Watch this before buying a GR Corolla!

hey guys welcome to the video If you clicked on this I am sure you've probably watched all the gr Corolla videos there possibly are on the internet right now and mine popped up here late the reality is I wanted to spend some time with the car and get to know it so I can actually give you guys details of the car that you know first time Impressions can't really give you and so this is the video for the person who wants to buy the car and actually know what they're getting themselves into so with all that being said let's get into it [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here we are in the Corolla interior and more or less it's what you would expect you do get a relatively nicely equipped Corolla hatchback interior like the regular xse however there are some gr appointments which make this feel slightly more special first things first the steering wheel in front of you and got to tell you it is a nice welcome change to just have a regular steering wheel versus a square steering wheel or a flat bottom steering wheel or a yoke or something else and also this steering wheel here is actually it's a nice shape it's got good girth to it just just right um I do like the material they use the leather and the stitching is really cool too not too much the horn here is interesting because it actually super super sensitive but the horn sound itself is actually kind of puny so maybe that's an upgrade point but something to note other than that let's talk about these seats because I think that is the other special gr touch here these seats look really good they have a racing design to them however in practice they kind of just feel like average rent a car seats um I hate to say that but that's really the truth they do have even these holes here for like what looks like a like racing harnesses or something but you would never use these with racing harnesses the thing about them is they do look like they have bolstering but the bolstering is not enough I mean I'm six one six two about 225 pounds and I move around in these seats all the time like if I'm going through corners yeah they just don't hold you tight um so from that perspective it's annoying but on the other hand these are really comfortable and really daily drivable livable seats so kind of depends on what you want my only other gripe with these seats is they use the stock xse look floor on here right and as you would expect I mean this is basically the same shell as a regular hatchback Corolla which also means that they just plopped these seats in the same spot the regular Corolla hatch seats go now what that means is they're actually elevated and even though this is a manual adjustable seat you can't really get the seat low enough to feel like you're driving in the car versus on the car yes I I have enough room I think for a helmet but I just need like an extra inch inch and a half so that's just not here and that's a little bit annoying other than that you do get a a nice shifter specific to this car I'm running the maurizo shift knob which is a nice piece with a little bit of Alcantara on it that is extra but nevertheless it's a good positive throw and it feels good now I do have a couple of gripes though for starters the stereo in this car is the JBL system it's just not very good just to level set expectations I I can't stand it it really um it makes me want to upgrade however upgrading your speakers means adding weight because magnets are really really heavy so I think Toyota took that into account because they're balancing yes they're balancing costs but they're also balancing performance and they want to make sure that they opted on the side of performance versus having everything be luxury and premium the other thing is this touch screen I gotta say it is nice placement but the touch screen itself is very um it just feels like it's about five years behind it's not very responsive uh the graphics on it are not good the apps are okay though I will say app wise these are pretty good and ultimately I think that um you know there there's just not a lot to this infotainment system I'm never going to use the navigation but it's nice that it's there oh there is one more thing so this mirror here is the frameless mirror and it has the Homelink system in it so you can basically open and close your garage door I got to tell you from every car I've ever owned this thing works the best you basically just tap it like once just even a slight tap the garage door goes up no problem each and every time it's never missed a beat and uh even from a distance it's actually really impressive I don't know why it's so good but my other cars have always struggled sometimes I'm like sitting there hitting it a lot and nothing's happening but with this amazing so if that's important to you you're good [Applause] [Music] all right so everything you guys have seen online in other videos I'm sure um are all probably pretty accurate meaning like the card self is um well balanced it has pretty good power it handles well all those things are true on top of that the steering is good the drive modes are appropriate and feel good uh the car is very tossable it feels like it is Built Well all those things 100 true now for the things that you probably won't hear in those reviews so the first thing is the screen here in front of me the little digital gauge gives me the option to choose between a number of different menus and as a driver there's some of the stuff the the data itself is actually helpful so for example I'd like to know what my tire temperatures are at all times to make sure especially when I'm driving hard that I don't have a flat and uh potentially don't cause an accident but you know what if I set that menu and then turn off the car and then turn it back on that menu is gone it's hidden away somewhere and I have to reset it um and the weird thing is it's totally random sometimes it'll be on the on like it'll be there as I said it if I if I'm like if you shut the car off and you're just gone for like an hour and you come back it it coin flip if it's still there or not but typically you're gonna find that it disappears so if you want it you got to set it for the session and then expect to do it again later on that is a bug and I don't know how they fix it it's going to have to be some sort of update I don't think it's I don't even think this car has over-the-air update available but anyway it is definitely an update that needs to happen secondly the shifter is cable actuated now what does that mean well it means that there's no transmission directly underneath here transmission is up front which is um you know sitting perpendicular to the car and just like a front-wheel drive car now you shift by moving these cables which changes the gear positioning and changes gear the problem is when you do so every so often you will find that you'll grind a gear and before people start roasting me in the comments trust me I've been driving stick shifts for I don't know almost my whole life and like no joke almost my whole life on top of that um I've only actually ever had this problem in one other car that I've owned which was a ep3 Honda Civic SI guess what that one was cable actuated so what is the moral of the story you hear cables you know they just over time they stretch um also they're just not going to be as accurate as you know a direct link I mean that's just the the reality of the situation so you have to be very purposeful with your shifts and you have to be patient when you come up off the clutch not something that people think about but uh once you grind the gears once or twice you're going to realize you kind of have to account for it and that's a little annoying it's all Stock Drive modes sure you can go 60 40 50 50 30 70 pick your poison how you feel how you feel like driving in that moment for that situation sounds great doesn't it well it is although if you're just putting around town you almost can't tell the difference between those Drive modes those Drive modes really stand out when you utilize the car for the situation they were designed for so you know that's kind of an obvious point but that's just something to consider because I don't always think that everybody interprets that data in that way usually people go oh wow I'm going to be able to drift it or whatever not really out of the factory this thing is pretty planted this has got incredible grip just straight out of the box and that's great very safe feeling gives you a lot of confidence but if you want to learn how to slide the car a little bit you kind of have to use this e-brake and thank God we've got an e-brake that's just a regular handle but when you pull up on it what happens is it actually disengages the rear tires or the rear differential I should say through the clutch packs and by doing so it allows the back end to slow and be able to break traction but you're not going to be doing that much but here's the weird thing the weird thing is this thing is marketed as a trackable fun car and it is all those things it's actually I feel like it really punches above its weight but it has one major Achilles heel because of course it does well clutch packs they overheat and Toyota did not do a very good job of accounting for that so if you go to the track or you go to a autocross or maybe even on a back road if you're in a particular mode that is gonna really heat up the oil on those clutch packs what happens is next you're going to go into limp mode which means you're now front wheel drive and that just kind of stinks right because you bought this car thinking I'm going to be able to drive this car every day it's a Toyota it's reliable and yet I'm going to be able to have fun with it and not have any worries I mean for crying out loud Toyota literally gives you a free track day when you buy this car with NASA so you know it was a little bit of a surprise uh to see a lot of people online having this issue now to be fair I personally have had no issue and I don't drive this car slow by any stretch but again I've had no issues zero problems I think eventually I would though if I did take it on track probably a lap or two or three in you're probably going to come across it and I don't think there's a seriously you know bulletproof fix that's known yet there's some other stuff out there that's like you know really about adding capacity to the rear diff which I think it's a clutch pack issue not a rear diff issue but anyway then there's also you know different um fins and stuff that channel air to cool down the gearbox itself I mean fine maybe those things help but I don't think they're a fix another cool thing about this car though is the sound even though it's just a little three-cylinder it you kind of forget that it's a three cylinder I mean I I typically do forget it I just drive it but it's got like two personalities and I don't mean that in the you know the journalistic oh it's you know a jackal and Hyde kind of thing what I mean is at the low side let's take the the bottom half RPMs it actually feels pretty torquey and I know the you know the the main torque punch is between like three grand and 5500 RPM but it really does feel like a lot more um willing and stuff on that lower end as you start getting to the higher RPMs I don't know it's somehow kind of loses a little bit of its tone it loses a little bit of its eagerness it almost feels like it's not happy doing that um it'll do it all day but just doesn't quite feel like um you know a really like high revving like wants to be driven hard fast car now that being said it'll do it and maybe it's just something I got to get used to but that is something I've noticed [Music] all right so as an owner what do I really think about this car well it's not perfect right I mean definitely they could have done a little bit more to make it feel special on the inside probably could have put in some higher upgrades to you know kind of justify the price because these aren't Crazy Cheap and especially if you add on any dealer markups but what's really great about this car is that it's actually filling a void we don't have a great competitor like a real direct competitor sure you have the type R's of the world and wrx's but they're just not Apples to Apples necessarily this is this is basically the SDI hatchback from you know 10 years ago and I mean to be honest I've had that car and I think this one is even more fun to drive and of course with Toyota reliability and really just an upgraded very unique modern style not too much not two boy eraser but you know unique that it stands out I think it's a winner I mean as long as you can get this car for the right price I say go for it you won't regret it all that being said guys thanks for watching at this point if you have any other questions concerns whatever put them down below of course as always please share like And subscribe and I'll catch you guys on the next one

