Toyota Corolla Touring Sports review

Introduction

The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports has seemingly taken on more roles than Samuel L. Jackson has in his 53-year career. You see them everywhere, as taxis, police cars, company cars and more. So why is it such a popular choice?

Well, diesel alternatives have been losing favour for a while now, and electric estate cars are still few and far between – let alone quite expensive. The Corolla Touring Sports, on the other hand, faces neither of those problems.

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1.8 VVT-h Icon Touring Sports 5dr Petrol Hybrid CVT Euro 6 (s/s) (140 ps)

Expected annual mileage	5000
Term months	48
Deposit months	12
Monthly payment	£267.04
Initial payment	£3,204.48

Step-by-step

Leasing works a bit like a long-term rental. You drive it, but you don’t own it.

• Choose your car, pick your terms and apply for lease credit online
• Pay monthly rental payments for your chosen term length
• Drive it, enjoy it, then give it back at the end

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• Full manufacturer’s warranty
• Road tax and roadside assistance included
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£3,204 initial payment, 48 month contract, 5000 miles p/a. Subject to status and conditions.

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Toyota Corolla Touring Sports video review

Like the Toyota Corolla hatchback, it’s a regular hybrid, and a reasonably priced one at that. In other words, it promises low buying and running costs, along with all the practical benefits of having an estate car.

That usually means a big boot, but is the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports as cavernous as a Seat Leon Estate or the uber-spacious Skoda Octavia Estate? And how does it stack up in other areas? Well, this review reveals all.

What’s new?
January 2025: Corolla Touring Sports named What Car?’s Best Value Estate Car of the Year for 2025
January 2024: What Car? names Corolla Touring Sports its Estate Car of the Year for 2024
February 2023: Corolla revised again and comes complete with fifth-generation hybrid technology. Trim levels comprise Icon, Design Excel and GR Sport. Predictive Efficient Drive system predicts downhill sections on any route for better battery management
December 2021: revised Corolla Touring Sports features tweaked styling and upgraded Toyota Smart Connect+ infotainment, including voice assistant
May 2019: five-star crash test rating awarded from Euro NCAP
March 2019: two new trim options offers, sporty GR Sport version, and crossover style Trek models

Overview

The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is a unique and rather convincing proposition, offering exceptionally low running costs, great resale values and plenty of standard equipment. Its boot is slightly smaller than those found in conventional rivals and the rear seats aren’t quite as versatile, but it’s not far off. We recommend the 1.8-litre engine with Icon trim.

Our pick

1.8 VVT-h Icon Touring Sports 5dr Petrol Hybrid CVT Euro 6 (s/s) (140 ps) review

RRP £32,195

Pros

• Impressively low CO2 emissions on hybrids
• Comfortable ride
• Great reliability record

Cons

• More wind and road noise than in rivals
• So-so infotainment system
• Digital driver's display could be easier to use

Our pick

1.8 VVT-h Icon Touring Sports 5dr Petrol Hybrid CVT Euro 6 (s/s) (140 ps) review

RRP £32,195

Trims available

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GR SPORT

GR Sport trim doesn’t have any effect on the performance, but gets you 18in alloy wheels and sportier styling.

Icon

We think entry-level Icon trim is all you could ever need. It includes 16in alloy wheels, automatic headlights, dual-zone air conditioning, adaptive cruise control and a 10.5in touchscreen infotainment system with built-in sat nav and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto smartphone mirroring.

Excel

Top-spec Excel models come with all the trimmings, adding a head-up display, adaptive high beam, lane-keeping assist and rear-cross traffic alert. It’s a bit too expensive to recommend, though.

Design

Upgrading to Design trim won’t cost you much more but adds larger 17in alloy wheels, keyless entry, privacy glass and automatic windscreen wipers.

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Performance & drive

What it's like to drive, and how quiet it is

Engine, 0-60mph and gearbox

The entry-level engine for the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is a 1.8-litre hybrid petrol. It has 138bhp and can manage 0-62mph in 9.4 seconds. That's noticeably quicker than the least-powerful versions of the Ford Focus Estate (10.4 seconds) and Seat Leon Estate (10.7 seconds).

The 1.8 Touring Sports has more than enough performance for everyday driving and getting up to motorway speeds when it’s just you in the car. The only time you might need a bit more oomph is when you want to overtake on a country road or if the car is full of people and luggage.

For that, you’ll probably want the other engine option, the 2.0-litre hybrid petrol. With 193bhp, it feels much punchier than the 1.8 when you hit the throttle and reduces the 0-62mph sprint to 7.7 seconds (faster than the Focus Ecoboost 155’s 8.6 seconds). It's a versatile engine that’ll ensure the Corolla Touring Sports never struggles in any situation.

Suspension and ride comfort

The Corolla Touring Sports is effectively the Goldilocks of estate cars when it comes to ride quality, striking an almost perfect balance between suppleness and control. Let us explain...

By being firmer than the Skoda Octavia Estate but softer than a Focus or Leon Estate, the Touring Sports has enough compliance to take the worst out of big bumps and potholes yet never feels floaty over sudden crests.

