Toyota Corolla Touring Sports review

Diesel estates were once the go-to vehicles for families wanting a relatively frugal car with lots of space. Now, though – with diesel losing favour – this Toyota Corolla Touring Sports and other self-charging petrol hybrids are growing in popularity.

So what is a self-charging hybrid? Well, while plug-in hybrids have big enough batteries to drive on electric power over a good distance, they also require plugging in to recharge if you want the best fuel economy. In contrast, the Corolla Touring Sports estate car – like the Toyota Corolla hatchback – constantly tops up a smaller hybrid battery as it drives along.

That means you can only drive on electric power alone for short distances, but the hybrid tech allows you to achieve some impressive fuel economy figures without the need to plug it in.

Is that enough to give the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports the edge over the best estate cars out there, including the sharp-handling Ford Focus Estate and Seat Leon Estate or the capacious Skoda Octavia Estate? Read on to find out…

The entry-level engine for the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports is a 1.8-litre hybrid petrol that delivers 138bhp, for a 0-62mph time of 9.4 seconds. That's noticeably quicker than the entry-level versions of the Ford Focus Estate (the Ecoboost 125 takes 10.4 seconds) and the Seat Leon Estate SE 1.5 TSI 115 (taking 10.7 seconds).

The 1.8 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.

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.

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.

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 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

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 VW 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.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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).

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 option in the class.

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

If there’s one thing that makes the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports really compelling, it’s as a company car. You see, every version has low CO2 emissions, and the 1.8-litre hybrid model emits as little as 101g/km, which puts it in one of the lowest BIK tax bands in the estate car class. The more powerful 2.0-litre hybrid emits as little as 103g/km (in entry-level Icon spec).

Official fuel economy figures for the hybrid models are among the best in the class too, 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.

We reckon the Corolla Touring Sports also makes plenty of sense to private buyers, although it’s more expensive to buy outright than a Ford Focus Estate or Skoda Octavia Estate. It’s predicted to have better resale values than those rivals and most others, which should help make PCP finance payments affordable. You can find the latest prices on our New Car Deals pages.

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.

Toyota has long had a great track record when it comes to reliability, and its performance in the 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey shows nothing has changed. The brand took fifth place out of 31 car makers listed.

The Corolla Sports Tourer didn't feature in the survey but the hatchback Toyota Corolla 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. That’s longer cover than other estate cars. The Kia Ceed Sportswagon comes closest, with its seven-year warranty. The Suzuki Swace – which is almost identical to the Corolla Sports Tourer and costs slightly less – comes with a three year/60,000 mile warranty.

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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