1995 Toyota Carina GLi review from UK and Ireland

Nothing of any note has gone wrong with this car.

The biggest costs have been 2 cam belts and the rear shock absorbers have been replaced. That's it in 8 years and a lot of miles.

This is a great car to own, it's 9 years old and still has the original clutch, exhaust and HT leads with no sign whatsoever of them giving up the ghost at all.

It has been totally painless to own, I am not bothered at the rear suspension being replaced at 125000 miles, in fact I would expect it, I once owned an Alfa 75 and had to replace the rear suspension on that at 44000 miles.

Inside the controls are logically laid out, simple and efficient in design, the seats are comfy and long distance travel is relaxing and not tiring.

The handling is safe and sure, and even though it leans a bit around corners it has plenty of grip at speed.

The MPG is superb for a 2.0 car I regularly achieve 34-40 MPG.

From a purely childish and boy racer-ish point of view frankly my car goes like stink, the more miles I put on it the faster it goes. It pulls like a train in all gears and behaves more like an 8

valve engine than a 16 valve.

Theres plenty of torque and I love embarrassing all the TDi rep brigade who think their diesels are quick, you can see their faces screw up in horror when a 9 year old Toyota blows them away, childish, but mildly amusing. I believe new it had a 0-60 time of 8.5 seconds, but it's a lot quicker now, definitely a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Reliability has also been outstanding with only the odd exterior bulb blowing from time to time.