The Toyota Corolla has a lot of legroom. We were able to install three child seats: a Mountain Buggy Protect baby capsule, an Infasecure Kompressor 4 (both rear-facing), and a Mountain Buggy Foldaway booster seat in the outside seats. The middle seat had enough capacity for an Infasecure Foldaway booster seat to fit an 184 cm driver. Three top tether anchorages are located in the parcel shelf behind each rear headrest, along with two ISO Fix points, one in each of the outside rear seats.
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BabyDrive Verdict
For many years running, the Toyota Corolla (hatchback model and sedan combined) was the best-selling car in Australia. However, in 2016, as the popularity of utes grew, the Hilux and Ranger sped into the top spots.
The Toyota Corolla, hmm! I was not going to be won over by it! I might not have been so irritated by Toyota’s usage of fonts if I hadn’t previously worked as a designer! And I might not have shuddered every time I used the gleaming silver plastic gear stick, which was an exact reproduction of my first computer joystick, if I hadn’t been born in the 1980s.
The Corolla appears and feels extremely plain and inexpensive. But it’s not basic in the well-thought-out minimalist sense of, say, an Apple device with a stunningly minimal aesthetic that actually required more design to look so straightforward and well-planned. It is simple in the sense that we’ll take one of each of the cheapest car interior components and piece them together. As though Toyota simply got the cheapest version of everything (even buttons with ugly fonts!) and assembled it all in a car.
Having said that, everything comes together to create a useful, incredibly roomy, and reasonably priced car that, to be fair, has been Australia’s greatest seller for a very long time!
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle is equipped with six shopping bags, but the parcel shelf is set in place, making it impossible to fit a dog in the boot.
It’s not exactly practical to store things inside the automobile. Both a reusable and disposable coffee cup can fit in one of the two cup holders in the front and back of the vehicle. The rear one, however, has a poorly placed lid that will accidentally knock the cover off of your coffee cup and cause a spill.
The door bins are relatively small; they will fit an iPad or a wallet but not my large reusable water bottle. Only a 600ml water bottle would fit. The storage compartment on the center console is quite little, but the glove compartment is a decent size.
In front of the gear lever is a storage area that is ideal for your phone because it has a USB port.
In addition to illuminated vanity mirrors in both front visors, there is a glasses case in the ceiling.
Both of the back pockets for the front seats have enough room to fit an iPad, which is fantastic!
The Corolla has plenty of room for your legs. We were able to install three child seats: a Mountain Buggy Protect baby capsule, an Infasecure Kompressor 4 (both rear-facing), and a Mountain Buggy Foldaway booster seat in the outside seats. The middle seat had enough capacity for an Infasecure Foldaway booster seat to fit an 184 cm driver.
Three top tether points are located in the parcel shelf behind each rear headrest, along with two ISO Fix points, one in each of the outside rear seats.
The lack of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto made the media screen feel dated and unintuitive to operate. The Corolla surprised me by being a very noisy vehicle that frequently beeped and chimed with infant awakening alerts!
The Toyota Corolla has seven airbags as standard equipment and a five-star ANCAP safety rating.
BabyDrive Indepth – Storage
Two sizable cup holders on the central console are located in the front of the Toyota Corolla. Both my large refillable water bottle and my disposable and reusable coffee cups fit in them, I discovered. One thing I observed was that, like in the Holden Colorado and Trailblazer, the center console storage box’s opening catch is blocked if a water bottle is placed in the back of the two cup holders.
A rubber star shape that fits in the bottom of one cup holder raises the floor level and decreases depth, allowing you to insert a coffee cup without worrying about it falling into the center console. This makes the cup holders highly adjustable. Additionally, there is a detachable partition separating the two cup holders. When I put my large water bottle in the holder, the area around it appeared to be made of rubber, which made it possible for it to flex and bend.
Under a padded armrest that has two catchesone for a small but deep box at the bottom and the other to a coin tray at the topis the primary storage compartment.
The door pockets also provide room for a small 600 ml or Pigeon baby bottle, however they are not lined, so the bottles rattle and leave marks rather easily. The doors had scratches and scuffs from use after a week. The door pocket appeared to be small, yet my wallet fit perfectly sideways and the iPad fit on its end as well.
In addition to a 12V power outlet, the area in front of the gear lever has USB and headphone ports. Although the USB wire hangs down in the footwell, I found the little, rubber-lined well below them to be ideal for placing my phone in while driving and having it plugged into the USB port. The majority of the vehicles I’m driving appear to have this problem.
