My first shed! 2005 Toyota Corolla

[Mercury00]

After years of financed cars I've gone back to basics. I was looking for a shed as cheap as possible, without the potential for breaking. I found this Corolla at a local dealership, being sold round the back as they didn't want to retail something that old and tarnish their image they had a few other cars, but none stood out. I've got a thing for Toyotas.








There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. There are a couple of scrapes on the front bumper, but the inside is like new. Mileage-wise it's barely run in at 140,000 miles I'm looking forward to running it into the ground, and I've told myself if I get two years out of it I'll be happy. Oh, it cost £575.

[avenger286]

Looks ok for the money. They usually have some interesting stuff out the back I keep an eye out for what they have although some of it is expensive.

[youngsod]

Two years? It’ll outlive you. My son worries that I’ll make him learn to drive in mine. He’s 9.

[Mercury00]

youngsod said:

Two years? It’ll outlive you. My son worries that I’ll make him learn to drive in mine. He’s 9.

There's definitely a strange pleasure to be had from running an older car. It's refreshing to be free of the PCP cycle, and I feel like I appreciate the small things a lot more with this car. I was shouting at my girlfriend in excitement "look! The electric windows work!"

Edited by Mercury00 on Sunday 25th April 23:23

[Cambs_Stuart]

That looks a proper bargain. Lets face it, even if it only runs for four months and you have to buy another, it's still cheaper than a PCP deal.
I've got a sneaking admiration for these. Well built, utilitarian motoring for the masses.
How are they for rust?

Edited by Cambs_Stuart on Monday 26th April 07:30

[Jonmx]

Mercury00 said:

There's definitely a strange pleasure to be had from running an older car. It's refreshing to be free of the PCP cycle, and I feel like I appreciate the small things a lot more with this car. I was shouting at my girlfriend in excitement "look! The electric windows work!"

Edited by Mercury00 on Sunday 25th April 23:23

Electric windows!? That's posh!
Shedding is such a contrast to having expensive cars. I have a £350 MX5 and couldn't care less about dents, scratches etc. Toyotas, as you know, are up there with pub carpets and cockroaches as the only things that will survive a nuclear winter. It looks like you got a decent little car there for a monthly payment equivalent on a Merc or Range Rover.

[Mercury00]

Cambs_Stuart said:

That looks a proper bargain. Lets face it, even if it only runs for four months and you have to buy another, it's still cheaper than a PCP deal.
I've got a sneaking admiration for these. Well built, utilitarian motoring for the masses.
How are they for rust?

Edited by Cambs_Stuart on Monday 26th April 07:30

They seem okay to be fair. I've had a look underneath and the only thing badly rusted was the exhaust heat shield, which is a known problem with Toyotas. That was actually what made me buy it: I started it up and heard a clattering noise, and having owned Toyotas before I knew what it was. I reached under the car and pulled out the heat shield that was lying loose on top of the exhaust. Clattering solved! The car sounded perfect after that.

[Darren93]

I ran one of these for 6 months (1.4), bought it for £500 until my new car arrived it was absolutely faultless, brilliant car. The only thing I done was out new wiper blades on it. Done around 5k miles in it and took it on a trip to the highlands and didn't give me any discomfort on the 5-6 hour drive back.

[Raymond Reddington]

I bought one of these a few months ago.

A 1.6 5dr in a really nice dark blue and 69k on the clock.

It's crap on fuel and it's boring but it was pretty cheap and feels very good for a 17 year old car!

I'm loving the central arm rest and tilt and slide sunroof not so much loving the lack of Bluetooth and DAB but I can't be bothered to do anything about that.

Cracking shed though, keep us posted.

[youngsod]

Mercury00 said:

There's definitely a strange pleasure to be had from running an older car. It's refreshing to be free of the PCP cycle, and I feel like I appreciate the small things a lot more with this car. I was shouting at my girlfriend in excitement "look! The electric windows work!"

Edited by Mercury00 on Sunday 25th April 23:23

They will *never* fail! Mine was bought from a Toyota garage at 3 1/2 years old with 27k on the clock. I've had her 11 years and she's* on 192k. It's only actually broken down once, but I don't blame her for that, a driveshaft mysteriously snapped while it was being valet parked at Luton. Aye right...
Apart from that it's had 2 sets of front discs, one set of back discs and a new clutch at 180k. She did once have an oil leak my that fixed itself :-)

The windows all work, the a/c blows ice cold, and you can thrash it all day. She's got her fair share of scrapes, but that just means you can park her anywhere and not care. Underneath she's a bombproof Corolla with a fsh and sitting on a full set of CrossClimates (I spoil her, plus I won't stint on rubber).

Confession time though, she was running a bit rough and the idle was all over the place to the extent of cutting out now and again. So spanner God** that I am I cleaned the MAF and the throttle body and now she runs sweetly again. Trouble is every now and again she pops up the EML light claiming it's running to lean. The garage reckons it's the downstream O2 sensor and it's fine to ignore it, but it's bugging me so I might try to change the sensor.

Welcome to Corolla world. It may be dull as ditchwater but it'll survive the end of days.

