 34 PSI on all the wheels, use regular fuel (not the premium variants) and recommended to keep the AC temperature to be set at 22 degrees for optimal cooling.

The drive home

The drive to the Church which was at the other side of the city. It was peak office time and I was quite tense. I managed to stall the vehicle a couple of times as the 1st gear seem to be a bit sensitive when you release the clutch. Until I get the hang of it, I am bound to do this quite often. I also realized that there is no double crank protection and managed to crank the engine when I thought it had stalled. In the traffic din, I was not able to identify if the engine was running or not. The Fords require you to switch off and then crank. This was not the case for the Altis.

Note: The pulling power while reversing also needs to be carefully managed as I stalled a couple of times while reversing on steep inclines. Hopefully, I will get the hang of it. This is prominent when you reverse at an incline and not noticeable on flat roads. This does not usually happen with my other cars…

When the vehicle was handed over, the MID indicated ~9.5 kmpl. Managed to maintain the same level and on return when the office hour rush had subsided, the MID reported 10.3 kmpl with the AC on. The AC was a chiller to the extent both me and my wife either increased the set temperature or deflected the blower away from us! But still wish there is a vent at the back as the cooling may get uneven. Not that the rear passengers complained!

Over the course of the next few days of driving within the city when it was not that crowded (due to New Year), I was able to get 10.5 kmpl. So, I would guess the city average would hover around 10 kmpl. Despite the heavy traffic, we managed to reach home safely without any incidents.

Suspension though soft is very good especially while going over speed breakers – The car handles them with ease. There were some places worthy of a challenge unless carefully driven. Event the Fiesta some times ends up with a scrape to the under-body. The Corolla with the ground clearance of 180mm managed to handle this with ease with 4 people loaded. As the result of the soft suspension, slight body roll was experienced when taking curves at +100 speed.

The latter experiences

On the highway when I managed to drive from Chennai to Coimbatore via Krishnagiri, the MID reported 14.5 kmpl. Tank to tank fill method gave 550 km against 33 liters of fuel which works out to 16.66 kmpl which seems to be good. I had maintained the speed between 80 – 120 kmpl during this trip.



On the return journey, I achieved the same figures as indicated by the MID. Yet to get the numbers using the tank-fill method for the return trip. As I started the writing of this review, I was past 600 kms. By this time, I have now covered ~1600 kms and am now due for the 1st service!

Over longer drives, I realized that the driver seats are better and induces less fatigue compared to the Fiesta. The auto dimming rear view mirrors help in preventing the high-beamers from behind lighting up the inside of your car.

The ICE

The music system would get an 8 / 10 in between Dzire and the much better Fiesta. It is possible to play videos (mp4 and mov) when the vehicle is stationary. You can view photos too and set them as the wallpaper. There is no provision to feed in a CD. USB / SDCard / Aux / Bluetooth are supported. As indicated by Severus [http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...d-review.html], it is possible to view Album Art. However, it does not display via Bluetooth streaming.



Toyota provides a pre-customized option to contact emergency numbers, CRM and service center at the touch of a button. Up to 6 phones can be paired. But only one can be active at a time. Call quality is good. The mic is located on the ICE face-plate itself.



This is how the ICE looks during the day time. A bit washed out.


The MID

The MID consists of two parts. On the top half, you have the average fuel consumption, average speed, time elapsed since start etc while the bottom half has the ODO, trip A and B data. You have two knobs on either side of the speedometer to control these. The steering mounted button ‘DISP’ control switches the content in the top half.



The MID also shows the individual door ajar warnings including the boot.


Other observations

• It is spacious both at the rear and front
• Free service till 20k km or 2 years.
  • 1st service at 1000 km / 1 month,
  • 2nd service at 10,000 km / 1 year,
  • 3rd service at 20,000 kms / 2 years,
• Ground clearance at 180mm. There are a couple of rare bumps that the fiesta hits despite the firmer suspension setup at 168mm. The Altis dismisses them quite effortlessly.
• No external mechanism to open the boot. This will be a pain when your car's boot needs to be opened every time you enter office complexes or malls. This was neither mentioned in the brochure nor was the SA aware. The top end has a soft button under the number-plate light fascia to open the boot.
  
  • You can either use the remote boot release button or the boot release lever to open the boot from the inside.
• To add to that, the boot requires a firm shove to latch on to the locking mechanism to close. It took me multiple tries. Possibly, I will be discussing with the service advisor during the first free service.
• No one touch turn indicators.
• Safety & related equipment
  • 4 – 6 air bags were available as standard on the base or mid variant of other cars. Though dual air bags, ABS, brake assist, EBD were available as standard in all variants, sorely miss the other features like ESP, additional air-bags.
• At higher speeds when you hit roads that are uneven with alternating troughs and bumps, due to the suspension being a bit soft, you’d get a slight bobbing feeling. I experienced this sometimes while driving at higher speeds. But these instances were rather rare.
• The wheels are 195/65 - R15 Bridgestones with 7 spoke alloys. The spare is a full sized alloy too. At speeds above 100, you do tend to hear tire noise.
• There seems to be a lot of cut-outs left out for switches. Not sure what can be fit there:
  • In between the parking sensor switch and the head-light leveller
    
  • Next to the central cup holders
    
  • Next to the 12v socket at the front.
    
