Is the 1986-1990 Corolla reliable?
I’ve worked on an 84 and a 92 Corolla – not quite in your date range. The 84 Corolla was bulletprooof. Apart from cracked radiator, it gave no trouble. The 92 Corolla had lots of battery/alternator problems, but I later isolated the problem to a batch of faulty alternator regulators that were produced by Bosch in the early 90’s. I fixed that some 15 years ago, and have had no problems since. From my experience to date, if maintained properly, the Corolla is an excellent car, that will give you many years of good service. However, I would buy the latest model you can afford. The pre 1990 models are bit old.
