Looking at a Used Corolla S 2006

[PatDaman]

Hi guys, new here. Just blew the head gasket in my 2002 Grand Am GT. Looking at buying used. Found a 2006 Corolla S 4dr sedan for 12,950$ It has 102,000km on it.
http://inventory.harvardauto.com/eng...a/3697004.aspx

This is in Canada. If I went in to look at this what should I offer and would it be a good car to own?

[JasonA]

Welcome! These are pretty good cars. Treat it right and it'll treat you right. I'm overall unfamiliar with the Canadian dollar. Around here, that kind of car would probably go for $10-11k USD, but that's just a guess. I bought my '07 a year ago (almost to the day) with 16k miles on it for $13,900 USD.

I'm also not familiar with the automatic transmission; mine has the manual. With that kind of miles, a fluid change would probably be beneficial.

Ask to see service records. There may not be any, but you never know. Also, run the VIN by a Toyota dealer and ask them to print out all the warranty work for it. Any Toyota dealer should have a record of warranty work in their computer (not just the servicing dealer). You won't see things like maintenance services (unless they happened to be done by that dealership), but you will see any warranty work performed.

[wireman134]

dude its a buyers market here in the us anyways, look around "watch" auctions in ebay you will find many unsuccessful auctions one after another, you should be able to buy very very cheap, and now that gas prices are somewhat down in the us, the mad rush to buy a gas saver is much lower. Another thing if you wanna drive like a grandma the corolla is a great car, it is not fast, the grand am's are prettty torquey, so realize it is a different class of car. good luck!

nice color by the way and yes the corolla is a good car to buy and also "a good investment" unlike 99% of the cars on the road. I too am unfamilar with canadas pricing and miles, however if it has equivelant to US 75,000 miles i would offer 5,800.00 USD no more, seems like alot of miles. just my opinion

[PatDaman]

Originally Posted by wireman134

dude its a buyers market here in the us anyways, look around "watch" auctions in ebay you will find many unsuccessful auctions one after another, you should be able to buy very very cheap, and now that gas prices are somewhat down in the us, the mad rush to buy a gas saver is much lower. Another thing if you wanna drive like a grandma the corolla is a great car, it is not fast, the grand am's are prettty torquey, so realize it is a different class of car. good luck!

nice color by the way and yes the corolla is a good car to buy and also "a good investment" unlike 99% of the cars on the road.

I leased a 2.2 Cobalt LS for 4 years. How well do they compare. The 2.2 had enough power for me but it also had decent torque I found.

[wireman134]

more efficient, same overall speed i would guess, better reliability, dont forget this car weight if im not mistaken about 2400 pounds, far less than most other cars, i like GM's i think there motors ROCK, however like ford and chrysler everything attached to them seem to give issues, power steering, fuel pumps, electrobnics, just my opinion. the corolla requires like no maintenance "if" it was taken care of...

one of the strongest points about this car besides economy, and reliability is the brakes!
even though they are not abs in many cases, they are so trouble free soooo smooth and can take huge abuse, (dont warp) the only other brakes i have ever seen that were better was on my 04 srt-4

really enough is not said about their brakes, they dont warp under hard braking either. good luck

[JasonA]

Originally Posted by PatDaman

I leased a 2.2 Cobalt LS for 4 years. How well do they compare. The 2.2 had enough power for me but it also had decent torque I found.

The Corolla has a 1.8L engine with 126 horsepower and 122 lb*ft of torque. Both figures are less than GM's Ecotec engine (which, in my opinion, is a very good engine). Still, I think the Corolla will be a smoother drive over all. I rented an '05 Corolla automatic years ago, and don't remember it being all that gutless. I also rented an '06 Grand Am with the 2.2L or 2.4L (don't recall) and automatic and didn't find it to be all that gutless either, but the weight difference will even out the two engines overall.

I've found that the stick shift makes the Corolla MUCH more fun to drive, faster, and more economical as well. 0-60 for a 5-speed Corolla is around 8 seconds, which isn't all that bad at all. Your Grand Am didn't come close to that. Of course, the automatic Corolla is somewhat slower, around 9-10 seconds, which is comparable to a Grand Am.

I'd just go drive the Corolla and see what you think. You have nothing to lose by driving it, and you just might decide right then and there that you either really like it or that you need to look at a different car.

[Slaander]

Originally Posted by PatDaman

Hi guys, new here. Just blew the head gasket in my 2002 Grand Am GT. Looking at buying used. Found a 2006 Corolla S 4dr sedan for 12,950$ It has 102,000km on it.
http://inventory.harvardauto.com/eng...a/3697004.aspx

This is in Canada. If I went in to look at this what should I offer and would it be a good car to own?

you can try to look in here, just some idea.

http://www.vmrcanada.com/value_menus...s/06tocola.htm