2025 Toyota Corolla -- Tech Enhancements & MORE for This Popular Sedan!

What's going on YouTube? So for many years now, the Toyota Corolla has been selling in droves all around the globe. And Toyota is adding new stuff to this popular choice, including some big tech upgrades this year. So is this popular and affordable model a better buy than ever for 2025? Let's go ahead and find out. Now, like always, let's get started here with our spec dump. Now under the hood, you continue to find two different powertrains. We have the available hybrid system, which is a 1.8 liter four cylinder hybrid with 138 horsepower total. It's going to be paired to an E-CVT and our combined fuel economy for this front wheel drive model is 47 MPG. Now the base price for the Corolla this year is $22,000. And if you're looking to buy one or any new vehicle, we would encourage you to go to carconfections.com slash new car quotes to get the best price. Now, of course, we'll also be taking it out for a spin later on to show you what this hybrid is like. While we're on that spin, we'll get things like our sound level reading and after that discuss resale and reliability. But let's go ahead and close up the hood because of course we need to talk about the exterior as well as the interior and that tech enhancement first. Now moving to the exterior design up here in the front, you'll continue to find the same pretty aggressive look for this Corolla model. Now there is a little bit of a difference between both your gas and your hybrid models in terms of the trim structure. There's certain trims that you can just get on one or the other. However, this is the SE trim. You can get that with both the gas and the hybrid variant. Now speaking of trims, I do want to mention there's a new trim for 2025. It's called FX. That is a gas only trim level and that's going to be the most aggressive looking Corolla in the entire lineup. Now, as far as the grill, of course, nice gloss black finish. You have this upper portion here. The blue tracing is still going to be on the Toyota logo, which is one of the last Toyotas to actually retain that design characteristic for the hybrids. And then as far as our lighting is going, this is one of the first compact sedans to get standard LEDs that's going to go across the entire lineup. With the projector beam, you've got the really large turn signal and daytime running light that goes through there and a few more aggressive elements at the bottom. And as we move around to the back, you're going to continue with that signature Corolla look, kind of adds a little bit of sporty elements, especially with this SE model. Yeah. And if you really want sporty design elements, you can go for that new FX model. That's going to really spice up with a bigger spoiler up here. And then as far as other elements, you will notice that we have this kind of black piece that goes in between the taillights. And speaking of the taillights, let's see if all the elements are LED. As you can see, we do have an LED brake light, incandescent reverse light, incandescent turn signal. That's actually going to be standard across the entire Corolla range. Now, also new for 2025, you will notice this badge right here. This is Toyota's Beyond Zero hybrid badging. That's going to be new to the Corolla lineup. And then down at the lower fascia, this is going to be pretty aggressive here on the SE trim level. We're also going to have dual exposed exhaust outlets. Now, as far as our wheels are concerned, you have various options ranging from 16 inches up to 18 inches. This is the 18 inch alloy on the SE. It's got a dark gray finish. I think this color scheme looks pretty nice with the silver paint we have on today's example. As far as the mirrors, the SE doesn't get a black finish on the top. And if you get the X trims, that's where you'll get standard features such as your blind spot monitoring and your heating, although it is an available option on the SE. Now, the Corolla's overall vehicle length is 182.5 inches. And as far as some special design touches, you can actually get a black roof on this model. It's going to be standard on that new FX trim level, and that's going to spice up your overall design quite a bit. Now, I also do want to point out that you can get a Corolla hatchback as well if you want that sportier design theme. And as far as your safety systems are concerned, Toyota includes every single one of those as standard equipment. So even on the very base end, you're going to get things like adaptive cruise control. But without further ado, we need to get into that big tech upgrade. But first, if you're new here, we're brothers, and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young, and since then, we've reviewed over 2,000 cars at every price point. No matter what you're looking for, from sound level readings to cargo measurements, we'd love for you to subscribe to be a part of our car confections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the latest cars. Okay, now on to the interior. First, here's our key fob. Just your typical Toyota key fob, no branding or anything like that. You do get the smart entry system if you choose the SE trim or above. That means you can just walk up to the vehicle, grab behind the door handle, and unlock the door. Now, taking a look at the interior, the overall design is mostly unchanged. We'll get to the important update a little later. As far as our seats are concerned, this is going to give you a few different variations depending on which trim you choose. You're going to start off with cloth seats. When you move to this SE, this is where you get the premium cloth seats. They're just a little bit higher quality, feeling a little bit softer as well. Nice bolsters on the side. Overall, I like the design with the two different colors on board. You can also get the Softex faux leather on your X trims as well. No memory seats are offered. As you can see, we do have