2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback XSE

Good news, everyone: The stick is not dead. The new Toyota Corolla Hatchback can be ordered with a six-speed manual transmission–and, as the name suggests, it’s available in a hatchback, a fan favorite going back decades.

This manual transmission even gets a special name: iMT, short for Intelligent Manual Transmission. What makes it so smart? Rev-matching.

According to Toyota, it’s not only smart, it’s all new: “Compared to the existing manual transmission, the new gearbox is lighter (by 15 pounds; total weight of 88 pounds) and shorter (by 0.94 inches), making it one of the world’s smallest transmissions. Its small size contributes to improved fuel efficiency.”

What else is new? Well, the Corolla Hatchback has returned to the model lineup. Okay, it’s a five-door hatchback vs. the old-school three-door, but still, that’s cool, right? Underneath you’ll find struts up front along with a multi-link rear suspension.

Now the big letdown: Sadly, we have yet to drive the stick shift model, as our tester featured the CVT.

I think it's cool that toyota is starting to put a little styling and dynamics back into their cars..  it's been gone too long..  

Yeah, I'd venture to say that's a good looking car!

I got to sit in one and crawl around it at the Toyota headquarters outside Dallas last spring. Nobody could really answer any questions for me, but I really liked it from an ergonomics and style standpoint. I would really like to drive a manual version of the car. 

You and I both Seth, I did a quick drive of the Scion iM when it was at the office. The chassis dynamics were... decent, but power was utterly nonexistent with the 1.8L. Like, a 1ZZ felt a lot more willing in older Corollas.

I'm curious if the nice flat 2.0L in this new iteration can improve an already good chassis. I don't see why not. Good on Toyota for making the ever-dwindling list of ads featuring a manual shifter.

That....looks pretty damn good.

Gonna have to do a 2019 hatchback battle at some point. Saw a video showing off the '19 Euro Focus hatch and....wooooo buddy. Makes me wish I was in the market for a brand new car.

Personally, I think the car is really good looking.  I love the blue color in the posted photo.  Could this thing be a serious Mazda3 fighter? 

Toyota, why do you only give it 168hp?  C'mon...how hard would it be to drop 225-250hp into the thing and make it a true hot hatch?

Fueled by Caffeine said:

I think it's cool that Toyota is starting to put a little styling back into their cars.

Yeah, "a little styling" is what they've needed after a few years of "way too much styling".

I don't know if there are many similarities between this and the iA (Yaris).  I know the iA is actually a Mazda2 (?!).

For what it's worth I drove the iA as my last extended rental, 1 week in California a few months back.  It didn't have a lot of power, but as small as it is, the engine felt better than the Nissan Versa I had (which wasn't hard). 

The beauty of the car was its handling.  It handled amazingly, and I'm used to my 2004 turbo Mazdaspeed Miata, so the bar is pretty high.  I kept throwing it in faster and faster corners and it held on tenaciously every time.  I was really impressed with that little car, and the gas mileage it got.  Sadly the engine wasn't a turbo, but otherwise a great little car.

But again, not sure how much it shares with this Corolla.

So it is available with a manual, but no one has ever seen or tried it? Good luck finding one at a Toyota dealership.  BTW, the Corolla sedan is also available with a manual transmission....ever see one? 

I forgive the lack of storage cubbies, what I want to know is: with about average power for a non turbo, does this have direct injection? 

In reply to Carsandbikes :

Direct and port injection.  No need to walnut blast or whatever!

Back seat legroom? I've heard it's not so good. That is a big thing for me even though I don't carry passengers. Strange I know.

kman91 said:

I don't know if there are many similarities between this and the iA (Yaris).

...

But again, not sure how much it shares with this Corolla.

Nothing at all. Mazda and Toyota never shared any tech, just that supply deal for one model.

The Corolla is all-Toyota, on the same "GA-C" (compact) variant of the Toyota New Generation Architecture (TNGA) as the Prius and C-HR.

Buy lots, so that when I'm looking for  used car in 10 years, it can be an option.

nutherjrfan said:

Back seat legroom? I've heard it's not so good. That is a big thing for me even though I don't carry passengers. Strange I know.

I had one as a tester a few weeks ago

They cut 3-4 inches of legroom vs the iM. Claims an abysmal 29.5-inches, but with the driver seat set for me, I had zero chance of even climbing in. Anything else in the class I can fit comfortably . It's extra strange because the wheelbase is longer than the iM

In short, zero rear legroom.

Does it have rear seat a/c vents ? 

Klayfish said:

Personally, I think the car is really good looking.  I love the blue color in the posted photo.  Could this thing be a serious Mazda3 fighter? 

Toyota, why do you only give it 168hp?  C'mon...how hard would it be to drop 225-250hp into the thing and make it a true hot hatch?

depending on the weight, it may not need that much. My Abarth gets along just fine at 2500 pounds and roughly 170hp. Nobody would call it slow unless you are facing it up against the newest crop of V8 powered ponycars

Aww, the 1zz has finally grown up into 1990's Honda power... yes, I'm aware this is neither a 1zz powered car, nor is the power vs mpg in this new Corolla bad at all for the class. =)

A few thoughts though, at random:

-My 1980 Corolla weighed a full 1100 lbs less than this. Granted, it was about as bare bones as a car got, surprisingly, mine had the fancy "carpet" option box checked...

