terrabytetango

Yes, it works only when the road is dark. Quite useful when drivint out of town on B roads.

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Nishan.dj" data-cid="286397" data-time="1447654367"><p> <br /> What do you mean by this?</p></blockquote> I mean that sitting in traffic with the engine running is useless and just wastes fuel.

The silver cow catcher bumper grille is optional from Toyota itself. Modellista has a differently styled upper grille which comes in two colours. The car on the left has all the bits I need with the exception of the wheels; those are on the white one.

Get a Corolla LX with a manual. Those will be quite a bit cheaper than the auto versions, and it will be a fun drive. Alternately, you could look at early FD4s as well.

I bought mine not for the cost savings but simply to minimize wastage. As for your question, one could also arbitrarily believe that hybrids will depreciate no more than a regular gas car, no? Or even, depreciate less than a regular gas car? In that case the savings would be well founded. A CRV and a Vezel, apples and oranges. Stafford is bringing down the HRV, which is the regular version of the Vezel. A comparison between those two would be the sensible thing to do.

your car isn't 7 Sri 1111 by any chance is it? a very brave decision you made buying a KE20. trim parts are notoriously difficult to find, a friend owned the car i mentioned in the previous sentence and he went through major pains simply purchasing a rear tail light. you could consider going bumperless like some people in Japan have.

Do you mean red 'alcantara' fabric?

Get a reputed brand like Scangauge. People leave them plugged in permanently to their cars without adverse effects.

I'm pretty sure, that the OP is referring to the real time gauge. Which is moronic.

The 2007 Corolla LX also falls within your budget. Best car for the money, barring only a Mazda 3/Axela of 2004 vintage.

I never noticed this with the LED Axio I took a look at. Perhaps the reflections from the lens made it appear less apparent. Or maybe I was just too upset at having missed out on the deal by a matter of hours.

They're actually matte silver. I wish they were chrome though, because then they'd align with the grille so well, but the silver too has great contrast with the darker body colour. If you're up to it, let's team up and order the Modellista parts together. I'm planning on getting the alternate grille, mirror garnishes and the door mouldings initially.

HIDs have no filament. There's an arc of electricity flowing between two electrodes, which illuminates the gas inside the bulb, a la standard "tube light" style. You can't change the shape of an arc, so the light dispersion pattern is changed by a solenoid operating a metal cover that blocks a portion of the light. It is because the light is in an arc, rather than a straight filament, that HIDs are incompatible with Halogen reflectors.

The Axio headlights are all chrome, there is no smoked option. I checked out both models, but the LED one was sold by the time I got funding sorted out. The LED headlights' projector is slightly hexagonal in shape, smaller, and missing the headlamp reflector, which the halogen headlights have (projector dipped lights, reflector main beams).

This is the only picture I have of the front. I'll take a couple more to post once I'm at the flying field tomorrow.

They HV battery has quite a few safety barriers, the least of which not being the fact that the battery is never allowed to discharge below 40% nor charge over 80%. The cells need regular cycling to maintain their health, which means regular discharges are a must. The car itself never charges the battery beyond 40%, the remainder, up to 60% is done through motor regeneration (coasting/braking). the remaining 20% is a buffer for when climbing down steep inclines. I have yet to fill this bit. The Modellista bits I'm planning on getting from Japan, I wasn't aware I could get them from Taiwan.

Make sure that they are Nightbreaker Unlimited. The Plus is out of production now, as is the regular Nightbreaker series.

