Corolla: NUMMI, Canada or Japan?

I think you will find that Corollas made in Canada will be more prevalent in the East Coast, while NUMMI Corollas will be more common on the West Coast. From the automaker's standpoint of warranty expense, there is no significant difference between the 3 sources.

It should not matter one little bit. My folks and brother own Canadian made Corollas ('04 and '05) and they have been extremely reliable as expected.

Thanks for the tip; it should have occurred to me that cars made in California would be more likely to be sold in the West....

All else equal, I like to support workers in the USA, or at least North America. A car made in Japan would not be a flat-out deal-breaker, but I'd much prefer one made in the USA or Canada.

That means much more to me than where the company's corporate office is. Rich executives are the same all over, as far as I've seen.

Would it be safe to assume that the NUMMI-made cars are all built to meet the tougher California emission standards? Not that their's a big difference in the Corolla, but every little bit helps.

See:

It would not be safe to assume that NUMMI-made cars are all built to meet the tougher CA emissions standards. Only vehicles destined for sale in CA and the east coast states that have tougher standards will be certified as such. As a practical matter, there little, if any physical difference between the CA and non-CA emissions vehicles. The biggest difference is a higher sampling rate for the tougher emissions standards.

as an aside, i think all the XRS models are made in california. mine was sammmm

I understand if the serial starts with "J" it has been built in Japan.