Model years Toyota Corolla

2012 Toyota Corolla

This year drew an ordinary 445 complaints for a Toyota Corolla — the model's median is 212. What they were about is the unusual part: 7.4% of them mention december, against 1.5% across the other years of this generation.

Generation 2 of the Toyota Corolla, which began in 2009 and ran to 2013. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

Complaints filed445
Median for this model212
Involving a crash41
Involving a fire1
Recalls5
NHTSA crash rating4/5
EPA combined29 mpg

What the complaints were about

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

What owners wrote

TAKATA RECALL. THE CONTACT OWNS A 2012 TOYOTA COROLLA. THE CONTACT RECEIVED NOTIFICATION OF NHTSA CAMPAIGN NUMBER: 17V006000 (AIR BAGS); HOWEVER, THE PARTS TO DO THE REPAIR WERE UNAVAILABLE. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE [VIN] EXCEEDED A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIM…
TAKATA RECALL. I RECEIVED MY RECALL FORM ON FEBRUARY 2017 AND THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE A REMEDY FOR MY CAR UNTIL DECEMBER 2017. I CANNOT TAKE ANYBODY ON THE PASSENGER SEAT, WHICH IS REALLY INCONVENIENT.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

Own a 2012 Toyota Corolla? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Toyota Corolla was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

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