Used Toyota Corolla hatchback cars for sale

On the surface, yes – the Toyota Corolla hatchback would make a good first car. It has a full five-star Euro NCAP crash-test rating and has plenty of safety technology including automatic emergency braking that can detect cyclists and pedestrians. It's also easy to drive, but be aware there is no manual gearbox version, so you'll want to be used to driving an automatic car before hopping behind the wheel. Pick a model with the 1.8-litre hybrid engine and you'll be able to find a version that sits in insurance group 14 or 15, which should make it cheaper to insure than most Volkswagen Golf models.

It depends what you need! If you want a cheap-to-run hatchback that's just about got enough back-seat space for the family, then yes, the Corolla hatchback is a good car. It's one of the only self-charging hatchbacks on the market, which means you don't have to plug it in to reduce your emissions. It's easy to drive and comfortable, though rivals such as the Volkswagen Golf feel posher inside and are a bit sharper to drive.

Flip the back seats down and you can fit a mountain bike into a Toyota Corolla hatchback, but you'll need to remove the front wheel – it's still a squeeze and you need to angle the bike just right to get it in. We've seen reports that it's far easier if you remove both wheels first, then you can stack at least two bikes and sets of wheels on top of each other.

The Corolla hatchback sold in the UK is 4.37m long – the Corolla estate is 4.65m long.

They're brisk – the 2.0-litre version of the Corolla hatchback gets from 0-62mph in 7.4 seconds, while the 1.8-litre version makes the sprint in 9.1 seconds. But it's once you're rolling where you notice the extra shove from the electric motor, meaning that you never really want for more power in normal day-to-day driving.

Yes – the Corolla hatchback earned a full five-star Euro NCAP rating back in 2019, and all models come as standard with automatic emergency braking that can detect cyclists as well as pedestrians. There's also a whole host of safety kit onboard including lane keeping assist to stop you drifting out of your lane on motorways.

By all accounts the Toyota Corolla hatchback handles snowy conditions absolutely fine – with the condition that you use winter tyres when the temperature drops below 7C. We'd always advise fitting winter tyres for the coldest months of the year, and remember that stopping distances increase massively in snowy and icy conditions, so leave lots of room from the car in front.

Yes, the Toyota Corolla can get excellent fuel economy – officially it gets 64mpg. That's way ahead of traditional pure-petrol-powered rivals, and it's all down to the Corolla's self-charging hybrid system that uses a battery and electric motor to take some of the strain off the petrol engine.