The ride even remains brilliantly composed over the sort of scarred and patched-up surfaces you find in most towns and cities.

Handling

When driven in a leisurely fashion, the Touring Sports handles well enough. The steering is fairly accurate and builds weight in a predictable and reassuring fashion. There’s a decent feeling of composure, as long as you don't expect really quick changes of direction.

When you start to push harder, you notice that the car is less keen to tuck its nose in to corners than the Focus Estate or Leon Estate, and even runs out of front-end grip sooner than an Octavia Estate. Put simply, if you want a car that’ll have you grinning on a challenging road, there are better options.

On the other hand, the Touring Sports has a fairly tight turning circle that makes it easy to manoeuvre in town.

Noise and vibration

One great thing about hybrid cars is how hushed they can be when you’re just pootling around town. The electric motor can manage on its own in stop-start traffic, meaning progress is virtually silent and the petrol engine doesn’t spoil the peace too much when it does wake up to provide assistance.

On faster and inclined roads, the Corolla Touring Sports’ petrol engine becomes more vocal. The blame lies with its CVT automatic gearbox, which causes the engine revs to soar and stay high until you ease off. The revised engines are quieter than earlier versions, thanks to a more powerful electric motor taking some of the strain.

Tyre and wind noise are not as well suppressed as they might be, with more sound coming from the larger boot than you'll hear with a hatchback Toyota Corolla. The 2.0-litre hybrid is better than the 1.8 at isolating you from the outside world, thanks to its "acoustic" side glass.

“There are cars that are more fun to drive but I reckon the Corolla Touring Sports still handles well. The cosseting ride suits its relaxed demeanour and is a worthy trade-off.” – Stuart Milne, Digital Editor

Interior

The interior layout, fit and finish

Driving position and dashboard

The driver's seat in the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports offers a decent amount of support and a reasonably generous range of movement, including height adjustment and powered lumbar adjustment for the driver on all trims. You should be able to get comfy.

There are annoyances though. While most cars have a wheel or electric controls for fine-tuning the backrest angle, the Touring Sports has a lever with limited settings. The steering wheel adjusts for reach and height, but its extension in and out isn't as extensive as in some rivals, including the Ford Focus Estate.

There are big, easy-to-use buttons and dials for the air-conditioning system, and the 12.3in digital driver's display is easy to read. It offers fewer lay-outs than what you get in a Seat Leon Estate, Skoda Octavia Estate or Volkswagen Golf Estate, and requires a lot more button pressing to switch between the media, trip and hybrid system displays, so it's fiddlier to use when driving.

Visibility, parking sensors and cameras

The Corolla Touring Sports gives you a good view of the road ahead and out of the side windows at junctions.

Relatively chunky rear pillars mean over-the-shoulder visibility isn’t as good as in the Octavia Estate, but that doesn’t present too much of a problem because every version comes with front and rear parking sensors, as well as a rear-view camera.

Powerful LED headlights are fitted as standard across the range and are a boon at night. In most rivals, you’ll usually need to pay extra or upgrade to a posh trim level for comparable technology.

Sat nav and infotainment

The Corolla Touring Sports has a 10.5in infotainment touchscreen positioned high up on the dashboard, where it’s really easy to see. Better still, the screen responds relatively quickly to your inputs when you start prodding around.

On the minus side, the screen resolution isn't that impressive and the graphics for the standard sat-nav are rather basic. What’s more, while the menu lay-out is slightly more intuitive than the Leon Estate’s, it can’t match the best system in the BMW 3 Series Touring.

Thankfully, all Corolla Touring Sports come with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring, so you can bypass the Toyota software and use apps from your phone on the infotainment screen. You also get DAB radio and Bluetooth, while the standard six-speaker stereo is clear and punchy.

Quality

At first glance, you’d be forgiven for feeling slightly underwhelmed by the Corolla Touring Sports’ interior. The design is restrained and conventional (you might even say "old-fashioned").

However, when you start touching things, you soon realise that Toyota has used high-quality materials that are screwed together in a way that puts most estate cars – including the Ford Focus Estate and Peugeot 308 SW – to shame. It's no BMW 3 Series Touring but that's a much more expensive premium estate car.

“The Corolla Touring Sports' infotainment system isn't class-leading but I find it much easier to use than the previous-generation car's because the screen is bigger and there are shortcut buttons to let you hop between menus.” – Mark Pearson, Used Cars Editor

Passenger & boot space

How it copes with people and clutter

Front space

There's plenty of space in the front of the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports, and tall drivers will fit in fine. The front seats slide back a long way, and while some estate cars have a bit more head room, you shouldn't feel hemmed in. The interior is wide enough to keep some space between you and a front-seat passenger.

You get plenty of storage too, including a generous glovebox, various trays and cubbies dotted about, and the obligatory twin cupholders in the centre console. Our only slight demerit is that the door pockets are a bit stingy, but that’s splitting hairs.