• Note though that you might get so attached to it that you call her 'she' and people (rightly) think you're a bit funny.

• May not reflect reality

[Mercury00]

I had a nice little win today. You know how dealerships always say they've lost the service book? Well mine found it! and it turns out to have an almost full service history. The last service was in 2019, but the car has only done 3000 miles since then. My local Toyota dealership sold me a service kit including: engine oil, oil filter, air filter, cabin filter, and sump plug washer for £41. Not bad.

[JonRS]

I went a slightly different corolla route, went with a 2.0 diesel, I was well aware that an older common rail may be slightly riskier, but so far it's doing well and pulls pretty well. Not fast in the slightest but when you hit hills it pulls fine compared to the awful 1.4 petrol polo shed I had before.

Condition wise it's great. But one thing to watch is the seat rails can fail if you move the seat about a lot, there is a pin that can snap off.

Had a 1.6 petrol civic before and it was poor on fuel so assumed the corolla 1.4 / 1.6 petrol would be similar. Diesel can do around 50mpg.

[Mercury00]

Got a couple of jobs done today. I changed the oil, filter, and cabin filter. I did buy an air filter, but when I went to take the old one out it was brand new. I also polished the headlights - I bought the Meguiars two stage polish kit, but it was pretty crap. In the end I polished the lights with T-cut and a drill, then lacquered them.





I also used a wire wheel on an angle grinder to polish up the front subframe, then waxoiled:



The wire wheel was a dream to use, it took literally seconds to polish it up.

The next jobs are power steering fluid, make a new exhaust heat shield (I've bought the metal and will make it myself) and carry on with the undersealing.

[Mercury00]

The Corolla has had its first fault: the petrol gauge isn't working properly. I'm not going to fix it, I'll just have to top it up often! Apart from that it's going well, I've done over 1000 miles in it so far.

[The Mad Monk]

Mercury00 said:

After years of financed cars I've gone back to basics. I was looking for a shed as cheap as possible, without the potential for breaking. I found this Corolla at a local dealership, being sold round the back as they didn't want to retail something that old and tarnish their image they had a few other cars, but none stood out. I've got a thing for Toyotas.



There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. There are a couple of scrapes on the front bumper, but the inside is like new. Mileage-wise it's barely run in at 140,000 miles I'm looking forward to running it into the ground, and I've told myself if I get two years out of it I'll be happy. Oh, it cost £575.

What sort of warranty did they give you?

[Mercury00]

The Mad Monk said:

What sort of warranty did they give you?

None, which doesn't bother me at all.

The fuel gauge seems to be a false alarm, it's still going down. I think the fuel tank must be a funny shape because the indicator sits at half full for three days, and then all of a sudden it's empty.

[Silenoz]

Mercury00 said:

The Mad Monk said:

What sort of warranty did they give you?

None, which doesn't bother me at all.

The fuel gauge seems to be a false alarm, it's still going down. I think the fuel tank must be a funny shape because the indicator sits at half full for three days, and then all of a sudden it's empty.

I had a 55 plate 1.6 automatic and the fuel gauge was the same, stayed on full for the first 100 miles or so and then dropped like a stone.

[The Mad Monk]

Mercury00 said:

The Mad Monk said:

What sort of warranty did they give you?

None, which doesn't bother me at all.

Which doesn't surprise me.

I had the impression that dealers wouldn't sell these - presumably part exchanged cars - to private buyers because the buyers would bang on about warranties and 'I know my rights'. Accordingly they sold p/exs to traders.

What are the magic words that you uttered to get them to sell it to you?

[Mercury00]

The Mad Monk said:

Which doesn't surprise me.

I had the impression that dealers wouldn't sell these - presumably part exchanged cars - to private buyers because the buyers would bang on about warranties and 'I know my rights'. Accordingly they sold p/exs to traders.

What are the magic words that you uttered to get them to sell it to you?

They have a specific section on their website which says:

"PX DRIVEN IN BY PREVIOUS OWNER, BUT AS IT DOES NOT MEET OUR NORMAL RETAIL CRITERIA DUE TO MILEAGE IT HAS NOT GONE THROUGH OUR USUAL PRE SALE INSPECTION PROCESS WHICH IS REFLECTED IN THE WELL BELOW NORMAL MARKET PRICE.

RESPONSIBILITY IS ON THE BUYER TO LOOK AT THIS VEHICLE PRIOR TO PURCHASE. WE DO NOT ALLOW ROAD TESTS (OTHER THAN ON OUR PRIVATE LAND) ON PX CLEARANCE VEHICLES AS THEY HAVE NOT BEEN THROUGH ANY OF OUR QUALITY INSPECTION PROCESSES.

THIS IS A CLEARANCE VEHICLE SUITABLE FOR TRADE - DIY ENTHUSIAST ie A BUYER WHO KNOWS ABOUT VEHICLES"

I don't care about having a warranty on a £500 car if it blows up I'll simply buy another.

[Mercury00]

Silenoz said:

I had a 55 plate 1.6 automatic and the fuel gauge was the same, stayed on full for the first 100 miles or so and then dropped like a stone.

Thanks for that, it's dropped nearly half a tank in two days now - clearly it's working fine!