Video: 2025 Toyota GR Corolla Automatic Vs. Manual: How to Choose

And we're here with the 2025 Toyota GR Corolla, which now offers a $2,000 automatic transmission over the standard manual transmission. And I just got to drive the manual GR Corolla back to back with the automatic GR Corolla. So let's see where the transmission's on this car shake out. (bright music) So the new automatic transmission has eight speeds and that is two more than the six that come with the standard manual transmission. And it pairs pretty well with the 300 horsepower fiery turbocharged three cylinder that's in the GR Corolla. It's not a dual clutch automatic transmission though often called a DCT. This is what Toyota calls a DAT, which may be confusing, we know, but it stands for direct automatic transmission. And basically it's just your ordinary transmission. It's a torque converter with planetary gear set type transmission. They are doing some trick stuff with torque converter lockup to make the shifts feel more direct. But overall the construction is just kind of what you find in your normal automatic transmission car. And there are some standard automatic transmissions that can be as engaging, shift as fast as a DCT transmission. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. It definitely does not drive like your DCT transmission does and does that in a couple ways. One, the paddle shifts are just not that engaging. They're kind of plasticy and they feel cheap and then it just doesn't shift as fast as you want it to. You hit the paddle shifter and it's not the worst out there, but it's also, it's not like a good DCT transmission like you would find in a Volkswagen Golf R, a competitor to the GR Corolla priced about same. There's just this aggressiveness missing from the automatic transmission experience that you get with the manual transmission. It's just a little softer. The engine feels like it's almost working harder with the automatic transmission than with the manual. And then also when it comes to, you know, like a proper DCT transmission versus this automatic transmission, this does have launch control. The manual transmission does not. But the launch control is just not that great. It doesn't really let the revs build that much. It doesn't let the engine really build boost that much. It's kind of a weak launch control. And again, a lot of that has to do with the construction of this transmission versus a DCT. So is the manual transmission any better? No, not really. It's about the same. You know, in the grand scheme of manual transmissions, it's good, it's not great. It does have really good positioning of the brake pedal and the accelerator pedal. So if you are someone who likes to heel toe downshift and rev match manually, this is a really great car to do that. But if you don't, well, you can still do it in this car 'cause there's a button that turns on automatic rev matching where on downshifts it will blip the throttle to smooth out your downshift and it works really well. That's my preferred way to drive a manual transmission car when it has that mode. There are also improvements to the manual transmission for 2025 that make clutch take up and fast starts much easier. And overall the manual transmission experience is pretty good, but really it's not at that top level at something like a Honda Civic type R or Acura Integra type S, which are right now the standard on just fantastic manual transmission that gives you everything you want. The other interesting thing about the manual transmission, and this kind of goes against 20 years of manual transmissions, this gets better fuel economy than the automatic. Normally you have an automatic that has a higher number of gears and you've got a greater range for fuel efficiency and you can just, you know, get those low RPMs at cruising speed. Not the case. Manual transmission gets 24 miles per gallon combined, automatic gets 22 miles per gallon combined. So it's just kind of an odd flip flop of what we've been used to seeing for the past couple decades. So the other thing I wanted to cover of about the automatic transmission is, well, if you're buying the automatic transmission, it's likely for convenience for daily driving, for city driving, this has adaptive cruise control, but it doesn't have stop-and-go adaptive cruise control where it's gonna bring it down to a stop and then start automatically. This still uses a hand brake, which you know, cool, cool to see a hand brake, but without that electronic parking brake, it can't hold the vehicle when you come to a stop. So below like 20 miles an hour or so, the car warns you to hit the brake because the adaptive cruise control can't stop you. Yeah, let's look at competitors. The Hyundai Elantra N, no adaptive cruise control at all. So you know you're at a bonus versus that car. Now the Golf R, which of course only comes with an automatic transmission, it has full stop-and-go adaptive cruise control. So if you really are looking for that, you know, comfortable city cruiser with all the modern amenities, you know, you're probably gonna wanna look at a Golf R if stop-and-go adaptive cruise control is important to you. Alright, so which one should you choose? Should you choose the automatic GR Corolla or the manual GR Corolla? Well, honestly, I was more wowed by the GR Corolla with the manual transmission. It's just better suited to this vehicle. This car is a fiery little hatchback with direct handling, great steering. It's just more of a raw experience. And the manual transmission really brings out that full character in the car. The automatic is just more of a pedestrian experience and it's fine. And if you want an automatic transmission in this car, it's great you have an option. There's no automatic transmission in the Civic type R or the Integra type S. So you know, if you don't wanna drive stick, you don't know how to drive stick, but you still want the benefit of driving something cool, hey, you got it. But I choose the manual, you know? The manual transmission shifter, it's notchy and it's not that smooth and it's a little hard to shift fast, but that's what the aftermarket for. There's probably a really good aftermarket shifter out there that would solve a lot of the problems with the manual transmission. And also there's only one all-wheel drive hot hatch with manual transmission and you're looking at it. Well, I mean this is automatic, but I think it's well established now that it also comes with a manual transmission.