2025 Toyota GR Corolla Auto vs. Manual Test: Still Good Without a Stick?

When Toyota brought the GR Corolla to North America, it immediately garnered praise for its rip-snorting turbocharged three-cylinder engine, tenacious all-wheel-drive grip, and its manual-only transmission. The Save the Manuals crowd was more than pleased with the GRolla’s then-permanent third pedal. Then, Toyota announced an automatic version. 

Diehard purists may have been slightly annoyed to see Toyota walk back on the manual-only GR Corolla, but can you blame Toyota? Opening the car up to those who may not want or be able to drive stick can only mean more GR Corollas sold, and more GR Corollas sold means more cool cars from Toyota. And that’s something we can get behind.  But, surely, the automatic version isn’t as good as the manual one, right? Right? 

Well, yes and no. 

The Hardware

Toyota was kind enough to let me drive an automatic GR Corolla for a week, but I really wanted to try the manual, too. Fortunately, our News Editor, Adam Ismail, actually owns one. We met up with both cars so I could drive the two back-to-back. Not to see which one was better (I think we already know the answer to that) but to compare and contrast the two cars and see if the automatic version could capture the same essence of the manual, without sacrificing too much fun. 

Despite wearing the same color, the two cars look a bit different because Toyota made some visual changes for the 2025 facelift (Adam’s is a 2024). Some of them are functional, like the larger front air intakes for improved cooling, a transmission cooler for the new eight-speed auto, new rebound springs, “improved” rear coils and stabilizers, higher trailing arm mounting points, and standard Torsen front and rear limited-slip differentials (these were optional last year). It’s still a 1.6-liter turbo-three making 300 horsepower under the hood, but torque is up from last year’s 273 lb-ft to 295. Per Toyota, that increased torque lets it get from zero to 60 mph almost a tenth of a second quicker than before, clocking a 4.9-second run with either transmission.

Adam’s manual car also has aftermarket wheels wrapped in Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires that were admittedly more appropriate than the automatic press car’s Michelin Pilot Sport 4S summer tires, at least for this late-January test. 

The Drive

Adam and I each drove about an hour to meet somewhere in between where we live, somewhere in western New Jersey. The boring, mostly straight roads were wet from the previous day’s melted snow, but that’s what you get with Jersey winters. Since I’d driven the auto for a few days prior, I was anxious to jump in the manual and see what it was like. 

Toyota may have done a fair bit of suspension work that’s said to make the 2025 GR Corolla more stable, but I’d be lying if I told you I could suss out a tangible difference on public roads. So, let’s focus on the powertrains.

One notch into first gear, and I was immediately smitten by the manual. The transmission itself feels like the one from the Toyota GR86, a gearbox I happen to love. Inputs and touchpoints are important in a sports car, and the GR Corolla’s manual shifter has a positive, high-quality feel. With the automatic, you get the same boring shifter that you’ll find in a regular Corolla, which feels underwhelming in something that’s supposed to be as sporty and exciting as the GR. The auto’s paddle shifters aren’t any better—they’re made of cheap-feeling plastic and move with a very short travel, making them feel like buttons, sucking all the joy out of shifting it manually. 

Since the GRolla uses a heavily boosted three-cylinder engine, it has the torque curve of an ‘80s rally car: there’s little to no power until at least 3,000 revs, and it feels like it drops off around 5,500 rpm. So you have to work pretty hard to get the most out of it. But when you do, and you keep it in that sweet spot, it’s a blast. And it’s easier to do that with the manual.

Eight speeds are just too many for this car, as it shifts too often in automatic mode, constantly resetting that slow torque build-up, and there are too many gear ratios to swap through when shifting manually. With the manual, with its fewer, longer gears, it’s easier to keep it in the powerband, and, since it isn’t sequential like an automatic, you don’t have to think about how many downshift paddle clicks you need to grab the right gear. The manual makes driving the GR Corolla quickly easier but also more rewarding. 

Then there’s the shifts themselves. The automatic shifts quickly and smoothly. It’s a typical Aisin eight-speed auto, so I expected that. While it’s no ZF, it’s more than quick enough for the GRolla. Upshifts are nearly instantaneous and imperceptibly smooth, while downshifts are mostly quick, and it never refused a downshift outright. So I don’t see it ever being a hindrance to performance, especially if you use it on track. However, that’s also sort of the problem. 

The GR Corolla isn’t supposed to be a smooth car. Its suspension is firm, it’s noisy inside, and its engine always feels like it’s about to explode between 3,000 and 5,000 rpm. And that’s why it’s great. It’s a car that should be raucous and violent; it should make you feel like a WRC champion in the ‘80s. So, when the automatic transmission smoothly slurs its gears together, it takes some of that character away. 

Adam wasn’t quite as down on the automatic as I was. “Our colleague Chris Tsui once described the GR Corolla as ‘the Dodge Challenger of hot hatches.’ Having lived with one for more than a year at this point, I can say I’ve never heard a more apt description. This GR Corolla is moderately practical, but it’s also raw, rough, and grumbly. If you’ve ever driven a Golf R with a DSG, it’s the polar opposite of that; still capable, but you’d never describe it as smooth or electronic.

“Part of that was certainly down to Toyota only offering the Corolla with a six-speed before, but what’s interesting about the new auto here is that it doesn’t change or replace the car’s nature. The sound, the rasp, and the visceral grip are all still there. The auto does obscure some of that—there’s no way it can’t, involving fewer of your limbs in the drive—but the important thing is that the shifts are quick enough, the logic is reasonably good, and that raucous GR character is still palpable underneath it all.”

The Verdict

At the end of the day, the manual GRolla is more fun because, well, of course it is. However, I went into this test not looking to see if the automatic version could usurp the manual but whether it could maintain the GR Corolla’s rowdy spirit while making the car more accessible. In my opinion, it succeeds at the latter—the former, not so much. 

Objectively, the 2025 Toyota GR Corolla’s automatic gearbox isn’t a bad automatic gearbox. It just doesn’t suit the car all that well. There’s still fun to be had here, and I recommend shifting manually with the lever, not the Fisher-Price paddles. 

So, if you want a GR Corolla and can’t drive or live with a manual for whatever reason, don’t let the automatic put you off completely; this is still a great car. But if you’d like the full GR Corolla experience and the gearbox that makes Toyota’s hot hatch feel like a higher quality, more special product, go for the manual.

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