The Day I Broke the Almost New Toyota GR Corolla

I wish I had a more thrilling story about the GR Corolla, but alas.

I collected the little love-hatch-for-2 on Monday, but had no time for a drive until today, Wednesay.

I previously detected the faint whiff of defiant brake pad, but put it down to bedding in after a service. I also noted the 7,160km on the clock, and odd period to service a 6-month-old car. Alas, the life of a press car is peppered with the enthusiasm of pimple-faced youth, and reviewers who fancy themselves a Lando Norris, but drive more like a blind octogenarian.

Although pristine, it seems that all was not well with this gorgeous little hunk.

I set out, as I normally do, after a sturdy, weight-conscious breakfast of protein shake and coffee. I stopped at Coles for a dishwasher cleaner, then set off in the GR Corolla for a thrilling mini road trip to Picton. From there, I would lunch at my usual haunt, the George IV Inn, then off into the hills for a scintillating menu of bend and snap. Sadly, all I got was the snap.

I reached a spot just under the M7 bridge at the ring road interchange, where there is a sneaky spot for gentlemen of a certain age to pee in private. Oh, stop judging. Yes, I mean YOU!

The place is hardly 20km from home, just as the highway frees itself from its 80km shackles. We were finally able to stretch our legs to full 110kph glory, but unfortunately only for a moment.

I  noticed something was terribly wrong. Each gear change saw the little 3-pot turbo redline, screaming for mercy. Sure, you have to give it some welly to get ahead of the infrequent breaks in traffic, but this was different. It was mournful and desperate, and a strange noise came then went.

The cruise was set but the speed was off.

I knew i needed to spot to safely stop, sans traffic. I pushed the clutch, dropped a cog, but he was not a happy camper. There was an odd chirping noise as if a budgie was caught in the windscreen wiper gracefully arcing across the glass. The power began to wane. Once or twice, I was able to coax the ember to a modest flame, only to be duly doused.

I came to a horrible realisation: the only pedal that worked was the brake, but I guess that’s something to be salvaged from the rapidly deteriorating situation. I fenagled my way across the lanes, eventually coming to rest on the on-ramp of the Partridge VC rest area.

It was not the brake pads emitting the stench of a teen pleasuring himself, but the smell of a clutch in its death throes.

I lifted the bonnet, and as I did, I noticed the sky was churning like a Scene from ID4. My day was gradually turning turtle. I turned it off then on again, just in case, but in gear with the clutch fully released, the GR Corolla just sat there sulking. I had ruined him, or rather, he had been on a knife edge and I was the unlucky sap to give him the final push.

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ABOVE: 2023 Toyota GR Corolla clutch failure, Partridge VC coffee van (paul’s coffee van), Gr Corolla on a tow truck

There were many phone calls.

I left the phone in the Qi cradle with the engine on. Why? Only an armature allows a mobile to run down during an emerging situation. Toyota contracts NRMA in NSW for local roadside assist, and I was at the roadside and in desperate need of a little man to come.

I won’t bore you with detail, but a towie was booked, so I sauntered back to the coffee van at the rest area. It wasn’t all bad news, and even though I set off in bright sunlight, I thought to bring a jacket.

Things were about to get worse.

By now, the sky was the colour the sea vomiting up a battle ship. I ordered a coffee as the freezing wind whipped through the scant shelter like dominatrix slapping a flabby arse. Frankly, a shelter with a roof that high isn’t going to keep a tit-mouse dry in anything but a fog.

Within moments, hail was chucking it down, aimed at the coffee van, and me. I was feeling persecuted, but it was that kind of day. The storm passed and I ran back to the car. For “ran”, read “walked slowly, because I am fat and old, and have lost the will to live”. My phone drinks like a drag queen so I started the car to charge back to a healthy to 100% because things were going from worse to even crappier.

Iit was freezing cold and blowing a gale. That had the effect of drying the road, so that when the towie arrived one and a half hours later, there was a pall of gloom over my experience that had the consistency of old chewing gum.

He unceremoniously hauled the GR Corolla up onto his back, but I couldn’t bear to watch. It was like driving a knife into the Mona Lisa, something that should not be wished on your worst enemy. Once ensconced, we headed 10km south in order to find a place to turn onto the northern lanes. The Hume highway is not designed to be easily navigated by a fully loaded flatbed with a crabby motoring writer aboard.

I had set off at 1pm, but by now was dangerously close to the closing time at the Campbeltown Toyota service centre. I was nervous, I don’t mind telling you. Just as my spirits had sunk to Titanic levels, we drove into a wall of Amazonially-torrential rain. Undeterred, the intrepid towie forged on, like a terrier at a bone.

I rang ahead to arrange appropriate custodianship with the lovely Courtney at the dealer. Arriving at the prescribed time, I flicked-passed my ruptured ride,  explaining that the GR Corolla was a Toyota owned by Toyota, and that I had now fulfilled my obligations.  FYI, Campbeltown is a million miles from Sydney but manages to have peak hour traffic. I was hungry, tired, moist, and quite frankly fed up. I furnished them with HQ deets and fled, gleefully accepted a ride to the station.

The day had not yet finished flogging me: there a 10-minute wait, another pee, and an hour train trip back to town. I emerged from the subterranean station at Green Square to be met by an inky blackness that fully suited my mood. Night had fallen. With a full kilometre between the station and soft warm carpet,  I rarely use trains. Whoever designed Sydney’s rail system should be slapped.

In one final humiliation, the heavens opened, and with no brolly, all I that stood between me and creation was a plakky Coles shopping bag well past its used-by.

I arrived home, threw the Coles bag to the floor, dried out, then drank an incontinent amount of vodka.

Fear not, I will ferret out the reason for this appalling failure if it is the last thing I do. A boy-racer car, that boy-racers have previously driven like boy-racers, should mean its clutch throws itself off a cliff with only 7,160km on the dial. It has one job.

This is not normal, especially for an indomitable Toyota. Everyone knows that the only things to survive after a nuclear apocalypse will be cockroaches and Toyotas.

Oh, and by the way, the GR Corolla VS Civic Type R comparison test has been cancelled, for reasons that must be painfully obvious,

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@Toyota #alanzurvas #grcoroalla