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- Toyota Corolla Cross 1.8i GR-S (2022) Review
It's one of SA's most coveted compact SUVs, and one of Toyota's best-sellers. Toyota recently added a sporty-looking GR-S model to the mix and we drove it over December. Is this the one to get if you want a Corolla Cross with sex appeal?
Interior, Space, Comfort & Convenience
The Toyota Corolla Cross has been selling up a storm and is one of the many success stories that contributed to putting Toyota back in the no.1 position of SA’s best-selling car brand. The floods at the Prospecton plan in KZN wreaked havoc, but this has all been taken care of, and Toyota is back in the saddle and stronger than ever.
Toyota recently added the GR-S model to the Corolla Cross line-up and we had the pleasure of driving it over the December holidays across the Karoo and back, as well as around the Overberg region that I call home.
Styling
The garden-variety Corolla Cross is a rather demure-looking vehicle but the GR-S styling made the new model stand out in the crowd of white SUVs in the crowded beach parking lots of Onrust, Sandbaai, and Voëlklip Beach near Hermanus.
The Corolla Cross GR-S features a tailor-made styling package with a chunky and aggressive-looking, black hexagonal grille while the blacked-out lower-apron gets Toyota’s sporty GR Mesh. The sporty black roof, black wing mirrors and black roof rails form a striking contrast with the body colour while the shapely rear-end gets a black roof spoiler, black tailgate trim and a gloss-black rear diffuser with matching GR badging. The three exterior colours that match the GR brand colours comprise Arizona Red Bi-Tone, Chromium Silver Bi-Tone and Glacier White Bi-Tone.
Parked near the tidal pool in Onrust one day, a few holidaymakers came closer to have a chat and ask me questions about it. Is it faster? How exactly is it different? Is it very expensive, because it’s so much better looking than the normal one, and so forth? They were quite surprised when I mentioned that this sexy model can be bought for under R450 000 (it currently retails at R453 200, to be exact).
Interior, Space, Comfort, and Convenience
The Corolla Cross in GR-S guise is based on the XR trim level which is the top-of-the-range variant, and thanks to some GR-specific interior finishes, the cabin looks a bit more interesting. You’ll find red accents on the instrument panel, more shiny black surfaces, GR embossing on the front headsets and red topstitching on the glamorous, perforated leather seats and meaty, 3-spoke steering wheel (also leather).
The perfectly positioned, high-definition touchscreen with dedicated buttons on either side offers smartphone mirroring so that you can see and use your phone’s interface for 100% hands-free functionality via Siri or your Google Assistant. On-board Wi-Fi is included too and the front passengers have access to one USB port, while rear passengers get two USB-C ports and their own two air vents to keep them cool.
Occupants on the second row have enough legroom (quite generous for the segment, in fact), but the 5th passenger in the middle would have to be a child or a petite person, as that particular seat is quite narrow. It served us well when my 12-year-old stepdaughter came to visit for the holidays, especially since this seat is equipped with a three-point safety belt.
Boot space is a voluminous 440 litres and all the beach accessories including the body boards, bags, towels, umbrellas, cooler bag etc. could easily fit, with room to spare for groceries, and even the 3 medium-sized boxes we dropped off at my local charity on the way to our favourite swimming spot.
The Drive and Performance
The Corolla Cross GR-S gets the same 1.8-litre 2ZR-FE petrol motor as the non-hybrid models, yet the ride is slightly firmer. Toyota’s engineers used new shock absorbers and coil springs for a more involved and dynamic drive, worthy of the GR-S moniker. The steering was also recalibrated to feel slightly more direct when cornering, but in the interest of saving fuel, we mostly drove in a rather sedate manner. The traffic was insane on the N1 and N2 but the Corolla Cross’s 103kW and 172 of torque were enough to dodge a myriad of trucks and to easily flit through holiday traffic.
Toyota’s adaptive cruise control turned out to be the biggest trans-Karoo-roadtrip fatigue-buster, and is a standard feature in all XR models. It lets the Cross follow in the tracks of the vehicle in front, engaging the brakes when the leading car slows down, and increasing its speed to your set limit when the leading car speeds up again. The system also gives you an audible warning when you’re about to leave your lane, but steering assistance that gently steers around the bends would have been the cherry on top. Blind spot monitoring was helpful when reckless drivers at the rear decided to overtake us without indicating.
While I’m no fan of CVT gearboxes because of the sound they make, they are known for being non-problematic, and the one in the Cross isn’t terribly noisy. The CVT gearbox has seven pre-programmed steps to “simulate a close-ratio transmission in manual shifting mode”, says Toyota.
Fuel Economy
Whether we drove in town or whether we had a fully loaded vehicle with a set of buttocks on every seat on the highway, our average consumption remained around the 7.7 litres per 100 km mark. It’s only a litre per km higher than the figure supplied by Toyota and pretty good for a 1.8-litre engine. This is another plus point of CVT gearboxes – they are also designed to aid fuel efficiency.
Safety
The abovementioned Adaptive Cruise Control, Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM), Lane Trace Assist (LTA) are complemented by Toyota’s Pre-Collision System (PCS) and these all fall under the Toyota Safety Sense (or TSS) umbrella. As one would expect, the Cross is equipped with ABS, stability control, EBD, Hilll-Assist Control (HAC) and brake assist systems, as well as ISOFIX child seat anchorage points on the outer rear seats. In the case of the GR-S and XR models, seven airbags instead of five are standard.
While we didn’t have any need for a child seat, we’d imagine that the anchorage points are easy to connect a seat to, as the fabric that covers the metal hooks can just be pulled apart, via the slits in the leather.
Price
At R453 200, the spacious, peppy and relatively high-tech Corolla Cross 1.8i GR-S is still very well priced, considering the alternatives in the segment and what they are equipped with as standard. While many budget-conscious South Africans are flocking to the showrooms of inexpensive, well-specified Chinese vehicles like the Chery Tiggo, BAIC Beijing X55 and Haval Jolion, I’d rather stick with a brand like Toyota where I am assured of excellent aftersales service and resale value.
Competitors
Some of my other favourites in this segment include the Suzuki Vitara 1.4 GLX (R455 900), Kia Seltos 1.6 EX auto (R445 995), Peugeot 2008T Active auto (R449 900), Subaru XV 20i (R464 000) and VW T-Cross 1.0TSI 85kW Comfortline R-Line (R453 700), but most of these don’t have the fancy radar and camera tech that allow for adaptive cruise control.
Verdict
Now that both the hybrid XR and GR-S models have visited me, it’s difficult to pick a favourite, but if I have to go according to looks alone, the handsome GR-S models wins hands down. As always, the Corolla Cross offers young and old a comprehensive value package, but I missed the low consumption figures I got in the hybrid where I could drive around town on EV power alone.
Maybe one day Toyota will add some GR-S styling to the flagship hybrid model and then I may just become the poster girl for it!
Buying used?
Ané AlbertseAné was bitten by the motoring bug at a very young age. Her mom recalls her sitting in her stroller as a 3-year old, naming every car that came past. She was working as a freelance motoring journalist for publications such as Rapport and City Press, when AutoTrader nabbed her for good. She lives in the Western Cape with her two kids and two cats.View News & Reviews
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