Toyota Corolla Sport Mode – What Can It Actually Do?

Sport driving is always fun for you, but it’s not always fun for your vehicle. The driver may have an opportunity to use special settings for the vehicle and start driving it more aggressively. Most modern transmissions offer such a mode. For example, in recent generations of Toyota Corolla, you will only need to push a Sport button to start driving much cooler.

The Sport Mode in Toyota Corolla is not as simple as you may think. We decided to write a full article to answer all your questions about the Sport Mode button and the effects it has on your vehicle. We think you will be quite amazed by how different this sports mode is from what you will find in other cars.

Here are some questions we will discuss:

1. How to turn on and use the Sport Mode in your Corolla?
2. What effects does the Sport Mode button have?
3. Is it dangerous for your engine and transmission to drive in Sport Mode?

Let’s get started!

How to turn on the Sport Mode correctly in Toyota Corolla?

All Toyota Corollas with automatic transmission (have you seen new Corollas with a manual transmission?) have the Sport Mode. In older versions, you could turn it on just by the stick shift – moving it to the “S” position. In the newer version, you will have a button with the “Sport” word on it. And this is actually the main problem.

You should have been a very strange person if you had the idea to put your stick shift from D to S just when you drive. This could easily damage your gearbox, especially if we talk about those shabby dual-clutch transmissions. But in the case of a “Sport” button, you will have a big temptation to press that button right when you drive.

So, here’s how you should choose a mode when driving your Corolla:

• think whether the conditions are appropriate for sporty driving type – urban areas are pretty bad for this;
• stop your vehicle but don’t turn the engine off, put your stick shift to P position;
• then put your stick shift to D position but don’t let the brake pedal off immediately after that;
• push the Sport button near your stick shift and start driving;
• after you finish your driving, just stop the car and turn the engine off, it shouldn’t go to sport mode again after you turn it on.

Well, this guide is not official of course. If you read the official manual, you will only see that it says “The Sport button turns on the sport mode in your car” or something like that. But you need to understand what happens with your vehicle when you turn on the sport mode.

What happens with your Corolla in sport mode?

When you push that tempting button saying “Sport”, your transmission and some other parts of the vehicle start working differently. This is made to provide you with more aggressive driving.

This is what actually changes:

1. Your transmission starts waiting longer before shifting to higher gears. It means the engine will be revving up to higher RPM and giving you better acceleration.
2. The transmission will faster shift to lower gears when you push the pedal allowing the engine to deliver more power and torque at higher RPM.
3. The handling will change. Your steering system will readjust to provide you with more solid handling and sharper reaction to any turn of the steering wheel.
4. The suspension in some cars may become stiffer. If your vehicle has any technologies for changing the suspension settings, you will have this option included in the list of things that will change with the sport mode.

That’s all. In most Corollas, the obvious change will be with the transmission. It will start changing gears in some other way to allow you better acceleration and better top speed. Corolla is not a sports car, it is not designed to race with Lamborghinis, so the changes will not be really massive.

When is it OK to go to Sport Mode in your Corolla?

The most obvious reason you want to turn on the Sport Mode is that you want to get some badass driving. It may be night city traffic where you can check what your car can do. Or it can be highway driving where you have a decent speed limit to test your vehicle and its power.

Also, you are likely to turn on the Sport Mode if you are driving through a race track. In this case, the model will offer you much more than you can think of. And also, if you don’t turn it on, you will not be able to handle the vehicle like you want to handle it.

In all other cases, turning on the Sport Mode doesn’t make much sense. You will have your engine revving up at all times, but you will still have to brake all the time and get frustrated because of losing all the vehicle’s dynamics.

Can Sport Mode be dangerous for your Corolla?

Again, Toyota Corolla is not a sports sedan. It’s a family car that is designed to just take you from one place to another with relatively good comfort. It is not designed to compete with racing cars on the track. And if you constantly use it to drive aggressively, it will most likely have a hard time and will eventually break much faster than it could.

Here’s what can go wrong with your car:

• engine – your engine may be just too overloaded when you rev it up all the time, it may be also overheated which brings its sooner death;
• transmission – overheating transmission that experiences big load is going to break very soon, the repair will cost you just like the new transmission, and it’s not cheap at all;
• suspension – the vehicle suspension experiences a higher load when you drive aggressively, this will likely destroy the suspension much sooner than you expect;
• brakes – if you want sport driving, you will need special brake discs and rotors, the stock ones aren’t made for sport;
• steering system – when driving aggressively, you are likely to steer the car sharply, this will have an impact on the steering system.

As you see, all parts of the car are under bigger loads when you drive in Sport Mode. Your Corolla doesn’t want to be driven in that mode for a long time. The suspension and steering will survive, but the automatic transmission is not designed for such ways of driving. This may bring a really expensive repair or a need to replace one of the important units in your car. So we recommend using the Sport Mode only sometimes and in those cases when it’s necessary.

What about fuel consumption in Sport Mode?

Official manuals don’t say much about the growth of fuel consumption when the car is in the Sport Mode.

Toyota Corolla equipped with a 1.8-liter gasoline engine (139 horsepower) will show around 30 MPG in the city traffic (if you are lucky enough). When you turn on the Sport Mode, your Corolla will take at least 20% more fuel making the gas mileage 24 MPG. Also, if you drive aggressively and try to rev up the engine as much as it can, you will get 16-17 MPG which is not very efficient.

This is another reason to use the Sport Mode in those cases only when you really need to drive fast and overtake a lot of cars. Otherwise, it’s better to use Economy mode (or Normal) and burn just as much fuel as the manual says.

How many miles will my Toyota Corolla go?

First, you will need to know that the estimated top mileage of a Toyota Corolla with a 1.8-liter petrol engine and a CVT is around 150,000 miles. It’s not that good even without using a Sport Mode or something.

The reason for such poor mileage is actually the CVT transmission. You may know that it’s a gearless transmission and the Sport Mode or any other mode is emulated there. By emulating different modes, this transmission will even live a shorter life.

So, you may find it broken in just 100,000 miles if you use the Sport Mode quite often. Even regular transmission fluid changes won’t help you much. Are you still full of enthusiasm about using that Sport Mode?

Final words

It’s quite cool that Toyota Corolla owners have a chance to use the Sport Mode in their vehicles. But we don’t recommend doing that on a daily basis. We believe it may reduce the lifespan of your transmission, engine, suspension, and also other parts of the vehicle.

The Sport Mode is designed for faster acceleration when you need to overtake a lot of cars. In a Corolla, it’s not the way to have fun. You should just use it in cases when you really need it. If Economy Mode is OK for you, better use it and save up some fuel.