Bought a brand new 2008 Corolla

[mazakman]

Hi all,

 

On Friday I picked up my new car. I know that my birthday is today but the long range weather forecast last week said that we were going to have beautiful weather over the weekend... anyways... nuff said about the weather.

 

It's a beige Canadian model 2008 Corolla limited edition with air conditionning, Aluminium mags, power sunroof, power windows and keyless entry system. The extra options that I added were a rear spoiler, front hood deflector (smoked plastic) for rocks and crap that come flying at the hood, tinted windows and cruise control. Before anyone rants about putting a spoiler on the back end of a Corolla I just want to say that I added it to enhance the overall look of the car, nothing more.

 

I picked the beige exterior (with beige interior) because that's the only body color that will give you a different interior color other than gray (at least here in Canada ). I'm sick of gray, the wife's Echo has a gray interior and I just needed to see a different color. I found the red really nice but too flashy for my taste (gray interior), what can I tell you, I'm getting old...

 

I know that is not a sporty car but it's almost as economical as the Echo, I drive around 300 miles a week just to get to work so economy was on my mind and it's a bit more powerful than the Echo.

 

The only rant that I have is that they (Toyota) didn't have a subwoofer as an option like they had for the 2007 Corolla. The stock sound system is alright but it lacks oomf in the lower end when you turn up the volume (my Steve Vai and Frank Zappa cds could have sounded much better at higher volume), actually the sound system in the wife's 2001 Echo sounds better than what I got.

Maybe I'll just swap out the speakers for something better later on. Anyone have any advice on this subject? Don't forget, I don't want a 1000 watt stereo in the car, just something that sounds decent.

 

The wife and I will be going for a ride into the Laurentian mountains tomorrow so I'll take some pics with some nice scenery (the leaves are changing color) and post them here later in the week.

 

Later.

[cdoggown]

Good find. Nice, reliable economy car. For the sound system, a nice head unit goes a long way. It will dramatically improve the sound of even those nasty stock speakers. I like Alpine the most, even better than this Eclipse deck im using now. Start with a good HU and see if that puts you where you want to be, if not, you can always upgrade speakers later.

 

 

Cheers,

 

C

[mazakman]

Good find. Nice, reliable economy car. For the sound system, a nice head unit goes a long way. It will dramatically improve the sound of even those nasty stock speakers. I like Alpine the most, even better than this Eclipse deck im using now. Start with a good HU and see if that puts you where you want to be, if not, you can always upgrade speakers later.

Cheers,

 

C

 

 

I think I'll change the speakers before ripping out the stock system. I mean good speakers can usually make a lower end sound system sound much better. Any suggestions for speakers?

 

Thanks.

[cdoggown]

I think I'll change the speakers before ripping out the stock system. I mean good speakers can usually make a lower end sound system sound much better. Any suggestions for speakers?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Sure, although again, I disagree about doing the speakers first. Typically the existing speakers arent what is holding a sound system back in a car, its the underpowered, under-tuned stock head unit. But hey, its your car! I have listened to just about everything lately, as Im trying to put a system together for my truck. I have been most impressed with Clif Designs component sets. I picked up these and they arrived last week. They look and sound very very nice but I did have to amp them. Check out that site for Clif Designs, MB Quart, Image Dynamics, just to name a few.

 

 

C

[mazakman]

I guess times have changed since I swapped out the speakers in a 84 Prelude that I bought new

Those Honda speakers were pretty bad but the radio that was installed in those days was made by Panasonic which wasn't the best or worst for that matter, if I remeber correctly the speakers were Matsushita (Panasonic). I replaced all stock speakers with Blaupunkts, 5 1/4 in the doors and 6 1/2 in the rear with extra tweeters mounted at the far front of the doors, they were very sweet for that era and were good for listening to all kinds of music. I should mention that I also had a Honda (Panasonic and dealer installed) 7 band equalizer in that car which also helped.

 

Those Cliffs are nice! What kind of amp did you use with those?

 

I'm probably going to tough things out for a little while, other prioroties besides car audio are more important for the moment but it's something I definitely have to look into eventually, that hockey arena like sound isn't the greatest.

 

Thanks.

[cdoggown]

IM powering them with an Alpine MRV-F545 putting out 125w x 4. Plan on running the Clifs off of 1 and 2 and then combing 3 and 4 and wiring them down to 2 ohms so I can put out 500w to a couple nice 8's in the back. Just remember, any car under 40k really benefits from sound deadening also. Good luck!

 

 

C

[DevilMB3017]

Congrats on the purchase Alex! Sounds like you got yourself a nice gift there. The new Corolla's are some of the only Toyota's I'd acutally want to drive.

 

Shouldn't you like a hockey-arena sound up there in Canada though?

[bishop245]

Hi mazakman you know post like this are worthless without pics but gratz on the car

[mazakman]

Congrats on the purchase Alex! Sounds like you got yourself a nice gift there. The new Corolla's are some of the only Toyota's I'd acutally want to drive.

 

Shouldn't you like a hockey-arena sound up there in Canada though?

 

Thanks Steven. It's not a sporty car but it doesn't mind being kicked around a bit in the corners with the stock Bridgestone tires and the overall handling is decent. You'd probably hate the wife's Echo as much as me.

 

I'm not a hockey fan, but I found the sound in the Bell Center (new hockey arena that replaced the old Montreal Forum) when I went to see Satriani's G3 tour surprisingly good. I wish I had that sound in the car.

 

 

Hi mazakman you know post like this are worthless without pics but gratz on the car.

 

I know Max, I just got back from Mont Tremblant park (used to go camping and fishing there with my older brother when I was a teenager) with the wife not too long ago. Took 3 pictures of the car up there, a few of some waterfalls, trees with changing colors, a lake we spent some time at and a deserted beach where we soaked our feet in the cool clean water. The place was empty and was very peaceful, it was great to get away and the weather was so beautiful today (25 degrees Celsius up in the mountains)... sorry for the babbling... Unfortunately the pics are all over 3 megs each so I'll host them on one of those file hosting sites and post the links tomorrow.

 

Getting back to the car. I found one thing rather odd. The instrument cluster is backlit white (very nice) but the radio and climate controls are backlit green. They sould have had everything in white, those 2 colors don't seem to go well together for me.

 

Later.

[DevilMB3017]

Must be a price point thing, that or the LEDs didn't light very well behind the radios. I would prefer blue-lit radio controls with white gauges myself...heh

[Andrewr05]

Getting back to the car. I found one thing rather odd. The instrument cluster is backlit white (very nice) but the radio and climate controls are backlit green. They sould have had everything in white, those 2 colors don't seem to go well together for me.

Time for a mod?

[cdoggown]

Most of the Alpine decks let you choose your backlight colors froma catalog of over 200