The two press-on inside lights, one glasses case, and the driver’s right knee coin pocket are all positioned in the ceiling. The glove box is incredibly roomy; it already had two user manuals inside, yet there was still room for my iPad, wallet, and glasses case.
Both front seatbacks have roomy half-map pockets in the back that can easily fit and conceal an iPad. Despite being shallower than the front ones, the back door pockets appear to contain the same amount. They easily accommodated my iPad and wallet and can hold a 600ml water bottle, but not my larger refilling one.
Two cup holders are located in the pull-down armrest of the middle back seat. They are hidden beneath a lid that, however, does not fold back far enough. When you insert a throwaway coffee cup, the cup holder lid rubs against the lid, causing hot coffee to spill out all over the place! Even though it is a minor element, it is nevertheless bothersome. Only a disposable coffee cup fit, a baby bottle rattled, and my water bottle and sippy cup were too wide.
A little well that was probably used for an ashtray a few years ago is now present in the central console’s rear. I rested my phone in this tiny well while listening to nursery rhymes despite the fact that there is no USB port in the back. When I don’t want to plug in my phone or listen to the music in the front, I often find myself doing this on short trips.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Corolla’s boot space. There was room for sixteen shopping bags! A third row of seven bags is closest to the opening, followed by a row of five bags and four against the backs of the chairs.
The boot of our Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle stroller readily accommodated it, and there was also room for six shopping bags. The Mountain Buggy’s top had enough of room, so I could also place the small Steelcraft Holiday 2 stroller in there.
Even with nine shopping bags inside, the Holiday 2 small stroller fit effortlessly over the width of the boot!
Contrary to an SUV, you do have to stoop down and into the Corolla’s low-slung boot, and carrying objects into it can be a little challenging due to the boot opening’s peculiar form. The boot space, though, is unquestionably comparable to that of many SUVs I’ve driven.
The boot space’s functionality and importance cannot be overstated. I prefer vehicles with large boot spaces and small side wells or other compartments that can be divided into. Therefore, items like Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear that I don’t want to move while driving may be compartmentalized in a small space so they won’t spill or get squished by other items in the boot. The ability to fasten the bag containing more delicate items, such as eggs, so they don’t move about on the trip, makes hooks for hanging shopping bags one of my other favorite types of hooks.
I gauge the boot room for dogs, strollers, and frozen shopping bags. I don’t believe that a mother’s existence is limited to grocery shopping, pushing a stroller, and caring for dogs. (Even though at times it seems like it!) However, since these are things that can be measured visually, we can all relate to them. It’s difficult for me to visualize 400 liters in the boot of a car, and depending on how the space is organized or shaped, 400 liters in one car may not be as usable as it is in another.
Because I had to stoop to reach the boot floor, I initially thought changing diapers would be challenging as well. However, I was pleasantly pleased and reminded how these form boots prevent the baby from rolling out, making for a bit more relaxed diaper changing times!
You cannot plug an Esky into the boot because there is no 12V socket there. The back seats do fold forward so you can access the boot from the back seats, however the parcel shelf is fixed in place behind them and is not detachable.
You wouldn’t put a dog in the boot because of the parcel shelf, but if only one kid seat is placed, there is space for a medium-sized dog on the back seat. Or a tiny dog could fit in the middle seat if there was a child seat in each of the outside seats. They could even leave the kids in the back and ride shotgun in the front passenger seat!
BabyDrive Indepth – Noise
The reverse beep of the Toyota Corolla, which seems pointless, is my foe in this funny cacophony of noises and beeps! The moment you go into reverse, the automobile begins to beep loudly, shrilly, and continuously. Just as a truck would have on the outside to alert pedestrians and other road users that it was about to reverse The Corolla makes noises inside the vehicle, right? Why does the driver of the car need to signal to all of the passengers that he is turning around? I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the discussion that led to that choice! Who had the bright notion to do this?
It made me think of a period I spent in India where each tuk tuk had its own unique reverse song, which was played outside the car. Additionally, My Heart Will Go On was playing in melodious beeps from reverse tuk tuks everywhere I turned at the time because Titanic was so well-liked.
Additionally, the reversing sensor makes another beeping sound. For neither, you can lower the volume. Together, they make reversing an extremely noisy experience that should should be avoided if you have a sleeping infant in the car!
The lane departure warning also has a distinct sound. With a button on the steering wheel, you can only turn the volume on or off; you cannot change it.
