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...and in the blink of an eye 3 years have gone by. It only occurred to me/us when the dealer called up to remind us of the upcoming shaken inspection and tax payment and to inquire what I wanted to do with the car loan. So off to inspection it went and decided to totally pay off the car. So now she is totally mine At the 3 year mark I have put 10,xxxkms on it and each one of those kms have been more smile worthier than the other. Interestingly as the engine broke in the car became more lively as the engine was way more rev happy. In 2022 GR Garage started a personalization program called GR Personal Selection. The program offered owners the chance to take the car for a track day, drive it and tune the car according to their own driving style. This included a software upgrade which bumped up torque to 390Nm (an increase of 20Nm from the stock 370), adjustments to steering weight, throttle response and AWD torque split. Unfortunately, the track days didn't work out with my schedule so got it tuned to some presets that were offered. So now the car has 390Nm of torque, heavier steering and high throttle response. I didn't do anything with the torque split of the AWD system as I felt the changes introduced a bit of understeer which I didn't like. The upgrades have made the car a lot easier to drive. So much so my wife, who always made the car leap from stand still or jerk when accelerating and shifting gears, found it a lot easier to drive than before. I bought the GR Yaris completely out of impulse. The original plan was to buy a standard Yaris with a MT until the GR Corolla was released. Thus, once the GR Corolla was released in Japan I had to go try it out and put my name down for one. The GR Corolla was a nice car. It is a lot easier to drive. The two rear doors make the car a lot more practical. The car does have a larger cargo area, however the usable space is not that much larger than the GR Yaris. The best thing about the GR Corolla is the engine improvements. The power delivery is much smoother and the engine is more responsive (the updated engine is going to be offered in the facelifted GR Yaris). Performance wise, although the GRC has more power, you cannot not actually feel it due to the added weight. Track runs have shown both cars to be equal in things like 0-100 times, etc...the main difference seems to be in terms of handling. The consensus seems to be that the GRY is better for rallying and B-roads (due to the shorter wheelbase) and the GRC is better for track use. Which brings me to what I did not like in the GRC. The weight...and the longer wheelbase. The GRC feels less nimble and playful than the GRY. Albeit...straight line, flat-out..the GRC is a lot more stable. Which I support is in line with the above mentioned consensus. So, after a lot of driving around in the GRC and a track day with the GRC and a bunch of other GR cars, I decided to stick with the GR Yaris (I was hoping to keep the GRY and buy the GRC as a second family car for its practicality. Wife insisted I had to trade in the GRY). Then there was the whole purchase method for the GRC. The cars were offered only through lottery with each round of lottery having only 550 cars (Toyota closed its 2nd lottery a few months ago and the next one is supposed to come up in a few months). To give you an idea of how crazy the lottery is....I went to the dealership/GR Garage to apply for the lottery the morning after the lottery started (1.00pm prev day). The system already showed 5000+ lottery applications. The low chances of actually winning the lottery reaffirmed my decision to hold on to the GRY. The GR Garage is a total car person's den. It has two racing sims, a library with car books, mini cars...and always has a selection of fun cars. In this instance they had their (Toyota Corolla dealership's) GRMN Yaris and GR Corolla Morizo edition apart from the white one in the previous pic). Now..the second moment of temptation.. I was so mad with Toyota that I went and ordered a Civic Type R. Now that was a very refined car. FWD and wonderfully balanced. Interior was well appointed. The adaptive suspension was quite good. The car came in at 4.9mil yen fully loaded (compared to the GRC's price of 5.8mil) and the car made you feel special for all that money you spent on it. At the time of placing the order the delivery period was 4 years. To my good fortune, Honda called last December and said I could have mine in April 2024 if I still wanted it. So... am I getting a Civic Type R in April ? I suppose we will have to wait and see. For now..life goes on with the GRY .... Yes...we still have the old Corolla. She turns 25 this year and has 52,000km. Still runs strong and along with her shaken inspection next week I will be replacing some oil seals (for good measure as some are 25 years old and some 10). Other than that I replaced two engine mounts and replaced the clutch and pressure plates about 2 years ago Its amazing how small the Corolla wagon is compared to the GRY. The day Toyota was crazy enough to ask a bunch of us to drive their cars The blue Supra was a manual and LOVED it ! If I could have afforded it that would be a car I would give up the GRY for in less than a heart beat. The pure grunt and glorious sound of a V8 was mesmerizing. Now....about that family car I wanted until a new toy comes around. Because the chances of getting a GRC was so low...the dealership managed to sell us a facelifted Corolla Touring ! Our/my first Hybrid car. The facelift has some exterior/interior design improvements, but the main change is the hybrid system. It now uses a 5th gen HSD mated to a 1.8L engine. Has a total combined output of about 137? hp and tons of torque thanks to an updated control unit and lighter batteries (so it has more power than the pre-facelift model and weighs less). It is interesting how the system handles the charge/discharge. The car does not let the battery charge up to a 100%. Only time it does is when driving long distances on the highway or going up and and down hills. At such times it just starts cruising on EV mode. Its biggest let down is the eCVT and has a little bit space than the old Corolla wagon...but everything else is pretty sweet. All in-all the (temporary ?) purchase of the Corolla Touring worked out quite well considering some unexpected life changes.

