I've had no pings at 4800 miles, always using 87 octane.

My last little Corolla, and my wife's, needed premium or the engines would sound like a metal box full of loose nuts and bolts. We learned to avoid that quick!

Seems I heard of other earlier Toyota models acting the same way no matter what the mechanics tried. Sure is nice to have a big honking TCH running on regular! My wife's '06 Corolla likes regular gas just fine, too.