After becoming a father, I quickly realized that there are some noises and sounds I could live without if it meant that my child would stay asleep. That frequently my crying, upset infant is a bigger distraction when driving than, say, not having a lane departure warning. Which is the safest option if my kid is distressed by the lane departure warning beeping? It’s at this point that I believe we need to be able to strike a balance and decide when we may turn off the alerts or switch to something else, like a vibration in the steering wheel or possibly a flashing light? Many of these noises are a result of the development of technology, particularly those associated with alerts and safety measures. For me these all have their place. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I spend a lot more time in locations where young children congregate, such as parks, beaches, play areas, swimming lessons, childcare facilities, etc. I’m more conscious now that I need to triple check for little children when I’m reversing or maneuvering in the parking lots since they may be running about behind me or in my blind area. I adore reverse cameras for this, but I detest their beeping noises! I enjoy the peace of mind I get from the cameras and sensors paired with my personal view from windows and mirrors because I don’t trust cameras alone. Since having a child, I have been much more alert of safety and potential mishaps or hazards.
All of these Corolla safety features are a part of the Toyota TSS safety update. The TSS includes a forward collision warning system as well. Along with the on/off button for the parking sensor, this button is located by your right knee. Your dash display glows red and the forward collision warning beeps to warn you of an approaching collision. Although I didn’t think it was overly sensitive, my husband did notice that it got confused when he was driving along roads with traffic islands and pushed him to stop for them thinking they were automobiles.
The indication noise is not overly loud or bothersome. When you touch the touchscreen, a loud beep can be heard, which is really aggravating. Fortunately, this can be changed or disabled in the screen settings.
Through the settings, the voice of the satellite navigation system can be raised and lowered but not muffled. The system was challenging for me to use because I had to pass through six screens before reaching the sat nav volume controls. The sat nav verbosity level may also be changed, which I LOVE!! You have the option of verbose, minimum, or compact. It’s helpful that the system will remember your preferences from prior trips so you don’t have to search for the adjustment page every time you drive. Compact or minimal settings worked best for me; verbose ones read out a lengthy list of route instructions, which I felt to be way too much talking.
The Corolla’s screen seems dated. The arrangement of the system is nonsensical, and neither Apple CarPlay nor Android Auto are supported. The home screen has a sat nav map on half of it and your phone on the other. I initially detested this technology, but after driving three Toyotas in a row, I grew accustomed to it and started to like being able to multitask on the media screen!
Under a little cog button in the upper right corner were all the buttons for the standard home screen selections. All the typical selections for the home page were not at all evident to me in this location.
Unlike the doors, which closed loudly and rattled anything in the door pockets, the windows had a pleasant, silent mechanism.
If you come to a stop and open your door while the engine is still running, an alarm will ring.
Since becoming a mother, I have spent a LOT of time parking my car somewhere with a great view and leaving my daughter in the backseat to sleep. I must keep the air conditioner and engine going in hot weather, but I do like getting out to have my cup of tea in the fresh air while appreciating the fact that my limbs are no longer attached to such dangling child. This test is crucial because I’ve discovered that sometimes when I’ve took off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine was still running, a car’s BEEPING alarms have held me captive! (I don’t have a nasty mother, I just stand outside the car!)
The driver’s door control panel can be used to lock the doors and windows; however, they do not lock automatically.
When I used the “auto” setting while driving at night with my lights on, another alarm went off. I stopped the car, turned off the engine, and unlocked the door so I could out. The lights did not shut down on their own. Up until I physically switched them off at the stick, an alarm blared, which I found to be quite baby waking!
Going up hills made the Corolla engine quite noisy, but in town and on country roads, it was fairly quiet and didn’t seem to struggle at all.
There was no seatbelt removal alarm in the Corolla among all the bells and noises! On your dashboard, there is only a red caution light.
BabyDrive Indepth – Car Seats
Five people can fit in the Corolla. Top tether points are located behind the headrests of each of the three rear seats in the fixed parcel shelf.
At the intersection of the seat base and seat backs on the two outer seats are ISO Fix points. The top tethers and ISO Fix were positioned in a way that made installing the kid seats a breeze. Three child seatsa rear-facing Infasecure Kompressor 4 on one side, a Mountain Buggy Protect infant carrier on the other, and an Infasecure Foldaway booster seat in the middlefit across the back row of the vehicle with a little bit of difficulty. In fact, I believe it would be too difficult to locate and fasten once a child was in there because it was such a tight fit and the primary seatbelt clasp was underneath the booster seat base.
Posting baby into the rear-facing car seat from inside the car was a good idea when only one child seat was installed. The door opening was shockingly big and wide from the outside, making it easy to put Tulsi in her car seat.
Due to the harsh weather in Australia (scorching sun and pouring rain), you might find it occasionally simpler to buckle Baby into their seat from inside the vehicle. If it’s hot outside, you can turn on the air conditioning to chill the car while you secure the kids in, or you can find cover from the rain to avoid getting wet while you do it if it’s raining. Therefore, it’s crucial to test whether installing Bub is simple from any direction.
