Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Review & Prices

If you’re looking for an estate car with a focus on efficiency, it’s likely the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports will have piqued your interest. Squaring up against the likes of the Volkswagen Golf Estate and Skoda Octavia Estate, the Corolla has some stiff competition to overcome.

The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is a bit like painting your living room white. It’s a sensible choice, with very little to wrong, although perhaps an uninspired option for some.

Certainly, the styling of the car leaves something to be desired. It’s by no means bad — with a smart-enough front end and some nice colour choices — but it’s an entirely forgettable design. You’d be hard-pressed to pick it out in traffic, that’s for sure.

You could say the same story for the interior, too. It’s very functional, but at the cost of form. Lots of grey fabrics and plastics are used throughout, leading to quite a dull vibe inside.

That’s where the criticism ends, though. The build quality inside is impressive, with hardly a creak or a rattle, and the materials used do feel really good. GR Sport models in particular get a lovely set of partial leather sports seats.

As standard, a 10.5-inch infotainment system is included. Earlier examples of this were a bit smaller and quite slow, but an upgrade for 2022 has sharpened the system up now to be responsive and easy to use. You’ll also get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard.

One area the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports continues to struggle though is with rear passenger space. There’s plenty if you just need room for some children’s car seats, but adults will struggle to keep comfy. Legroom isn’t amazing, though the raised roof of this estate version does boost headroom compared with the hatchback.

Boot space lacks behind key alternatives, too. The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports offers 598 litres with the 1.8-litre option, though going for the larger 2.0-litre car cuts this further to 581 litres. In contrast, you’ll get a whopping 640 litres from a Skoda Octavia Estate and a still-respectable 611 litres from a Volkswagen Golf Estate.

Looping nicely to engines, both of those 1.8-litre and 2.0-litre petrol engines are linked to a battery and small electric motor for a hybrid setup. The extra power from the larger engine isn’t needed, and a week of testing the 1.8-litre car returned a healthy 60mpg fuel economy figure very easily.

You’ll also be delighted to hear the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is effortless to drive. Visibility is fantastic and it's really easy to manoeuvre despite being quite a long car. It helps the Corolla ride over bumps nicely, too.

Loads of assistance tech helps, too. You get a reversing camera with cyclist and pedestrian detection as standard, plus you can even opt for a self-parking system if you want to make life even easier.

Tech comes in handy on the motorway too, with adaptive cruise control (which automatically adjusts your speed) coming for no extra cost. Plus, the car itself is really quiet to be in at speed. It’s far from a thrill on a back road — you’ll want to look towards the Ford Focus Estate for more excitement — but it feels composed enough.

If efficiency and tech are high on your estate car hit-list, the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Tourer is certainly one to consider. You’ll get more space still from a Skoda Octavia Estate though, and a Volkswagen Golf Estate is just that bit more stylish.

Check out the latest deals on the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports to see how much you could save through carwow.. You can also browse through our latest used Toyotas and find out how you can sell your car through carwow.

You’ve got a pick of two petrol-electric hybrid engines for the Toyota Corolla. Both are ‘self-charging’, meaning the batteries are recharged by the petrol engine — so no need to plug the car in.

Kicking off the range is a 1.8-litre engine, delivering 120hp and 142Nm to the front wheels through a CVT gearbox. They do the same job as a typical automatic gearbox, though instead use a belt rather than several gears to transfer power. You’ll operate it like any other auto car, though.

The larger, 2.0-litre sends its power in the same fashion, although there’s more of it. You’ll get 181hp and 190Nm.

Though you will notice the extra power, you won’t need it in the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports. The smaller-capacity engine is a bit cheaper and never feels lethargic, though neither choice is going to pin you back into your seats under full load. It can be quite nosy when you’re at full throttle, though.

The likelihood is you’ll be using the Corolla around town and on the motorway most often, and it’s a delight to report it's great at both. Light steering makes manoeuvring easy despite the length of the car, and excellent visibility just makes it that little bit more relaxing.

It rides comfortably over bumps and potholes in the roads too, plus noise at higher speeds is practically non-existent.

You’ll also get a pretty healthy amount of assistance technology. A reversing camera comes as standard, plus you can opt for a self-parking system on higher-spec models in case you want to take even more effort out of driving.

All versions of the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports get adaptive cruise control as standard too.

This works like your usual cruise control, allowing you to set a speed and let the car maintain it, though with the ability to slow down, speed up and maintain distance all with the car in front. It’s the kind of tech that’ll change your driving life.

Sitting up front in the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports feels reasonably roomy. Your driving position won’t leave you feeling claustrophobic, and there’s a decent chunk of centre console separating you and the passenger.

You’ll find some nicely-sized door bins as well, plus a respectable amount of storage under the armrest.

Legroom in the back is quite tight for adults, though. Headroom is better than the hatchback because of the raised roofline but there’s still space to be desired. If you’re planning to use this for just a couple of children’s car seats, however, you’ll get on just fine.

The Toyota Corolla Touring Sports lags behind its rivals for boot space as well. Cheaper 1.8-litre versions of the estate have 598 litres to play with, though 2.0-litre versions have this cut to 581 litres because of some extra mechanical bits.

For comparison, a Volkswagen Golf Estate will give you a bit more at 611 litres while the Skoda Octavia Estate offers an impressive 640 litres.

On the face of it, the interior of the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports leaves a lot to be desired. Grey plastics and fabrics are used throughout — even on the racier GR Sport trim — without much in the way of exciting design elements.

That said, once you start fiddling with it, you’ll be delighted to find everything’s made of some high-quality materials. You’ll have to scour hard to find nasty-feeling plastics, and you’ll even get some plush-feeling partial leather seats on higher-spec models.

New in 2022 is an upgraded 10.5-inch infotainment system. Though the software looks largely the same as older models, upgraded internals and software mean it's more responsive and a bit easier to use on the go. It’s not the most cutting-edge system, but it works nicely. Plus you get support for both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay if you’d prefer to run your phone apps.

Toyota offers a selection of dealer-fitted accessories for the Corolla Touring Sports too. These include a protection pack that adds a rubber boot liner plus some protective strips on the bodywork, and various towbar options if you plan to use it for trailering stuff or going caravaning. Speaking of, you’ll be able to tow up to 450kg unbraked and 750kg braked.

Official testing of the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports has the 1.8-litre car achieving up to 61.4mpg, and the 2.0-litre reaching 56.5mpg. In a week of testing the lower-capacity engine, the estate returned a real-world figure of around 60mpg — so you can get close to those official numbers.

Emissions figures come in at 113g/km and 121g/km at the highest for each engine respectively, though some trims will be marginally lower than this figure. This means as of 2022, your first tax payment on any Corolla Touring Sports will be £180 with a £155 annual figure from the second year onwards.

Independent safety board Euro NCAP awarded the Toyota Corolla a five-star rating when it was tested in 2019 — the highest score available. It excelled in adult occupant protection, achieving a 95% score.

There’s a healthy amount of safety assistance kit as standard on the Corolla Touring Sports, too. Automatic emergency braking is one example, which kicks in if the car senses an accident is about to happen.

Though the Corolla Touring Sports is too new to say if any major reliability concerns will appear down the line, Toyota has a serious reputation for building reliable cars.

As standard, the Corolla Touring Sports comes with a 3-year warranty. However, each annual service through an official Toyota dealer after that point will add an additional year (or 10,000 miles) up to 10 years and 100,000 miles in total.