The 2009 Toyota Corolla is your classic commuter car, good on fuel economy and reasonably comfortable. But its cabin tech isn't particularly impressive, and the car doesn't go out of its way to work with personal electronics.
The Corolla sits between the Yaris and Camry in Toyota's model lineup. The 2009 model is the car's 10th generation, which goes back almost 40 years in the U.S.
This newest generation has modern styling, such as the headlight casings that bubble out of the fender sides. We were surprised to find automatic headlights on the Corolla.
The base engine, a 1.8-liter four cylinder, runs smoothly and delivers adequate power. It gets an EPA-rated 27 mpg in the city and 35 mpg on the highway.
The design of the Corolla is unassuming. It won't attract much attention on the road, which can be a good thing. It seats four comfortably, but five would be a squeeze.
The dashboard layout is simple. We were disappointed in the lack of steering wheel controls of the audio system or cruise control. The navigation system is an option that precludes an upgraded stereo.
The instrument cluster displays don't offer much information beyond the trip miles and current gear. There is no trip computer with information such as range to empty or average fuel economy.
The Corolla uses a four-speed automatic transmission, a small number of gears compared with many of today's transmissions. You tend to feel the shifts, especially when it kicks down from fourth to third.
There are a lot of ways to enter destinations with this system, including address, points of interest, phone number, and even GPS coordinates. You can also enter complex routes with multiple waypoints.
Although we liked the digital signal processor in this system, which lets you pinpoint the audio sweet spot, the speakers only produced mediocre sound quality.