Even with only one kid seat fitted, there was space for nursing baby in the back. More than that wouldn’t leave you with adequate room.
The seats do not have a surface that is easy to clean. They are made of a diamond-woven fabric, which I believe would trap the sand, mud, and crumbs that come along with transporting young children. The back seats have a decent angle, and although they are solid, they are comfy.
BabyDrive Indepth – Drive & Comfort
The Corolla’s front seats are supportive. The majority of contemporary car seats rotate and dig into the base of your back, but these do not. Two plastic handles that feel rather fragile and cheap yet function quite simply are used to adjust them. I didn’t have to consider the seats, which is always a plus. They are not comfy if I am always thinking about them while I’m driving! I can wear a ponytail and the seats are all comfy, utilitarian, and by no means luxurious.
No new mother has ever said, “I had spent hours arranging my hair this morning to get it just right too!”
The back seats are the same; the outer ones are comfy, but the central one’s backrest is quite unpleasant and you wouldn’t want to go very far in it because it has a fold-down armrest.
The Corolla has plenty of room. The front seats can still recline to accommodate a driver who is 184 cm tall while the back row can accommodate two rear-facing kid seats. Adult travelers can also sit in the back with lots of legroom.
I discovered that it was simple to modify everything to a comfortable driving posture because the steering wheel is fully movable in/out and up/down.
In addition to a circular fan-like vent at each end of the dashboard, there are two horizontal air conditioning vents in the center of the dashboard. These appear a little odd because they are so dissimilar from the others, and the interior is generally a bit of a mishmash. Despite how the vents appear, they appear to work well and are fairly effective in fast cooling the car. With just three circular knobs on the center panel, it is quite simple to operate. Simple but very effective
There are no air conditioning vents in the back, but I found the front vents to be more than enough to cool the entire vehicle.
The sun shines directly onto the babies who are facing the back due to the large, steeply sloping rear glass. Every time I used the automobile, I discovered the issue, which bothered Tulsi much.
I didn’t want to add a shade because it would make the visibility even worse because it was already very bad out the back due to the high slope of the window and the two side pillars, which also significantly restrict the visibility out the back. Due to the limited vision, I had to always rely on the reverse camera.
Due of the low rear visibility and the annoying reversing beeper, I found it easier to park the Corolla front in. Although the screen’s quality was fairly low, the reverse camera was useful for providing visibility in areas where I would not otherwise have had any.
One thing I’ve observed since becoming a mother is that I detest it when I arrive at a location or return home from an outing and Tulsi has either behaved admirably in the car or is screaming uncontrollably, in which case I have done admirably to maintain composure throughout the entire journey (usually the latter!). and parking the car takes ten minutes! It could cause a lot of tension. The Corolla is a sedan, and I found it incredibly challenging to reverse park because of the poor vision. Normally, I hate when we receive the huge cars and utes since they take longer in our small apartment building carpark.
The Corolla has generally good handling. It’s not really fascinating, but it is rather simple, practical, and you don’t have to worry about driving it. It is a simple A to B vehicle with no extra bells and whistles. Actually, it accomplishes its task with a lot of grating sirens and beeps!!
There are illuminated vanity mirrors in each of the front visors, two centrally located on/off switches near the glasses case in the ceiling, and a back passenger light that the driver can turn on from behind.
To hang baby toys on, there are handles and hooks in the back that are strategically placed.
A 12V socket may be found in front of the gear stick, which leads me to the Corolla’s overall design. Although it is unobtrusive and useful, the gear lever looks and feels awful and is made of a mishmash of cheap-looking plastics. Shiny, inexpensive silver plastic with a short stick that appears to be about to break in your palm! The dashboard’s digital clock from the 1980s is also there, along with an odd neon blue on the screen.
Everything has a pretty basic, cheap vibe to it. Not in a stylish, basic way, but one that saves money. For instance, many of the surfaces appear to mark and scrape quite easily, and you can see where the edges have been cut and attached on the door panels. My inner designer is in agony over the felt-like ceiling covering and even the fonts that have been utilized on the switches and buttons!
A powered tailgate is indeed turned on in the boot through the key. I adore this feature, especially when the Corolla’s enormous boot is present. Extra credit for the boot!
The back footwell’s whole width is covered by the floor mat. This is good because the footwells won’t have small mats moving about. The mats are made of the same sort of carpet as the car’s flooring, and while they are not rubber and cannot be as easily cleaned as rubber items, they nonetheless complement the inside of the Corolla well.