-88 lbs for the transmission? That seems kinda high for a small transmission, at least to me. If I remember correctly the R154 Supra transmissions are only about 110 lbs, and they're quite large compared to any FWD setup.

-I could get on board with calling this the FX-20 if they could figure out a way to drop a couple hundred pounds and maybe bump up the power by another 15-20hp... Gotta have stickers on the side proclaiming such a model designation though. No stickers, no deal. =P

mad_machine said:

Klayfish said:

Personally, I think the car is really good looking.  I love the blue color in the posted photo.  Could this thing be a serious Mazda3 fighter? 

Toyota, why do you only give it 168hp?  C'mon...how hard would it be to drop 225-250hp into the thing and make it a true hot hatch?

depending on the weight, it may not need that much. My Abarth gets along just fine at 2500 pounds and roughly 170hp. Nobody would call it slow unless you are facing it up against the newest crop of V8 powered ponycars

That depends on the individual perspective of speed.  I haven't driven the Abarth, but if you look at the C&D road test, it took 7.3 seconds to go 0-60.  They obviously had to abuse it to do that because the 5-60mph test took over 8 seconds.  To me, that's slow.  A 4cyl Camry is just as "fast" in the 5-60 run, the V6 would positively smoke it.  I'm not looking for a $25,000 car to run 0-60 in 3 seconds flat, but around 6 sec or lower was my entry criteria when I was shopping.  As I've said before, I'm done with the "driving a slow car fast is fun" thing.

88 lbs for the transmission? That seems kinda high for a small transmission, at least to me. If I remember correctly the R154 Supra transmissions are only about 110 lbs, and they're quite large compared to any FWD setup.

FWD transmissions have a differential in them. 

They obviously had to abuse it to do that because the 5-60mph test took over 8 seconds.

Not really, that just means that if you punch it from 5mph in first gear you will have noticeable turbo lag. 

I'm very glad they got the looks and power right on this gen, but the lack of rear seat room and storage is an odd form of progress for such a mainstream car.  

Vigo said:

Not really, that just means that if you punch it from 5mph in first gear you will have noticeable turbo lag. 

 

The 5-60 tests are also typically done in the top gear rather than with normal downshifting with a manual, while automatics are permitted to downshift.

MadScientistMatt said:

Vigo said:

Not really, that just means that if you punch it from 5mph in first gear you will have noticeable turbo lag. 

 

The 5-60 tests are also typically done in the top gear rather than with normal downshifting with a manual, while automatics are permitted to downshift.

To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, the 5-60mph tests are done with a manual trans starting in 1st gear and an auto in "D".  You may be thinking of the 30-50 or 50-70mph tests? 

If the 5-60 is pretty far off the 0-60 time, then to me that says they had to do a serious clutch drop, brake torque or some other form of mechanical torture to get that 0-60 number.  The 5-60mph is more reflective of normal driving patterns.  So yeah, if a car has significant turbo lag or a serious lack of low end torque, it'll show up in that test. 

Either way, I think the Corolla hatch looks promising.  I'd love to see it with a better engine option to match.

As someone who looked at a Corolla XSE earlier this year, but went with the IM due to the hatchback I'm eyeing the new hatch with some interest. Few quibbles with the IM, but otherwise it's been a decent little car.  And as for the comment about finding a dealership with a manual trans car in stock, we had our choice of 3 different colors in a manual trans, but ended up with the auto just due to my wife worrying about her mother possibly having to drive on their annual road trips. (her car, her choice)  

My complaints with the IM (which the 'rolla hopefully addresses) in manual flavor was with the down shifting and rev matching. You couldn't do it, well I'm sure you could, but it wasn't going to happen in a hurry. you were just better of downshifting it, accepting the forward momentum hit of waiting for the engine to spin up, and then going from there. The electronic throttle body, made blipping the throttle impossible. Even SWMBO complained about it.

The other is power. The 1zz just doesn't have it, now it will happily spin up, and keep spinning up high, in fact getting it spinning up around highway speeds and above it's quite responsive, and much more pleasurable to drive.  You actually get better acceleration leaving it in drive and just matting the go pedal vs playing with the "manual" mode, though it's handy if you want to hold a higher rpm through a long sweeping corner (think on/off ramps). If you're at a dead stop, a little left foot braking to get the rpms up before you start rolling will help, but get too aggressive with it, and the computer takes all the fun out of it.  In fact you can't disable the nannies on the IM at least. Press and hold the Traction control button from a dead stop and the dash will light up after about 5 seconds telling you all the safeties have been removed, but if you start aggressively, and have wheel spin the computer takes back over and kills the throttle. (tested in the rain on a paint stripe)

If the 5-60 is pretty far off the 0-60 time, then to me that says they had to do a serious clutch drop, brake torque or some other form of mechanical torture to get that 0-60 number.

I really don't know if I would call that torture...

I guess if you wanted cars whose 5-60 were pretty close to their 'i'm actually trying' 0-60 time, that would tend toward large displacement engines hooked to automatic transmissions. 

I just saw an add that the new Corolla now has independent front suspension.