Toyota Corolla's $1,999 Wheels Make Little Sense

That's right, folks: compact car shoppers can outfit the thrifty 2013 Toyota Corolla with $1,999 worth of upsized alloy and rubber. The Corolla, a vehicle with no optional high-performance engines and a suspension that can rock a baby to sleep, is an odd fit for accessory 18-inch wheels that cost nearly 12% of the vehicle's $17,025 starting price, including destination.

What's the Most Affordable Compact Sedan?

A 2013 Toyota Corolla S rolled into the Cars.com test fleet fitted with attractive five-spoke wheels any gearhead or enthusiast would want on their own car. They're available from performance accessory division Toyota Racing Development in silver or black on all trim levels. Our minds wandered and, below, digital imagining shows what the wheels would look like if painted gunmetal gray and installed on our 2013 Subaru BRZ long-term tester - in short: good. 

Back on topic, the Corolla isn't a rear-wheel-drive sports car, nor does it have any traits of sportiness, so it's baffling that these wheels exist as an option.

What's the Most Affordable Compact Sedan?

Car shoppers want a long list of features in a new car, even if that car is a compact sedan that starts around $16,000. That starting price usually doesn't include what many consider "must-have" features — chief among them an automatic transmission.

We took 11 compact sedans and looked at their prices when equipped with the following features:

• Automatic transmission
• Cruise control
• USB input
• Remote entry
• Tilt/telescoping steering wheel
• Steering-wheel audio controls

It may seem like a simple search, but if you're looking at a new Nissan Sentra, Dodge Dart or Volkswagen Jetta, you'll need to know the specific trim level, options and option packages to ensure you won't regret not having that one missing feature.

We took those as-equipped prices and then added five years of fuel costs to come up with the most affordable compact sedan on the market.

Having recently purchased our long-term Honda Civic that has all of these features in a base model, we thought it had a good shot of scoring well here. But the results were somewhat surprising, especially in terms of what car was No. 1.

Small-Car Leases on the Rise, Lease-Swap Company Says

Leases are gaining traction in an unlikely area: the small-car class. This is according to Swapalease.com, which released a report on Thursday that said small-car leasing swaps boomed 33% in 2012, outpacing 2011's 18% growth. The Cincinnati-based website counts everything from entry-level runabouts to traditional non-luxury subcompacts and compacts in the group, whose growth exceeded trucks (up 26%) but not luxury cars (up 38%).

Small cars took up a bigger piece of Swapalease.com's pie, but overall inventory increased just 9%. Spokesman John Sternal told us midsize cars, by contrast, were the big loser.

Does that mean actual leasing among small cars has improved? It's hard to say. The increase in overall small-car popularity in 2012 could be responsible for some of the leasing gain. New-car sales for all traditional non-luxury small cars improved 17.2% versus 2011, according to Automotive News data. Leasing overall continued to grow in 2012; CNW Marketing Research reported year-over-year leasing gains every single month.

Toyota, Ford Duke It Out in Sales Number War

Ford said Tuesday that the Focus was the world's No. 1 best-selling car in 2012, with 1.02 million sales — a healthy lead over the second-place Toyota Corolla's 872,774. The automaker cited registration data from well-known consulting firm R.L. Polk.

Now Toyota begs to differ, and it's making the rounds today to tell its side of the story.

"Toyota sold 1.16 million Corolla vehicles globally in 2012, compared to 1.02 million Focus nameplate registrations recently attributed to R.L. Polk by Ford Motor Co.," spokesman Mike Michels said in an emailed statement. "Corolla sedan alone sold 1.08 million. Corolla registrations attributed to Polk come up short by nearly 300,000 units. This discrepancy is glaring, and we have requested clarification."

Recall Alert: Airbag Problem Affects Millions of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda Vehicles

Four Japanese automakers — Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda — have announced a voluntary recall of 3 million vehicles worldwide because of possibly faulty airbags; more than a million of those vehicles are in the U.S.

According to the automakers, the problem lies in the front-passenger airbag inflator, which in affected vehicles could deploy with too much pressure due to improperly manufactured propellant wafers, causing the inflator casing to rupture. This could result in injuries to passengers, though none have been reported. The airbags were manufactured by Japan's Takata Corp., a major world supplier of airbags.

According to Toyota, affected vehicles in the U.S. include 510,000 Toyota Corolla compact sedans, Matrix compact hatchbacks, Sequoia SUVs and Tundra pickup trucks, as well as Lexus SC 430 sport coupes, all manufactured between 2001 and 2003. According to news reports, Toyota is recalling 1.7 million vehicles worldwide.

Toyota said it will notify owners by mail. Dealers will inspect the front-passenger airbag; if it is equipped with an affected inflator, the inflator will be replaced with a new one for free. Toyota owners can go to www.toyota.com/recall or call Toyota customer service at 800-331-4331; Lexus owners can go to www.lexus.com/recall or call Lexus customer service at 800-255-3987.

Top 10 Best-Selling Cars: March 2013

With the top seven automakers reporting numbers — which account for the vast majority of new-car sales — March sales have crept up around 3.2% over year-ago levels. Honda, GM and Ford saw the largest gains, but no major automaker saw a double-digit increase.