Hi Guys, Planning to buy a car and these 3 are in my final list. this will be a daily driver and mostly around 1000km monthly. Fuel consumption is not too big of an issue but hope these would do at least 8-10km/l in traffic. I would mainly look for handling/driving pleasure, safety, reliability, design and creature comforts. Also not a big fan of SUV or cross overs. Since all of these are now decade old and used for more than 100k kms, would like to know the knows issues and parts availability too. Options: Mazda 6 (2013) Mercedes c180 or c200 (2010) Lexus CT200h (2012) my budget is around 8-9 mil and please do let me know if you have any other recommendations too, or any other advice or tips regarding this is greatly appreciated! Thank you

Hi guys, I'm planning to buy a used SUV. My budget is under 4M. I have seen advertisements for Toyota Harrier 1999/2000 YOM for around 3.4M. Is it a good deal? Does this vehicle have any major issues. Any other SUVs that I can look for? Thank you

Toyota (Lexus) takes orders for an EV from 40,000 GBP upwards, at last! Sure it will have the precision, fit, finish and the refinement of Lexus but lacks the Autonomy of #EV according to the published data. The intelligence specs are far behind not only Tesla, even Nissan Leaf. .....and this indicates the building of a coffin for hyped up FCHV as well! Performance/specs of Lexus UX300e Acceleration 0 - 100 km/h 7.5 sec Top Speed 160 km/h Electric Range 260 km (NEDC) Total Power 150 kW (204 PS) Total Torque 300 Nm Front drive / single motor Battery Capacity * 54.3 kWh Battery Useable* 50.0 kWh Charge Port Type 2 for Europe Charge Power 6.6 kW AC Charge Time (0->260 km) 9 hours Charge Speed 29 km/h Fastcharge Port CHAdeMO Fastcharge Power (max) 50 kW DC Fastcharge Time (26->208 km) 55 min Fastcharge Speed 190 km/h They are late, rivals are much more advanced today. But this is great first step of #Toyota, towards electrification. https://mobility.lk/.../toyota-vw-will-take-over-6-years.../

Dear All, I’m new to Sri Lankan roads. In my thinking best means reliability, dependability, comfort and performance. Looking to buy a such ride for me around 4M. I know I can’t go for a new one matching these criteria with my budget. So I’m fine with an old car. Following are my concerns. - I have 3kids in the family so the car has to be bigger or it has to be a SUV - I don't have much time to hang in the workshops, So I expect a vehicle not fragile with less frequent repairs. - Parts must be available; it doesn't have to be in every shop here and there. but at-least in couple of shops in the country (doesn’t has to be so cheap, but available) -Availability of reliable workshops; I can’t afford IWS or D*MO; but it doesn't has to be cheaper like a normal garage - Having a fuel efficiency of at-least 6km per liter - I don't care about the registered number -having some resale capability (at-least within 4 months) What I understand from studying a bit, different models of the same car have huge gaps in reliability and market price in Sri Lankan roads. As an example W211 E200 Komp has more market value that E240. Highly appreciate if you can guild me and suggest few options/models. Country of manufacturer doesn't matter.

Hello Folks, I'm planning to buy an SUV which I expected to be reliable, has less maintenance cost, fewer problems and has a suspension system which provides a smoother ride. My budget is around 7 million. In addition, I will do some casual offroading once in a while and it's better if the resell value is good. Following are my contenders. 1. Fortuner 2012 2. MonteroSport 2012 3. Harrier 240G 2008/2009 (Crossover) 4. Lexus RX350 (Crossover) Your suggestions are highly appreciated.

Hi Automobiles or cars as we used call them, has long become a commodity and are now mass produced trade items that aims to fulfill the automotive requirements of contemporary human beings, whose day to day routines IMHO, are much more sophisticated now and reflect the chaotic and busy social, economic aspects of modern societies. Due to such scenario, most of us has lost certain feel good factor and innocence that we had when we were growing up (applies more to people who have grown up in 80's and 90's). IMHO, the cars themselves too, whilst become state-of-the-art and technologically revolutionary by every passing year, has lost a certain character and enthusiasts who love cars manufactured in 90's or early 00's, may agree that, their cars has such personality and character, that most modern cars (even the current models of their favorite make) lacks and thus continues to TLC their cars with great dedication and soul. IMHO, For example, a BMW car manufactured in 90's (or early 00's) has such a timeless design aesthetics and driving a well maintained car will give the impression that, people who made that car has such attention to detail, workmanship, passion and are mostly assembled in original factory of the maker. Now a modern BMW for example is mostly put together by robots and are mass-produced items in countries like India or china (no offense to the countries) and during recent ride in a 2015 5 series, I got the impression that, whilst the Car is modern looking and dripping with latest technologies, it lacked that certain character that old ones had and I got the impression that some of the materials used in the new car may not be durable as the ones in older cars. No I cannot afford a 2015 BMW for the time being I do not intent to discourage anyone from buying one. Also I do not intent to undervalue the brilliant tech or modern aspects of new cars, However, my heart always races when i see a mint condition older car (exclusively euro car as I am an euro car enthusiast) on the roads and I don't get the same excitement when I see modern cars. It may be just me or do you also happens to have same feelings for 90's cars. Sound off in comments below Cheers,

Dear All, can somebody recommend me a genuine garage or a mechanic (who will not loot me ) for me to carry out some engine repairs and a good tune up. my car has a 2.5 V6 4VZ toyota 4-cam engine and lot of mechanics are not familiar with the setup. i searched the AL treads and couldn't find any. pls pm me if names cannot be published here. thanks in advance