1984 Toyota Corolla from North America - Comments

At 400,000 kilometers, this car looks very rough from our Canadian road salted winters.

The first thing that went wrong was the driver side window. The window would not stay up. Once I had the window back in place, I was not able to role it down without being able to role it back up so I decided to take off the window crank so I would not make the mistake of accidentally rolling it down.

When I bought the car three years ago, the passenger rear tire sat on an angle. After three years of driving, I took it in for brake pads and the garage said that the rear tire doesn't look right and asked how long has it been like that? I said, "Oh, for about three years now". When he inspected it, he discovered the strut was in fact broke in two and for the life of him could not figure why that rear tire had not fallen off. The strut was changed, kidney's miraculously healed. Go figure.

When I bought the car, it was late fall and the fan motor broke. I quickly discovered it was very easy to get parts from the auto wreckers.

One day in summer, it got too hot inside the car and the fan motor simply was not doing the job. That was when I first noticed that this car had an A/C button. I thought, wow this rust bucket came with air conditioning. So I pressed the button and holy floura carbons Batman, it works too.

Using the car for pizza delivery, I put on four new Blizzaks and it turned the car into a Ski Doo. I was able to drive in very deep snow conditions and in my new found enthusiasm I took on every new challenge I could find. Big mistake. 300 dollars later, I found out why snowmobiles don't put mufflers on the bottom of their vehicles. Live and learn.

This car is very very noisy on the highway. The Who, would have trouble keeping up with this volume.

I had an annoying clicking sound for about a week. Annoying enough for me to take it to a mechanic. He said, "Dude, your water pump's broken, good thing you came in right away".

After 400,000 kilometers, the carburetor is questionable, but the engine is really strong and doesn't burn oil or burn blue out the exhaust. I just don't get it.

That's wicked hot. I hope it lasts forever. I have a 2000 and pray it has that kind of longevity.

A friend of mine who grew up in West Africa told me that the Toyota Corolla is the vehicle of choice for Cameroonian taxi drivers. No wonder...

Everything that I have come across says that this car is as durable as they come.