Very true, but sometimes also for the right reasons. There are two Audis outside, not because I'm a badge snob (with three previous Skodas to prove it), but because they hold their value. List prices are high, and I wouldn't buy one for cash, but the better a car holds its value, the better deal you get on PCP or leasing.

If by the end of the year the RAV-4 PHEV and BMW X1 PHEV are on sale, it'll be interesting to compare the deals available. That said, if Audi did a Q2 PHEV, I suspect my name would soon be down for one.

Toyotas are undoubtedly good cars but boy are they expensive! A Corolla estate is nearly BMW 3 series money

Really.

The Corolla 2.0 design Touring is just over £29000, a lot of dosh I will agree.

But

A BMW 320i Touring starts at almost £37000 and then you have to seriously hit the options list for privacy glass, lumbar, adaptive cruise and probably more.

Both have auto boxes and just over 180 bhp. But remember the BMW cannot be had with a spare, its standard on the Toyota and the MPG is way less. Itsonly got a 3 year warranty as well.

Toyota seems OK to me.

There is now an XCeed PHEV, which I think uses the same 1.6 powertrain as the ‘normal’ Ceed. I do wonder if it might feel a bit pedestrian?

NX is due for replacement although a new edition appeared back in February

CT is no longer sold in the US for example but it is/was the Lexus UK best seller.

My DiL had a 2011 CT - 83K on selling, servicing, brakes & tyres. Average 50mpg overall but it was possible to get 55 with a light foot on a longish run.

Bought in 2013 for £14K and T/I value of £7K - so depreciation was £84 per month - cheap motoring - It was auctioned by the Aberdeen garage and appeared in a small dealer in Loughborough - screen price £9K.

Aren't the Lexus CT and NX due for replacement soon - both, especially the former, are getting a bit long in the tooth now. Looking at the UX's review on HJ, it looks like that was a bit of a disappointment, one of many (drive-wise) coming from the Lexus stable in the last 10 years.

Odd how the Toyota side of the company seems to have improved its product lineup more than the Lexus side.

The volume Lexus models are usually based on a Toyota volume model (e.g. the CT is on the old Auris) but usually their new/facelifts turn up 18 months - 2 years after it has been done to the Toyota.

I like these and I’ve every confidence they’ll prove as utterly reliable as the Auris which preceded it. Would I buy one new though? No absolutely not. To me you’d have to be mad to spend the guts of £30k on a small Toyota. But as a used buy in a year after it’s halved in value, yup I’d buy that, especially the estate which will be much easier to resell with taxi fleets eagerly awaiting sensibly priced used examples.

My research and simple maths disproves this.

Firstly the numpty dealers on CarWow who appeared not to understand my request for a new 2 litre design quoted on a Oct 2019 (69 plate) so 9 month old 1.8 Excel, he wanted £29000 for it. They are £30010 OTR thus it would have to loose a tremendous amount in the next 3 months to meet your expectations.

Secondly a couple of mags I have read predict the Corolla Estate to maintain 52% of its value after 3 years. The same magazines predict a Skoda Octavia hatch (no info on the new estate yet) to maintain only 38% after 3 years.

I did a simple comparison of the cheapest new model Octavia (1.5 SE) which lists at £22390 and the Corolla Design estate 2 litre which lists at £29275. Hardly a fair comparison since the Toyota is an estate and better equipped. Could have added extras to the Skoda to match the Toyota but I never do that when I buy a car so not realistic for my original exercise.

Starting with the Octavia 38% of £22390 is £8508 thus a £13882 loss.

52% of the Corolla's list of £29275 is £15223 thus a £14052 loss.

You would only be slightly better off with the Skoda but after extras that would probably be different.

Take discounts int consideration, the best I have seen is about £1500 of the new Octavia reducing the loss to £12382 but seen £4500 off the Toyota which reduces the loss to £9552. There is a 0% offer on the Toyota currently as well so it looks like game set and match. Add in better fuel economy and he fact the Toyota will never break and it sgame set and match.

SLO, you have to look at the bigger picture rather than simply the ticket price so surprised as an ex trader you are so quick to condemn a car simply on list.

Go back to the 80's when Lada's were so popular in the mining communities. If the buyers had done their sums they would have seen an Escort costing 50% more would cost far less than the Lada over their ownership period.

Returning to the original direction of this thread, I was interested to read the findings of the test drive as my brother has recently bought a hybrid Corolla. He bought it a few days before lockdown and has consequently travelled very few miles in it. I was talking to him about it at the weekend and I gather he does not understand a great deal about the technicalities so it will be interesting to see how he gets on with it. The two things he said about it so far are that the electric capability is “a bit of a con” because it covers so few miles on electricity alone. I think he might have (somehow) got the impression that it would be an either/or choice of power source. The other drawback is the small boot space, but he appreciates that the battery compromises it. He did say, however, that it has a spare wheel.