Channel: PointShiftDrive

Views: 29,066

Keywords: gr corolla quirks, gr corolla value, toyota corolla gr core edition, toyota gr corolla core, toyota gr corolla review, gr corolla core, gr corolla core review, gr corolla details, gr corolla issues, how to buy a gr corolla, gr corolla performance, Toyota corolla gr performance, 2023 gr corolla review, gr corolla exhaust, grc performance, 2023 toyota gr corolla, toyota gr corolla 2023, Toyota, Gr Corolla, gr corolla 2023, gr corolla problems, Gr corolla owner

Id: 8bizOAQ7oIY

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/lordofwarscar17]

As an owner I would say he is spot on. Simplest way to describe it. It is a better sti. Best car drivers car you can get for 40k in my opinion. Not for 50k though.

[u/[deleted]]

I’m actually beginning to really dislike my GRC. The engine is such an important part of the interface for me, and this one is just so flat. Weak down low, vibey, and it never really comes on fire. Sort of just a flat power band, and that 47lb flywheel/clutch assembly with the clunky dual mass flywheel… that’s an entirely different story.

[u/Donkerdink]

He mentions that he really doesn't like the sound system and he has the JBLs. I've heard this several times in this sub as well. What specifically are people not liking? Not loud enough or not clear enough? Not enough bass? I was waiting for him to add more detail in the video, but he didn't. I have the core with the technology package and I think the sound is just fine. I'm happy with it. I wouldn't describe it as the best ever, but this youtuber said, "it's just not very good. I can't stand it." Thoughts?