Disclaimer: I did not want this car. I was perfectly happy with my Vios. I might have thought about getting a second car, but that was it. The car is a 2015 Toyotal Corolla Axio Hybrid, with the face lift. Okay so with that out of the way, do note I will be comparing the car mostly with my Vios, and also with a 2010 Prius and a 2013 Prius C when comparing the Toyota HSD (Hybrid Synergy Drive). Exterior 'Dat nose tho'. That is the most disruptive front end on a Corolla I have ever seen, bar none. It’s part of Toyota’s new design language, which came to being with the Lexus RX200h and got carried over to Toyota, as made evident by the Kouki Camrys, Axios and Aquas gracing the streets. However, you learn to get used to it, and eventually, from some angles, it even begins to look decent. Apart from that, the only other differences in the exterior are the improved rear lights (they look a lot better) and the introduction of brown as a body colour (not seen on JDMs since the KE7x models I think?), which replaces the beaten-to-death maroon. Interior The interior is mostly the same as the Zenki version, however, the dashboard can only be had in black now, plus the side a/c registers have been replaced with old school twist center twist type ones. There are also vents under the rear seats pointed at the rear passengers' feet, a la BMW X1 style. The sears on mine were beige, which is the apparently the "in" thing these days, god knows why, because they get stained if you even look at them for too long. I also like (and prefer) the regular (gated) shifter from the Aqua/Prius C rather than the center return in the Prius and Hondas. Oh and a thing of note; the B gear is the Toyota HSD equivalent of a Jake Brake which I find fascinating, and also very useful when climbing down inclines. The colour LCD is unobtrusive and offset to the right, and there’s also a tachometer, why I don’t know, since the left pedal is not connected to the engine in any way, but if I were to fathom a guess, it would be to keep the car as “normal” looking as possible. In fact, if I were to remove the hybrid emblems on the sides and replace the rear HSD emblem with a Start/Stop emblem, no one would know it was a hybrid. Bells and whistles The car has nearly every option box ticked, with the exception of LED head lamps, alloys and heated seats (don’t need them anyway). The dealer fitted alloys which actually look a good deal better than stock, and I don’t really mind the halogen head lamps. The car has Toyota’s new Safety Sense C system, which comprise of a trio of safety systems - Pre-collision warning - Lane Departure Alert - Auto High Beams I’ve got the latter two switched off, but I do use the pre-collision warning, because it also tell me when the car in front of me has moved off, which is useful for when I’ve got my nose buried in my phone sitting in traffic. Apart from that, it’s got basically got all the features of the current Allion/Premio, i.e. all auto windows, rear wiper, auto headlights, climate control, adjustable driver’s seat height etc. Driving and comfort Omfg, the steering. I used to think light steering was the bomb, with the few times I’d driven other hybrids, but eff me if the electric steering in the Axio Hybrid isn’t the numbest steering system on the planet. I can turn the wheel with my pinky, effortlessly. There is absolutely no feedback, at ALL; it gives zero indication as to what surface the wheels are on. I can be doing 80, and have no clue kind of road I’m on; the tire hum gives me more feedback than the steering wheel. The suspension is plush, but I have no lack of confidence when throwing the car into a corner, it remains planted on the road pretty well. It does dive during hard braking, something the Vios simply did not do; I would stand on the brake pedal and it would merely stop on a dime, flat and completely composed. The Corolla actually stops better, but it does so with ass in the air. Hybrid performance I usually drive in ECO mode, mostly because the car defaults to that if it is not driven for a few hours, and I can’t be arsed to press the ECO mode button all the time. The car has “only” 99hp combined, even though the engine is good for 74hp and the motor is capable of 40hp on it’s own. Clearly things have been over engineered in this case. Acceleration isn’t blinding, but pick up from a standstill with ECO mode off is clearly better than the Vios (thanks to all that low down torque from the motor). It’s clear even during hard acceleration the car is not struggling, and that it can do better. I assume they’ve tuned the firmware on the eCVT to keep engine stress down to the very bare minimum. Speaking of eCVT, the car has no gearbox; just two motors (one is used mostly as a generator) sitting between the engine and the wheels. The transition from EV to ICE and vice versa is much better, and quicker than a 2010 Prius. When the ICE comes on, it feels like VTEC just kicked. I often find myself looking at the tacho to see if the ICE is on or not, because road noise easily overcomes the engine noise when travelling at 40km/h and above. The EV mode is good for accelerating up to 60km/h or so, and I’ve managed to sustain as much as 70km/h on a flat gradient for brief periods of time. Driving in EV mode is a sublime experience, and I doubt I could ever go back to a regular ICE powered car unless it was an uber quiet euro. That fact also makes me yearn to own a LEAF, and I’m already working towards obtaining one by mid of next year. “Aiye, meka thel karanne kiyak witharada?” I managed to do 672kms on the first full tank. The journey consisted of mostly 100km/h+ speeds on the way to, and around, southern Sri Lanka. The average Colombo run is between 18kmpl to 20kmpl (paying attention to the real time gauge is pointless), with a maximum of 23kmpl reached during the trip mentioned above. I’ve posted a photo of the current stats, and you can see from the average speed I’m not exaggerating. So to wrap things up, I’m more or less satisfied with the car. I certainly like the fact that there aren’t many brown Axios out there yet (I see maybe one every two days). Without going into a tirade, I’ll say that I enjoy not wasting as much fuel as I used to for the past 15 odd years I’ve been legally driving. It has always been something that was on my mind while tolerating the grind from the Kotte area to Borella, and I’ve often thought that a hybrid would be ideal for this situation as it assuages my “waste not want not” mantra. And if certain detractors still believe that I bought this car to save on money (which many people do and I find absolutely nothing wrong with that), but I’m being all suave about it; I’ve got a fuel allowance which more than covered the fueling costs of my Vios while I had it, i.e. I spend 0 rupees on fuel out of hand and have enough left over to pamper the car with Modellista bits and bobs (coming soon).

I live next to it

Strange. My Axio Hybrid, which has thee same drive train as the Aqua, easily does 18 from the J'Apura Hospital to Borella, and back again. And this is with the typical 'kata kapala' traffic. And I mostly drive the car like I stole it.

10-12 only in traffic? What is the average consumption for a full tank of petrol?

People with 9006(HB4) projectors might be able to get away with Xenon low beams, since the light output from those bulbs isn't directional like they are in H4. I've got a set of 9006 Xenons on the way to experiment with, as well a whole complement of 9005/9006 Osram Nightbreaker Unlimited bulbs.

My Nightbreakers lasted for the entire duration the car was with me, which was 4 years and one month.