Hey Scotty! I’m planning on buying a used 2018 Toyota Corolla LE from Modesto Toyota which is the car dealership. It has 53,816 miles and is a 1.8L 4 cylinder engine CVT FWD. I looked up the vin number and it apparently has 0 recalls. I’m just a little skeptical about the CVT. My question is do you think it is a good overall purchase? My budget is a little low and I’m looking for a commuter. Also are the CVT’s in the 2018 models as bad as previous/new ones? I used to own a 2012 Nissan Sentra with a CVT drove it to almost 140,000 miles before I got rid of it. But it really didn’t have any issues. I wish to thank you for your time and feedback in advance!
Toyota makes really good CVTs a lot better than the crappy Nissan CVTs I would not hesitate on buying that car as long as a mechanic says it is in good shape, and in this case, the transmission is in good shape. The only years with CVT issues were 2019 and that was for the Hatchback. I actually live in a 100 mile radius of Modesto and I can tell you most Corollas are HOT on the used market, how much are they asking? No more than 12-13k is what I would pay.
I would tell you to look for common complaints but there really isn't any: https://www.carcomplaints.com/Toyota/Corolla/2018/
Just to prove that the reason complaints are low is that the car is good and not that is not old enough, here is the complaint list of a car that had know transmission issues, the 2018 Camry: https://www.carcomplaints.com/Toyota/Camry/2018/
Hope this helps and be assured that if you take care of it, the car can last a very long time.
Toyota CVT's have a fixed first gear that majorly reduces wear. CVT's get most of their wear by the accelerating in first 'gear', so when you eliminate that, you eliminate your problem. I would advise staying away from the 2016's because their technology was not as advanced. I believe 2018 was the first year of this implementation, but I would look that up just to be sure. I wish Mitsu made their CVT's like that, because I would have gotten one instead of a RAV4... Oh well some things never change lol
