The ever green, ever reliable - ടൊയോറ്റ കൊറോല Altis

The ever green, ever reliable - Toyota Corolla Altis

I have been a big fan of Toyota cars as I have been using them (Etios and Innova) for a long time now. In Oct 2016, my family wanted to purchase a D1 segment executive sedan. Below were our prime requirements, not in any particular order. 1. Reliability and low cost of ownership 2. Back seat comfort as the car will be chauffeur driven mainly 3. Petrol option as running will be < 1200 kms/month 4. Good build quality 5. Within a budget of 15 lacs Since reliability was a major factor so European manufacturer cars (Jetta, Octavia) were not considered. Renault Fluence and Chevrolet Cruze were also eliminated as there was no petrol engine option and they were pretty dated now. So we were left with 2 options: 1. Toyota Corolla Altis J+ 2. Hyundai Elantra S We had initially booked Elantra as it was a newly launched model and was better feature loaded than Corolla (comparing base variants). However, later on, concerns regarding new petrol engine and unavailability of the car within 1-2 months made us cancel it's booking. Since we were looking for petrol engine hence Corolla was being preferred over Elantra due to a more reliable engine which had more grunt in mid range. So we finally booked Toyota Corolla Altis (Champagne Mica color). Toyota dealer had the car in stock so me and my brother did a quick PDI of it and cleared it for further formalities. So our car was delivered in 1st week of October 2016. Though it's a base model variant but I personally think it covers all basic things (2 airbags, ABS+EBD, OEM music system with air gesture, height adjustable driver seat, reclining rear seat etc). This being a global car for Toyota, overall build quality is also very good (better than Innova and Fortuner which are more expensive than it). Interior plastics are also of good quality, especially the dash top which is soft. During the limited time period we had owned it, fuel efficiency we got is around 12 kmpl in city (bumper to bumper traffic) and 14 kmpl on highway. We know that it's going to be an ever-reliable family workhorse and Toyota's excellent A.S.S will be there to take care in case of any issue. It has been an absolute pleasure driving it or being driven !!