2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback Review

Some things get better with age, as the saying goes, and the fully-revised 2019 Toyota Corolla is case in point. The Corolla is one of the world’s most popular cars, with a remarkable production run that stretches over half a century. The twelfth generation Corolla steps it up with a switch to Toyota’s TNGA-C platform, which also underpins the Prius and C-HR.

Toyota offers the Corolla Hatchback in just two models for 2019: the base SE and the XSE. The SE starts around $20,000 and the XSE around $23,000. The extra $3,000 buys a slew of cool stuff, including LED fog lamps, 18-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone climate control, a TFT digital dashboard display, an eight-inch flat-screen infotainment system, and leather-trimmed heated front buckets. A revised Corolla Sedan is due in the 2020 model year.

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Apple Does the Right Thing

The best camera in the world is the one that you have with you when you need it. I’ve used three different conventional action cameras as in-car units over the years, but I have increasingly come to rely upon my iPhone. I ran into some difficulties with my iPhone in 2017, that all started with a cracked screen. I was on the 2017 Dodge Challenger GT media drive in northern New England when the phone slipped from my hand and hit the sidewalk, glass down …

The glass was cracked, but perfectly usable (for a while), until the day it wasn’t.

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2016 Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid Road Test Review

When Chevrolet first rolled out a Malibu Hybrid back in 2008, it was referred to as a “mild hybrid” with fuel economy ratings of 26 city / 34 highway miles per gallon. At the time, it presented little competition to the hybrid fuel economy leading Toyota Prius. Flash forward to the present day and it’s a very different story. The 2016 Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid is a contender, with EPA ratings of 47 city / 46 highway. I spent a week with the Malibu Hybrid producing two videos and was very impressed. This first video is a backroad/small town hybrid “stunt drive” where I use a conservative driving approach to ascertain the hybrid drive train’s potential for high MPGs:

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Milwaukee Tools M12 Cordless Ratchet Review

Does the time it takes to loosen or tighten nuts and bolts make you a little crazy? If you’ve ever seen the classic Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times … where Charlie works on an assembly line, tightening bolts all day, and eventually wigs out, you get the gist. If Charlie had today’s technology, he might have kept his sanity.

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