I too like the look of the estate version and I have often considered whether my next car should be a hybrid. If it were, I would definitely want to consider a Toyota as they have been making them successfully for so long. I rode in a Corolla estate taxi in Cologne back in March. It was quiet and very comfortable. I had enough knee room sitting in the back (I’m 5ft 10 in old money) but the head room was a bit restricted due to the low roof line. The price at circa £30K is not far short of the new price for the petrol Audi A4 Avant I currently drive, but there seems to me to be a world of difference in quality between the two cars.

I’ll see how my brother gets on with his.

Hi Avant - as a regular reader and very occasional poster, I appreciate SLO76's contributions as much as anybody here. But I think we're all grown up enough to mentally filter out the (happily infrequent) more unpleasant postings on here, such as the one at issue in this case. It's sour and ad hominem - but is it really offensive? Let's just hold our collective nose, in the name of free speech.

Just my take on it - meant constructively!

Edited by Slow Eddie on 02/07/2020 at 16:25

I do hope you can persuade SLO to return, Avant, his knowledge is invaluable and contributers like that are few on forums. This was a great thread looking at differing views of car ownership until it became unnecessarily rude, personal and pedantic. I hope I speak for 99.9 % of us that SLO s contribution has probably saved huge amounts of money and hassle for many of the readers of this forum.

So as planned we went to test the Corolla Estate 2 litre yesterday.

Got hopelessly lost driving there, as expected major roadworks but no diversions were signposted to our destination. After about 10 minutes I spotted a sign for "away football traffic" so I took a punt knowing that the stadium is not far form the dealers, bingo, found it.

Usual bull from the salesman which took up an hour and then to the drive. Since I was aware of the roadworks he had agreed to programme a route into the satnav for us to drive, guess what, he hadn't. We had no map and neither did he. Simply told us to head out for the ring road and etc then eventually take a left into the city (there were several apparently depending how far we wanted to drive) and then follow the sign back to the retail park. Got hopelessly lost again, never saw a sign for the ring road but more by luck than judgement found a decent dual carriageway and eventually did a U turn at a roundabout and headed back into the city, probably 20 minutes/15 miles.

The car drove really well, I set it on "sport" (did take prints off the handbook I had downloaded) plus it went into EV mode at every available opportunity seamlessly even at 70+ on the dual carriageway. The ride was great even on the 45 profile tyres and it was quiet. The seats were comfortable. Giving it some right foot resulted in the usual CVT increase in revs but even on a steepish incline the most I saw was 4000 and as the speed increased the revs quickly dropped back so more full marks, almost, the engine note was coa*** at 4000 revs, even the 3 cylinder Fabia is nicer in this respect.

My main issue was pain in my right foot but I said nothing and put it down to the fact I was still recovering from the break in May although I should add I have not had any issues in either of our cars since I got back behind the wheel last week.

The wife was next to drive, she went on exactly the same route and had no issues although she did comment that she found the XC40 felt more "familiar" after a couple of minutes. On the way back she started fidgeting and said she had some pain in her right foot, so much for me thinking it was my accident. Told her I had the same issue and we agreed we needed to think more about this.

Back at the dealership the salesman was very keen to do "the best deal ever" if we agreed there and then but he quickly saw we were not interested in his usual sales patter. He did agree that he would loan us a car for a longer period in a couple of weeks time (give my ankle chance to recover more ) for us to see if we could both get comfortable.

At that point he let himself down by saying that the 2 litre was not available in Icon and Icon Plus trim (but it is on the current pricelist I downloaded last week) and then he said that the Trek we drove is a four wheel drive car, it most certainly isn't. Just shows salesman are mostly idiots or liars, sometimes both.

Couple more points about the car, space in the rear is OK (nowhere near that of the Pulsar) but not exceptional and access is poor through the smallish back doors. And who at Toyota thought it a good idea to put plastic wood trim on the dash of the Trek version, looks as naff and chav as a 1960's cocktail cabinet.

So is it the car for us, probably not. It did not look like or make me feel like it was a £29,000 especially inside. The plastics high up on the dash are fine but those lower down and most of the doors and console are of the hard variety, no different from the Pulsar in all honesty.

But a note about the hatch. We had a quick look in one to check out the Design trim, yipee no naff fake wood. But the rear space was less and the boot space definitely less, no better space wise than our Fabia which in truth has a bigger boot. A Scala would totally knock it for six and would probably be nearly as economical in the real world. Anyone buying the hatch would be mad.

So my marks for the 2 litre estate, 6 out of 10. Needs better trim and some engine work IMHO before it can really be a class leader against cars such as the Focus and Octavia (neither of which I have driven) but in terms of showroom appeal both smash it out of the ground. Since both get tops marks for driving as well and are far cheaper at brokers that 50% residual after 3 years whilst a nice feature (along with the 5 year warranty) is not enough to make me write a cheque.

Are we going back for that extended test drive, don't think so, too much hassle getting there for starters to just end up with an aching foot each.