GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Check out my new ride... Whatcha think?

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How do you like it?

Nice! Post more info. Also, check out http://www.9thgencorolla.com for corolla related stuff as well.

She's a beauty!

Are you cheating on us?

LOL, I was cheating -- on my Hyundai. But only for a little while, it's back in its rightful place in my driveway now. It needed a new timing belt since it's pushing 60k so I brought it in to the dealer and took advantage of the dealer's free rental program.My experience with this Corolla was short lived but particularly miserable. If I had a better test subject it may have worked out differently but this thing was absolutely beat to hell. Very little tire tread on the edges, dents/scrapes/scratches/missing paint everywhere, the lower grille in the bumper wasn't snapped in and looked like it could fall out. Inside wasn't much better - dirty, lots of scrapes and scuffs, and the armrest wiggled around since the latch was broken. I popped the hood and the washer fluid tubing was just flopping around, whatever once secured it was no longer there. The cable for the trunk release was also loose, I snapped it back into it clips on the trunk arms. All this was on an '09,mind you. 28k miles on the clock - a very, very rough 28k.It's a smooth running car and pretty quiet out on the road. Toyota smoothed out the engine and tranny considerably compared to my old vibe's 1zz/auto, kudos to them for that. But on the electric power steering which felt numb and exceptionally heavy at any speed, made it especially difficult to move around in parking lots. It drove like a dream as long as you were on a perfectly straight road. The brakes were terrible - spongy pedal and much longer stopping distances than I had expected. Not sure if it just needs new brakes or if that's just how they are. It had some goofy quirks like I couldn't find the mirror control since they buried it behind the steering wheel in a very difficult location. The HVAC controls were clunky and needed too much force to operate. And we have an alarm, cruise, all the power goodies and even heated mirrors but no variable intermittent wipers? Good sounding stereo though, despite appearing to only be 4 speakers. The best part about the car was the mileage, the trip computer was reading 37 MPG when I turned it in.In short, I see even the mighty Toyota is ill-equipped to do battle with the savage beast that is the renter. I'm sure it's a good enough car if you have one that hasn't had the crap beat out of it. LOL!

Toyota's available options and packages really do not make a lot of sense at times. It forces the consumer to pay a lot extra to get some of those basic desired features that come standard on other makes/models. There are some better alternatives out there, such as the Hyundai line up. Many features standard.

Yeah, I looked online and noticed they're optioning out these things very oddly. If you want to adjust the delay time on your wipers, you have to upgrade to the XLE trim. The one I rented was an LE, otherwise from that it was adequately equipped. Stability / traction control would also have been nice to see but not that big of a must. This one only had ABS.

Sweet daily

Not really, it was pretty much a piece of crap.

Quote, originally posted by ColonelPanic »missing paintyou don't say...