The top sellers are a reshuffle from February's list; all 10 are back. The Nissan Altima jumped three spots from February, and despite an 8% sales drop, it's the best-selling sedan by just 100 cars in March. Madness? Not really. Look back at March 2012 and the Altima even beat out the Chevrolet Silverado for a podium finish in monthly sales.

Lower year-over-year incentives played against Nissan's redesigned sedan as surging competitors — the Honda Accord and the Ford Fusion — saw larger gains. Ford says the Fusion had its best sales month in the nameplate's 7 1/2-year history, and this happened with fewer incentives than on last year’s outgoing model. The Escape hit its highest monthly total in its 12-plus-year history. Those two cars — and rising Explorer and F-Series sales — overcame falling Focus, Edge and Mustang sales to drive Ford to a 5.7% year-over-year increase.

Toyota to Build 20 New Hybrids Globally by End of 2015

In less than three years, Toyota will have 20 new or redesigned hybrids worldwide — plus a hydrogen fuel-cell car. That's what Bob Carter, who heads automotive operations at Toyota's U.S. arm, told reporters this morning. Carter spoke at the National Automobile Dealers Association/J.D. Power and Associates' 2013 Automotive Forum on the eve of this week's 2013 New York International Auto Show.

More 2013 New York Auto Show Coverage

Despite the proliferation — if not the sales — of electric cars, Toyota believes "hybrids will remain a core technology" because they can be adapted to other environmental areas, Carter said. Given the number of cars from Toyota and its Lexus and Scion divisions, 20 hybrids seems like a more attainable goal than the automaker's gas-electric gauntlet thrown in 2006, which declared that every forthcoming redesign would include a hybrid version. Toyota backed off that pledge two years later.

Honda Accord Still Most Popular Car to Steal

The bad news for Honda Accord owners? It was the most stolen car in 2012. The good news? It was also the most recovered.

LoJack Corp., which manufactures the Lojack Stolen Vehicle Recovery System, today released its fourth annual vehicle-theft recovery report based on statistics from 28 states. The study not only tracks auto-theft trends across the U.S. during the past year, but also serves as a de facto advertisement for the device, which in 2012 helped law-enforcement officials recover nearly $125 million worth of stolen vehicles.

Citing FBI reports, the study notes that a vehicle is stolen every 44 seconds and that the recovery rate is at a 30-year low. Still, vehicles equipped with a LoJack were recovered 94% of the time, the company reported.

"Unlike other location-based systems, LoJack Police Tracking Computers can find vehicles in some of the most secluded locations, including shipping containers that are hidden amongst thousands of others onboard a ship that is about to depart the United States," said Patrick Clancy, vice president of law enforcement for LoJack, in a statement.

Click below for LoJack's top 10 "most stolen and recovered" vehicles for 2012 and here for a list of February's 10 best-selling cars; the Honda Accord ranks high on the list.

Redesigned 2014 Toyota Corolla to Debut This Year

Toyota is readying a redesigned version of its Corolla compact car for the 2014 model year. The production version hasn't been seen yet, but the Furia concept that debuted at the 2013 Detroit auto show and is on display at the 2013 Chicago Auto Show now is more than just a potential design study. According to the automaker, it incorporates a number of design cues that will make it to the production Corolla. Toyota just won't say which ones.

"We've got to get a lot more aggressive on styling," said Toyota spokesman Curt McAllister in reference to the Corolla, which is now one of the oldest models in the compact segment but still one of the best-sellers. The Furia concept is considerably sportier looking with its slender headlights, gaping lower grille and taut lines.

Toyota hasn't decided where the new Corolla will be revealed, but it might debut somewhere other than a major auto show. The next major U.S. auto show is in New York in the spring. In the meantime, which of the Furia design features do you want to see on the 2014 Corolla? Let us know in the comment section below.

Why the Dodge Dart Has a Long Way to Go

Dodge sold just 7,154 Dart sedans in January — better than December 2012, but a shabby performance when you consider that Honda moved 21,881 Civics, Ford sold 16,161 Focuses and Toyota moved 23,822 Corollas and Matrixes. Dodge dealers opened January with a glut of Darts — 141 days' worth, to be exact. That's more than double the days' supply for the Chevrolet Cruze and more than triple the supply of the Civic and Focus.

January marks the seventh full month of Dart sales, and it's been a slow start for the compact sedan. The Wall Street Journal reports Dodge parent Chrysler cut a factory shift at its facility in Dundee, Mich., which makes one of the Dart's engines, due to slow sales. At January's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne admitted that the Dart's dual-clutch automatic transmission and high mix of stick-shift cars at launch reflected "powertrain solutions that, in today's world and in hindsight, were not and are not the ideal solution."

The drivetrains don't help, but there may be another factor in play: Dodge's compact sedan is only that — a sedan. Compact cars offer the most diverse body styles. The Corolla has a Matrix offshoot, the Civic comes as a sedan or coupe, the Focus and Mazda3 include a hatchback and sedan, and the Hyundai Elantra scores a trifecta: sedan, coupe and hatch.