Rear space

The Touring Sports is usefully more spacious in the rear than the hatchback Toyota Corolla. In fact, there’s fractionally more leg room than you’ll find in a Skoda Octavia Estate. Head room is slightly tighter, but six-footers should still be able to fit with relative ease.

There’s plenty of space for three children to sit side by side and the central tunnel is much smaller than the one in the Octavia Estate. That makes things a whole lot more comfortable for the middle passenger because they don’t have to place their feet either side of the hump.

A central armrest with two cupholders is standard on all models, and the rear door pockets are a decent size. There are two adjustable air vents for people in the back seats (you don’t get those in the hatchback).

Seat folding and flexibility

The rear seats don’t recline or do anything else particularly clever, but in fairness, nor do those in the Touring Sports’ rivals.

Still, the seat backs do split 60/40 split and fold down, and the process is straightforward: you simply tug the levers next to the rear head restraints or use the lever pulls on either side of the boot wall. Some estate cars, including the Peugeot 308 SW and Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer, enable you to drop the seats in a more versatile 40/20/40 split.

The Corolla Touring Sports doesn't have a ski hatch for poking long items through into the rear seating area, so it’s not the most versatile car in its class.

Boot space

As with the Corolla hatchback, the Touring Sports' boot size depends on which of the two engines you choose, but either version is big enough for a couple of pushchairs or a decent haul of shopping.

The 1.8-litre model has 596 litres of carrying capacity with the seats up, while the 2.0-litre model cuts it to 581 litres. That's because the bigger engine doesn’t leave enough space for the hybrid battery under the bonnet, so it lurks under a cover on the right side of the boot floor. For reference, the Skoda Octavia Estate can take a whopping 640 litres.

The boot in the Corolla Touring Sports is a practical square shape, and has an adjustable floor to help you make the most of the space on offer. There's also a long light strip that illuminates the load area at night.

“Can a boot be too big? Well, it depends what you're going to use it for, but I reckon most people will find the one in the Corolla Touring Sports big enough, with the bonus that the car isn't a pain to park.” – Steve Huntingford, Editor

Buying & owning

Everyday costs, plus how reliable and safe it is

Equipment, options and extras

There are four trim levels for the Corolla Touring Sports – Icon, Design, Excel and GR Sport. All come well-equipped, but our pick is entry-level Icon. It comes with automatic headlights, dual-zone climate control, adaptive cruise control, heated front seats, 16in alloy wheels, parking sensors, a rear-view camera and keyless entry.

Design trim won’t cost you much more, and gets you larger 17in wheels, automatic windscreen wipers, privacy glass and an auto-dimming rear-view mirror.

Sporty looking GR Sport trim adds some styling tweaks, red stitching for the interior and 18in wheels, while top-spec Excel model gets lots of toys, including adaptive high-beam headlights, a head-up display and extra safety kit. They’re both quite expensive though.

Costs, insurance groups, MPG and CO2

The list price of the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is higher than that of most direct estate car rivals, including the Ford Focus Estate and Skoda Octavia Estate. However, it’s predicted to have better resale values than those rivals and most others, which should help make PCP finance payments competitive.

Meanwhile, as a company car it makes more financial sense than non-hybrid alternatives – the Focus Estate for example – but not plug-in hybrids or fully electric cars. That's because BIK tax bands are based on emissions and, where relevant, electric range.

The 1.8-litre hybrid Touring Sports emits as little as 101g/km, while the more powerful 2.0-litre hybrid emits as little as 103g/km (in entry-level Icon spec).

Official fuel-economy figures are among the best in the class, with both engines managing more than 60mpg in a lower trim. Generally speaking, hybrid cars tend to be at their most economical around town, while diesels provide better economy on motorways.

Reliability

Toyota has long had a great track record when it comes to reliability, and its performance in the 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey shows it's still very strong in this area. The brand took fifth place out of 31 car makers listed.

The Corolla Sports Tourer didn't feature in the survey but the Toyota Corolla hatchback finished in sixth place in the family car category, so the estate should serve you well.

On the off chance that things do go wrong, the warranty can cover you for up to 10 years or 100,000 miles if you service the vehicle at a Toyota dealer every year. You get the same with the near-identical Suzuki Swace while the Kia Ceed Sportswagon has a seven-year warranty but most rivals give you three years.

Safety and security

The Corolla Touring Sports received the maximum five-star Euro NCAP safety rating when it was tested in 2019. The Focus, which was tested the same year, matches the Corolla’s rating, but ultimately scored slightly higher when it came to protecting adult and child occupants.

Regardless of trim level, every Corolla Touring Sports is fitted with plenty of active safety aids to help you avoid a collision in the first place, including automatic emergency braking (AEB), lane-departure warning, traffic-sign recognition and automatic high-beam assistance. Top-spec Excel adds blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.

All versions come with an alarm and an immobiliser.

“When we put a 2.0-litre Corolla Touring Sports through our Real MPG test it averaged just shy of 50mpg. I think that's good in anyone's book.” – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

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