15 years with a Toyota Corolla Altis

Toyota's are known for their reliability. Here's one more ownership story of a Corolla Altis now in its 15th year, and running.

BHPian Vid6639 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Been a while since I updated this thread. The Altis is now in its 15th year. Running has significantly reduced due to dad's age and post COVID. From the last update in 2021 to now the car barely did 10K kms. It's now at 1.05L kms.

A few years back one of the drivers from Driveu had scraped the rear quarter panel and door. I had got this fixed at Sai colorium. Noticed that in last 1 year the entire panel was bubbling up and paint was about to chip off. 

Before:

I decided to get this fixed outside this time at Carmed. It's been more than 6 months and the paint has held up well. Apparantely Sai colorium didn't do proper treatment after using the dent puller when they stripped the paint down causing the inner layer to bubble up. 

I got the rear quarter panel, rear door and front bumper painted. Results below:

The front suspension was also making a racket and I had to get that addressed ASAP. Last time dealer convinced me not to change anything but honestly after 15 years rubber bushes and joints don't last. 

I decided to change the front lower arms and anything with rubber bushes. 

When Ravindu opened up the suspension, they surprisingly found the front right strut had failed! This was changed in 2021 less than 10K kms earlier. They offered to replace it with a discount as it was rare for a Toyota part to fail so soon. 

They also found the CV joint boot was cracking due to age and those were replaced. 

Front strut that had gone bad and was going back up too fast. Was leaking fluid as well:

Bump stop had disintegrated as well:

New lower arm fitted:

New CV joint boot left and right:

New strut on right side:

Overall work done:

- new front right strut

- new lower arms

- new CV boot front

Total repair cost was 40K including service but no oil change since I did that a few months before. 

Suspension is now quiet and no noise. Feels tight and soaks up the roads like it did when it was new. Even though no bushes had gotten cut or worn out, this is needed change for older cars. 

I'm keeping the car as it is pointless selling off a 15 yr old car that is running fine. The last service was done in 2021 and it never went to the workshop for 2.5 years other than oil change every year. 

This August the FC is up for renewal as well and will renew and keep chugging along as the spare car at home.

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