the manual adjusting seat, but you can get a power adjusting seat on the X trims as well. Let's go ahead and climb inside. Now that we're fully inside, of course, we need to look at the rest of the cab materials. Over here on our door trim, they've put a nice leatherette pad with a stitching detail. Soft touch plastics contain all through there. The top part of the dashboard is actually all soft touch plastic as well. Then we have a leatherette covering through the center section with this stitching detail. Your lower panels are going to be hard as you'd expect at this price point, but everything does fit together very nicely. Let's fire it up with our push button start. This also comes on the SE trim. Now that we're fired up here, let's jump into some individual details. Beginning with our gauge cluster, you can see we have a partially digital gauge cluster. This is the 7-inch premium setup Toyota gives this to you on the X trim levels, and we have it optioned on because we have a premium package, which is going to impact several areas of this SE's interior. Now as we pull back to the steering wheel, typical Toyota design, leatherette wrapping, it's manual tilt and telescoping. Then let's take a look at interior storage. Obviously, this is a pretty small sedan, and you can see that when it comes to how much space you have, for instance, in the center console. Of course, we've got the donuts inside, so we can actually test the volume and tell you exactly how it compares to other things. It only has five donuts inside, so that's going to be on the lower side for this segment. You definitely have a bit more storage and things like the K4 and the Honda Civic. Nevertheless, you've got your two cup holders right there. We have the wireless phone charging pad in the premium package as well, and then right behind that you have just a traditional style shifter. Nothing complicated or confusing here. You're just going to pull back for drive. You can bump back into the high region mode. No paddle shifters on the steering wheel though, and then we go into reverse. Here is our standard backup camera. No active trajectory on this model, and as you can probably tell, the resolution is pretty low. They kind of just scaled it up, but didn't really increase the resolution on board this year. You do have an electronic parking brake with brake hold though located right behind the shifter. Now, in terms of our climate setup, this is an automatic setup with one zone, so you can just adjust that nice and easily right through there. Some physical controls. No heated seats on this example, but you can get heated seats with the X trims. Ventilated seats, of course, not offered on this model, and then I'm just going to ignore this for a second. One more second. We're going to take a look here at the volume knob next. Now, what we have is the six speaker sound system on this SE, and we'll give it a quick sample. So, overall sound quality of this system is fine for this price point. Now, you're probably noticing that I was actually using volume buttons instead of a volume knob. Takes a little bit longer to use this, but of course, you can use what's on your steering wheel as well, and that is because we have a brand new display on board. So, your upper end trim levels, including our SE with the premium package, now has a 10.5 inch touchscreen, which is obviously quite an enhancement over what we had previously. So, this kind of sets forward pretty close to the driver, and honestly, here in person, I'm quite impressed with the overall look of this. Again, it feels nice and close. The resolution is really high, and this is bigger than what you can get on, you know, your rivals, such as the Honda Civic. That's obviously probably the main one that a lot of you guys are going to be cross-shopping with. In terms of the feature set, we have wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. That's what I'm in right now. Again, that looks nice and sharp, and then if I exit into our main Toyota infotainment system, it's just what you're used to seeing. Very simple layout. You get your shortcut buttons along through there. You can add the built-in navigation as well once you get the system activated. Up top here on the SE, you have the manual dimming mirror. We have some LED lighting for the interior, and then this model, also inside of that premium package that contains a lot of things, excuse me, you have the standard size sunroof. All right, so let's dive into the Corolla sedan's backseat area. Now, I will go ahead and start by discussing overall space figures. First, we're sitting at about 35 inches of legroom, about 37 inches of headroom, so those are decent figures. However, it's certainly not going to be a class leader when it comes to space. Things like the Civic do feel quite a bit more spacious back here, and I do want to kind of point out the moonroof kind of cuts in a lot on the headroom, so if you're really tall, you're pretty much just going to be looking right at the headliner. Now, of course, I brought the official car confections ruler along with me because this seat is adjusted to Drew, who's five foot eight. I'm five foot nine, and for your reference, we are sitting at about six inches of additional knee room, so not terrible, but certainly leaves a little bit to be desired. We also do have room for my feet to slide up underneath of the seats, and speaking of the seats, at least here in the SE trim level, these are going to be very firm back seats. There's not much give to them, so I wouldn't think you'd want to do too long of a road trip back here. However, I think things like the XLE trim level do have a lot better back seats. We do have a full down armrest, and inside we have cup holders that do fit a gigantic Stanley water bottle, and then in the center, no vents, but I'm to tell you that we do have USB-C ports, so that's nice to keep things charged up. Now, if you look over at the rear door