• The power window switches do not look to be of high quality
  
• Ambient lighting at
  • Foot well
  • Lighted key ring slot
  • Cup holders (?)
• Smooth open action glove box with lighting inside.
• The sun-glass holder has a felt lining. So does the space in front of the gear handle.
• The 1st gear is a bit sensitive. Need to slowly release the clutch fully before the accelerator is pressed. Stalled quite a few times for the first few days. But now, I am better acquainted
• The reverse gear requires you to lift a collar and then slot in.
• MID reduces intensity when the headlamps are switched on
• No double crank protection
• Windshield is tinted blue on the top - useful when driving facing the sun
  
• RFID windshield tag already fixed on the windshield (http://www.idplate.com/product/rfid-...and-asset-tags)
• The wipers are curved to cover the curved windshield
  
• Puddle lamps under the side pockets of the front doors provided
• Both the key and the spare have remote access
  
• There seems to be some ridges around the rear lights
  
  and the side view mirrors
  
  possibly to reduce the drag?
• Stowage area below the headlight level switch, useful to store cash / change for toll booths.
• There are not a lot of customization options available via the MID or the ICE. However, the manual indicates that the auto-lock mechanism, timeout, remote key programming can be done by specialized equipment at the service center.
  

That's all folks. Will continue updating this thread on the service experience

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Initial Ownership Section. Thanks for sharing!

[tacho9000]

Congratulations hypermiler on your new possession. It is indeed a fuss free car and has been world acclaimed just for nothing. Almost a fill it-shut it-forget it vehicle. Just let us know whether the infamous brake pad high wear is still happening in this generation. I hope toyota has given a solution.

[Carpainter]

Excellent car. Congratulation on your new acquisition. I've seen new Corolla in this grey colour more than in any other shade. The car looks gorgeous in this colour. Wish you many happy miles.

[torque!!]

Congratulations on your new car, excellent choice. To your curiosity about cut-outs for switches - the ones near the 12v charger are used for Seat heater in the US variant. Also, the ones near the cup holders in the US variant have switches to turn off traction control and enable sport/eco mode as equipped.

[Turbo_asd]

Congrats on your purchase. I really love the choice of colour.
Do post some pictures of the seats on your car, as well as the dashboard.
Wishing you many happy miles on your beauty!
Turbo_asd

[hypermiler]

Thanks everyone for your wishes .

Originally Posted by tacho9000

Just let us know whether the infamous brake pad high wear is still happening in this generation. I hope toyota has given a solution.

Will post the service history over the period of usage.

Originally Posted by Carpainter

I've seen new Corolla in this grey colour more than in any other shade.

Originally Posted by Turbo_asd

Congrats on your purchase. I really love the choice of colour.

Yes. The gray seems to be selling the most. Our other option was Silver which looks good as well.

[Shanksta]

Congratulations on buying a wonderful car hypermiler!! I have fond memories of test driving the Corolla Altis 11th gen I test drove the diesel!! Brilliant car, looks gorgeous hope to buy one for myself in the future!! Even the blue color looks wonderful on the Altis. The car appealed to me a lot.
Wish you miles of smiles!

[bowser]

Don't worry about the boot. Even our previous gen Altis has the same behavior. The boot lid has to be given a firm push to lock. No issues so far.

[rsm97]

Congratulation on the new buy hypermiler and wish you happiness driving it. Loved the color. Your mileage figures are impressive for an Altis. What the MID indicates for normal city driving? Anything close will be fantastic.

Just out of curiosity - if can specify the issues you faced in diesel Fiesta/Dezire.

[hypermiler]

Originally Posted by bowser

Don't worry about the boot. Even our previous gen Altis has the same behavior. The boot lid has to be given a firm push to lock.

Had taken the car for 1st free service. The boot lid was diagnosed as an issue and they worked on it. The mechanic indicated that the lid has been misaligned. Now it does not require any additional force to close. A gentle push suffices.

Originally Posted by rsm97

Congratulation on the new buy hypermiler and wish you happiness driving it. Loved the color. Your mileage figures are impressive for an Altis. What the MID indicates for normal city driving? Anything close will be fantastic.

Thanks. At city, it hovers around 9.5 to 10.5 kmpl. Did not try the tank fill method.

Originally Posted by rsm97

Just out of curiosity - if can specify the issues you faced in diesel Fiesta/Dezire.

I own a Petrol Fiesta / Dzire. You can see the ownership report of the Fiesta here. Do not have a report for the Dzire though. Though the process of acquiring the Dzire was an adventure by itself...

[Baddychat]

Congratulations hypermiler on your ride and wishing you thousands of happy and safe miles.

The Altis looks nice in this shade of grey. Nice crisp review though.

[Wanderers]

Hi hypermiler

Congratulation on your new sets of wheels.

Welcome to Toyota Family. You will be more overjoyed once the paid service starts. As such they are greatly customer oriented people.

One query regarding, dimming of Instruments optitron meters, Corolla do not have dimming feature, I wonder how they manage in bright sunlight or is there some other arrangement ?

Thanks

[Selective]

Congratulations HyperMiler! Enjoy your drives!!!

I have bought Corolla Altis G (CVT) in November 2014 with the same color, GRAY!! So far, I am enjoying every bit of it. Till now, I have driven only within the city, hopefully next month, I will get a chance drive out of Bangalore.

Selective.

[nishchal316]

Congratulations hypermiler on your new ride. The VVT is certainly fun to drive. Do post some more pictures of the car , especially of the rear seat.
Enjoy driving