Subtle tweaks

The Corolla Altis gets a host of useful updates. Srinivas Krishnan checks them out

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But in the case of the Corolla Altis,

Toyota must have figured that a little bit of fixing would not do it any harm. So the car has adopted a few changes here and there. It gets a Camry-like grille, a revised lower grille and new headlamps in the front and at the rear it receives a chrome strip, a redesigned bumper and LED tail-lamps. The diesel Corolla Altis gets a bar on the grille along with a mesh to distinguish it from the petrol version. A 6.1” DVD/audio LCD touchscreen control panel incorporating bluetooth, USB and auxiliary ports, perforated leather seats, rear seat arm rest and a revised instrument console have been added to the interiors. Other additions include keyless entry, start/stop button, remote boot opener and reversing sensors.

 

But the most important changes are those that involve the petrol powertrain — the engine gets a few revisions, resulting in a slightly better output and there’s a new intelligent CVT (continuous variable transmission) option too. But the diesel engine is unchanged and comes only with the six-speed manual transmission.

It’s been a while since I last drove a Corolla Altis. Cruising on the roads around Bangalore’s new airport in the petrol version with the six-speed manual gearbox, the Altis does not exactly feel like a breath of fresh air, but the few internal changes on the dash are quite apparent. That’s not the case with the exterior, however; the changes are too subtle. But having said that, the Altis was never a head-turner in terms of external design — its appeal was always more about what it offered to its user. The demand for the Etios is simply a fallout of the good work the Corolla Altis and the Innova have done for Toyota in the country.

Automotive wonks would know that the last-gen petrol engine of the

Altis was known as the 1ZZ-FE. Now they might be happy to know that the internal designation for the new gasoline motor that powers the car is 2ZR-FE. Also, the 1,794 cc 16-valve DOHC VVT-i (variable valve timing intelligence, supposed to maximise the engine’s performance) has now been replaced by a 16-valve DOHC motor with dual VVT-i that displaces 1,798 cc. Output is up, with 138 bhp at 6,400 rpm and 17.6 kgm at 4,000 rpm, as compared to 130 bhp at 6,000 rpm and 17.3 kgm at 4,200 rpm in the predecessor. The dual VVT-i means the timing of both the intake and exhaust valves are now controlled depending on various parameters. The net effect is that the engine breathes more freely and does a better job of burning up those hydrocarbons.

So what does that mean while driving? More power is always welcome, and now with the engine developing better torque at lower rpm, the Altis has become more driveable. Especially in the low and mid-range, which translates into ease of driving in urban conditions. You don’t have to ride the clutch that much anymore. This made itself apparent on our test route where we encountered several speed breakers at defunct toll booths. The car never balked at low rpm, and it would crest the bumps easily. Even in fourth gear, the engine pulls cleanly from low revolutions and picks up speed. In fact, anywhere beyond 1,500 rpm, the engine takes up the slack and pulls forward. It also helps that the Altis is not a heavy car. When given the push, you can even see the needle hovering at 190 kph on the speedometer. Gearing is also tuned to better driveability, as you can push up to 100 kph in seconds, while third is like an automatic, going all the way up to 150 kph. You would normally never need a sixth cog, but it’s pretty useful on the highway, helping the engine relax while cruising and at the same time offering better fuel efficiency. However, the one issue with the motor is that at higher rpm, it tends to get a bit noisy, even in the cabin. At higher speeds, the wind noise is also intrusive.

The bigger news is of course the new automatic transmission. Called the Super CVT-i with seven-speed sequential shiftmatic, the gearbox is a clever replacement for the last-gen five-speed auto. Clever because it monitors engine revolutions and is programmed to be fuel efficient, something which has been the traditional bane of automatic gearboxes. Toyota claims an ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) fuel consumption figure of 15.22 kpl; now that should translate to somewhere around 11-12 kpl under normal driving conditions. Another improvement compared to your regular CVTs is the absence of the so-called “rubber-band effect”. Last generation CVTs would make the engine rev more as it searched for the right ratio, without any immediate effect on the speed of the car. Here, that effect is minimised, making the CVT that much more intuitive. Of course, you have the option of a manual override by shifting the gear lever up or down.But remember that it does not hold the revs when you redline it (maximum safe engine speed) and consequently upshifts.

The Corolla Altis was never a sporty kind of car anyway. The steering feel, for example, is more in tune with comfort and ease rather than feedback. The suspension is also engineered to keep the rough stuff away and it does a pretty good job of it. Though it has received a raft of changes, for a car that will typically be chauffeur-driven, Toyota should have tried giving their best-seller rear AC vents — something which even the Volkswagen Vento and Fiat Linea have. The revised pricing will be announced soon.

The writer was invited by Toyota to test-drive the new Corolla Altis