trim, hard touch on the vast majority of it, we do have a leatherette pad on the armrest portion, and then a tiny bit of storage inside. Walking up to the Corolla's trunk, as you can see, we do have a pretty good sized one. About 13.1 cubic feet is what you can expect out of the Corolla sedan specifically. That's going to be a pretty good space figure. Once again, it's not what I would call class-leading. However, it's pretty good size-wise. The Civic is going to be a bit bigger than that. However, if you want more space, just get the Corolla Hatchback. That's going to have more practicality than this. Now, as far as features they are including, we do have 60-40 split folding seats in the back, and then let's go ahead and get our cargo length, width, and height figures. This is a Car Confections review, after all. From behind the second row of seats, about 40 inches of cargo length is what you can expect. Overall opening is 36 inches at the narrowest point, and then we have about 20 inches of cargo height. If I lift up the cargo floor itself, you will see that we do not have a spare tire here on the hybrid model, so that's just something to keep in mind. Well, guys, here we are behind the wheel of the Toyota Corolla Hybrid, and this test drive, we'll be discussing quite a few different things. As you can see on the screen right now, we'll also be getting things like our sound level reading, but first, we need to start with a hard acceleration. All right, that was 60 miles per hour. Obviously, as you can see, we were going uphill, but that gives you a little indication of the overall acceleration here with this hybrid version of the Corolla. Now, as we were talking about with the spec dump, two different powertrain choices. You're not locked into a hybrid if you don't want one, which is, of course, different than what you have with the Camry at this point. So, if you get the regular model, that's going to be a 2-liter 4-cylinder. That does have more power than this. That has about 169 horsepower. This is 138 horsepower from a 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine and your hybrid component stream. Yeah, and overall, the power is fine. I really do feel like most Corolla buyers aren't going to mind that level of power. However, it is worth noting, especially as you look at some of the rivals, such as the Honda Civic Hybrid at this point. That's probably the biggest head-to-head competitor of this. That's going to have 200 horsepower and significantly more torque. It will feel way faster than this Corolla Hybrid. So, just keep that in mind. If power is something that you really crave, this might not be the best choice in the segment. However, I think, like I said, the vast majority of Toyota Corolla buyers probably aren't going to be doing full-throttle accelerations all the time. So, because of that, this is a fine amount of power. Now, the other element of the powertrain is, of course, the transmission. Two different varieties on board with this. Same kind of overall effect, though. The hybrid has an e-CVT. The gas model has a regular CVT. But this is nice and responsive overall when you put your foot down. And, of course, in signature Toyota fashion, the trade-off between the gas engine and the hybrid system is really seamless. You can't feel that at all. You can just maybe hear the engine turn on a little bit if you're accelerating hard. But, you know, once you turn on music or something like that, it's really just going to blend into the background. Yeah. Now, as far as how the power is routed to the ground, all models will come standard with front-wheel drive. However, you can get all-wheel drive, but it's just on specific versions of the Corolla. So, keep that in mind. It's going to be offered on the LE and SE hybrid trim levels exclusively. So, they do kind of lock you into specific combinations to get the all-wheel drive system. However, that's honestly a good thing that they're offering it because a lot of the rivals still do not have all-wheel drive as an option, including that Civic rival. Now, when it comes to handling, the Corolla is not the sportiest option in the segment. But, when you choose the SE or your XSE, those trims do have a little bit of a different suspension tune. And, all in all, it's a pretty athletic feeling. You know, you have a nice responsive steering setup. The overall body roll is fine in terms of the control. And, at the end of the day, you're looking at a pretty small vehicle. So, compared to a lot of, you know, SUVs and things like that, it's pretty agile. Yeah. And, of course, don't forget they offer the GR Corolla, as well as the Corolla Hatchbacks, which have a little bit more of a sportier character than the sedan. Now, let's go ahead and talk about fuel economy. So, I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised with this. So, the hybrid front-wheel drive model comes in at 47 miles per gallon. If you choose the LE or XLE grades, it actually bumps up to 50 mpg. The all-wheel drive goes to 44 miles per gallon on the hybrid model. And then, the gasoline options range between 34 and 35 mpg. So, decent fuel economy across the board, especially on the gasoline front. The hybrid fuel economy is, of course, really, really good, as you would expect. However, I do want to point out the fact that the Camry is now pretty much getting the same fuel economy. So, if you look at, like, this model, this is rated at 47. Our Toyota Camry, if you don't know, we actually own a 2025 Camry XSE front-wheel drive that gets the same 47 mpg. So, no longer do you have a big fuel economy benefit over choosing something like a Camry. The Prius actually would have better fuel economy than this as well in Toyota's own lineup. All right, but let's also talk about ride quality for this Corolla. Just kind of cruising down the highway section here, you do have pretty good ride quality with this model. I would say it's not the very best in the