considering to buy a new Toyota Corolla Estate, I am looking for someone with experiences with the automatic 5-gear transmission, which Toyota calls 'multi-mode' (at least in my area in Europe). In particular I want to know, whether you are happy with the transmission the way it works, with the way you feel the gear change, with how long the delay of the gear change is etc..
If you post your experiences, please name car model and how long you have been driving with the multi-mode gear.
I have a Corolla D-4D 1.4 5-door with MMT and have done 6000 miles +, and am completely satisfied with it in almost every respect. It does not have an automatic gearbox, but instead an automatic clutch and I find that the gear changes are very intuitive and smooth. You can let the automatic part get on with it by itself (and it does this extremely well), or you can select gears yourself. When in manual gear select position just flick forward for down shift (the lever springs back) and backwards for up shift. Each flick changes to another gear.
You can also change from auto to manual whilst going along. For example, if you want the car to stay in say 3rd going down a steepish hill, just flick the lever to manual slot and it will hold - flick it back afterwards to auto when you wish - anytime. In other words you can change from automatic to manual and back again at any time just with a flick of the lever.
The gear changes in auto work fine, and are very smooth, but you can make them even smoother by momentarily slightly lifting your foot off the throttle when you want to change up - this fools the system, which would often want to hold in present gear position for a little bit longer. There is no delay whatsoever in the changes. For quick acceleration to overtake, use kickdown just as in a normal automatic. I have to say that the 1.4 diesel engine is surprisingly lively and pulls very well. I can storm up over a local long hill in top, whereas with my previous 1.9 TDdiesel Skoda Octavio I had to get down into 4th before the summit.
The only slight drawback with MMT (as with a normal auto) is in start stop traffic where you don't have the personal fine clutch control. You just have to use the footbrake. But this is only a small price to pay for the convenience of not having to mess around with a clutch all the time. The other practical point is that when you do stop, say at lights, slip the gear into neutral to avoid wear on the clutch, because as with a normal automatic the car will creep without there being any pressure on the throttle. Am I pleased with MMT? Yes. Would I want to go back to a manual? No. John
John, How is the acceleration and gas milage on this diesel Corolla. I would love to hear your opinion on this. The cataloq says 14.3 seconds from 0 to 100 kms.. Does that take that long? Thanks..
The great thing about MMT transmission is that consumption doesn't suffer - if you get hold of a brochure you will see that the 1.4 diesel MMT has the same fuel consumption figures as the petrol version.
However, as with all figures in brochures, they are laboratory tests and do not reflect true day-to-day use. They are only helpful in comparison with other vehicles. But I am very well pleased with consumption. I have kept a detailed running cumulative chart of fuel used, and overall from day 1 it works out at 52.643 mpg. Incidentally I have kept the computer consumption on the car set on 'overall' and it shows a remarekably close figure of
52.6 - so that seems to be very reliable, unlike other cars I have had previously. My previous car was a 1.9TD Skoda Octavio, but this version has a very heavy clutch, a real pain. I had always wanted an automatic, but fuel consumption put me off. It was almost by chance that I got to learn about the Toyota MMT cars. So now I have the best of both worlds, excellent consumption combined with automatic.
You ask about acceleration. I have not tested against official figures but will say that it is very lively and pretty impressive going up hills - I often leave other cars wallowing behind. There is a switch to flick to put the car into 'sports'mode, but I have never seen the need to use it. The idea of a diesel that is only 1.4 having any life at all seems unlikely, but the engine is made of aluminium and is very light. If you are thinking of getting a new one, go for the Colour Collection. It is actually a T3 model plus, but costs less than a T3 ! But you may have great difficulty finding one to test drive. I shopped around and dealers were not interested to get one in - but I eventually found one who would.
Thank you very much about your detailed opinion.. I really appreciate it!
We have been looking around a suitable car to replace our family Focus wagon for some time but cant seem to decide. Our main needs are fuel economy (gas is 2$ a liter here in Turkey and it is going up day by day) and roominess. I love the roominess and comfortableness of our Focus wagon but unfortunately it is not fuel efficient eventhough it is 1.6 liter.
Our second car is Opel Corsa 1.2 liter with Easytronic transmission which is very much like MMT in Corolla. Thus, I am very familiar with this type of gear box. My main concern was that 1.4 liter 90 hp engine would not be enough to move the car however after reading your post that may not be the case. 53 mpg sounds fantastic to me (almost double the figure I get with Focus). Diesel sedans (made here in Turkey) are offered in 2 trim levels here (Linea and Terra) but hatchbacks have the upperscale Sol version in addition.
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