segment, hitting a bump in the road. It does a decent job of soaking it up. I mean, this is an affordable vehicle, so it does have a little bit of intrusion inside. So, that's just something to keep in mind. These front seats, though, I do find to be quite comfortable. The back seats, not as much, but the front ones are pretty good. So, I think you'll be fine to take this on pretty extensive road trips. And we're also going 55 miles per hour, so let's go ahead and get our sound level reading. I'm going to toggle it to fan speed one, and we'll see how quiet this model is. Give it a little bit longer because that motorcycle drove by. We were sitting at 60.7 as our lowest sound level reading. We don't have to sit here and guess how it compares to rivals. We can find that at carconfections.com slash sound level readings, where we've tested out all of this vehicle's competition, including that Honda Civic hybrid model, as well as things like a Mazda 3. Now, that is going to place it on the louder end of the segment. If you look at things like the Mazda 3, that's going to be a little bit quieter. The Volkswagen Jetta is also quieter, as well as things like the Toyota Prius and Hyundai Elantra. The Honda Civic is going to be very similar to the sound level reading wise, though. All right, let's get into our CarConfections Slam Dunk and Airball, our favorite and least favorite element. Drew, why don't you kick us off with the Slam Dunk? For the Slam Dunk, we're going to say the 2025 tech enhancement. Upsizing this display really makes a pretty big difference because in this segment, typically things are on the lower tech side of things, so this kind of elevates this to one of the largest displays in the segment. It works really well. The resolution is nice, also. Yeah, on the airball side of things, though, what we're going to say is the overall value for the money. You know, for those of you looking to get a Toyota Corolla and you're going to drive it hundreds of thousands of miles to totally get why you would buy this vehicle, however, you're not getting as many features as a lot of the rivals for the money. We're sitting at around $30,000 as tested today, and we are going to be missing out on a lot of features that you would be getting on an equivalent Kia K4, for instance. Even the Honda Civic is going to give you more for the money. All right, so let's go ahead and talk about pricing. We start at around $22,000, as I said at the very beginning of the video. If you want all-wheel drive, that's an additional charge, and if you want the hybrid, it's a little bit extra as well. So if you want what we have today, this is the SE, so kind of your mid-grade hybrid. We sit at $26,065 as a starting point. The premium package is pretty expensive at $2,000. We also have quite a few accessories on board. $1135 destination. We're sitting at $29,983 as tested today. Now, if you're looking to buy a Toyota Corolla or any new vehicle, we would encourage you to go to carconfections.com slash newcarquotes. The reason you do that is because we have a tool on our website that will connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price. It's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information, which is a great tool for dealership negotiation and can help the dealers to start competing on price. It's a great tool for dealership negotiation, so definitely check that out. If you want to see it, it's in our video description, and we also have a pinned comment at the top of this video. Buying a vehicle is about more than just the original MSRP, so let's dive into resale and reliability. First up, let's talk about resale value. As an economics graduate myself, Drew and I took the time to develop what we think is a good estimate for this Toyota Corolla's potential resale value. We estimate that after five years and 60,000 miles, it'll be worth 64.5% of original MSRP, and after 10 years and 120,000 miles, 41.4%. Now, it's worth noting those are fantastic resale value percentages. It's actually the second best in the entire auto industry in the five-year metric, and especially with a more affordable vehicle like this, we do really expect those figures to maybe even be a little bit higher than that. So, a very good resale value in summary. Now, Toyota is also a strong performer when it comes to reliability. We developed the Combined Reliability Index by taking several studies and combining them to give you a more holistic picture, and when you take all that in to effect, Toyota is the highest rated brand amongst all of the vehicle brands out there. And it has been updated with the latest 2025 data. Now, if you'd like to learn more about our reliability, resale values, or our methodology, be sure to go to carconfections.com slash resale and carconfections.com slash reliability. Buying a new vehicle is a very big decision, so you want to make sure you're making a smart purchase, especially if you're cross-shopping between different vehicle brands. Now, as far as your warranty is concerned, you do have a three-year 36,000-mile basic warranty, five-year 60,000-mile powertrain. Toyota also gives you two years and 25,000 miles of complimentary. And guys, that's going to be it for our in-depth review of the 2025 Toyota Corolla sedan. If you enjoyed watching this video or found it helpful in your purchasing decisions, which we hope you did, we'd really appreciate it if you hit that subscribe button down below. By subscribing, you're going to be a part of our CarConfections family. We have a lot of fun on this channel, and we cover a lot of different cars, you know, things like this 2025 Corolla, where we talk about the changes as well as any all-new product coming out. So you'll definitely want to subscribe to stay tuned on, stay tuned into the latest automotive news. If you're already a part of our family, thank you so much for your continued support, and we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies.