2025 Toyota Corolla

The 2025 Toyota Corolla remains the world’s best-selling car. During its 58 years, it has built a legacy of reliability, affordable pricing, safety, and better-than-average fuel economy. It steadily goes about its business of transporting people without flash or drama. Neatly sized for the hustle and bustle of urban streets and crowded city parking garages, the Corolla presents with a healthy amount of advanced technology and old-fashioned value.

We’ve spent hundreds of hours driving and evaluating the current collection of compact cars, including this Toyota Corolla.

Replacing the Nightshade Edition in the 2025 Corolla lineup is the FX grade. Tugging at the heartstrings of those who might fondly remember the Corolla FX16, the FX is more of an appearance package than the higher performance model signified by the FX16 badge back in 1987. Today’s FX is a blacked-out model, which includes black 18-inch wheels, badging, roof, and other accents. Oh, and Toyota tosses in a black rear spoiler for good measure. Toyota has lowered the FX a bit and tuned the steering for a somewhat sportier feel. Moreover, the new 10.5-inch infotainment touchscreen, now optional across the rest of the Corolla lineup, is standard on the FX.

Anchoring the Corolla lineup is the nicely-equipped entry-level LE, which is also the most popular trim. We’d stick with that trim if we were shopping for a new Corolla.

The Corolla’s pricing is near the middle of its class. Slightly more affordable options include the Nissan Sentra, Kia Forte, and Hyundai Elantra. The Mazda3 has a base price tag similar to the Corolla, and the recently redesigned Honda Civic is somewhat pricier.

The 2025 Toyota Corolla is also available as the Corolla Hatchback and Corolla Hybrid, both of which we review separately.

Motivated by a 169-horsepower 4-cylinder engine, the Toyota Corolla employs a CVT automatic transmission to power the front wheels. We’ve found it delivers enough pep to get around town and to cruise on the highway comfortably. Acceleration is sufficiently quick for daily driving duties and an improvement over the weaker base engine in the earlier model years of this generation Corolla. It gets a little more engaging to drive with the paddle shifters on the SE, FX, and XSE trims. Overall, the ride is compliant, the seats are comfortable, and it’s hard to find fault in how it drives.

Fuel Economy

The popular LE trim of the Corolla has a combined (mixed city-and-highway driving) fuel economy rating of up to 35 mpg. It’s slightly more efficient — and a bit more powerful, too — than its entry-level counterparts in the compact sedan segment. The upper trims lose 1 mpg in combined driving. If efficiency is a high priority, the Corolla Hybrid, reviewed separately, earns up to 50 mpg combined.

We found the interior quality of the Corolla to be pretty good for a compact car at this price point. The standard cloth seats are comfortable, and the upper trims get SofTex faux leather seating. As for the 8-inch infotainment screen (and available 10.5-inch touchscreen), we love that it has standard wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and a traditional volume knob.

The rear seats have 34.8 inches of legroom, which is adequate for most adults but just okay for this class. The trunk has 13.1 cubic feet of volume, which is on the smaller side for this segment. We also found it oddly challenging to fold down the rear seats because of the awkward placement of the latches behind the headrests.

For reference, the roomier Honda Civic sedan boasts 37.4 inches of rear legroom and has a 14.8 cubic-foot trunk. If you want more cargo room and flexibility, consider the Corolla Hatchback.

The aesthetics of the Toyota Corolla are humble yet stylish. The SE, FX, and XSE trims look sportier than the base LE model, with revised front and rear fascias and 18-inch alloy wheels.

Impressive Engine
The Corolla’s 169 horsepower is enough to move this sedan with a degree of alacrity, and getting fuel economy of up to 40 mpg on the highway is fantastic.

Toyota Safety Sense 3.0
The standard safety tech suite in the Corolla bundles many desirable features. It has automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane-keep assist, lane tracing assist, road sign assist, and automatic high beams.

Adaptive Cruise Control
Another technology included with Safety Sense 3.0 is this set-it-and-forget-it cruise control that, once set, maintains a safe distance from the car in front, automatically slowing and speeding up as needed.

Smart Key
This is Toyota’s version of proximity keyless entry that automatically unlocks the Corolla as long as the key fob is on your person. We truly miss it when testing a car without this convenience feature. It’s standard beginning with the SE trim.

8-inch Toyota Audio Multimedia
The standard 8-inch touchscreen in the Corolla is loaded with features like wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, dual Bluetooth phone connectivity, and over-the-air updates. If you want a larger touchscreen, a 10.5-inch screen comes standard in the FX trim and is offered as an option in the SE.

Intelligent Assistant
This optional feature on the Corolla adds a cool piece of modern tech to this compact. Just say, “Hey, Toyota,” and the infotainment system acts like a smart speaker responding to voice commands. We used it to get directions, control the audio, change the cabin temperature, and more.

The Toyota Corolla is powered by a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine rated at 169 horsepower and 151 lb-ft of torque. Within the compact sedan class, only the Mazda3 boasts higher horsepower and torque numbers. Output is sent to the Corolla’s front wheels via an automatic transmission (of the continuously variable variety).

3-Year/36,000-Mile Warranty

The Toyota Corolla is backed by a 3-year/36,000-mile basic warranty and a 5-year/60,000-mile powertrain warranty. Toyota also throws in a 2-year/25,000-mile complimentary maintenance plan.

Safety

The Toyota Corolla has a strong track record for safety as a repeat winner of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) Top Safety Pick award. However, the IIHS changed its testing protocols beginning in 2024. It hasn’t finished testing the Corolla. On the other hand, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded the Corolla its top overall score of 5-Stars. On top of Corolla’s good crash-test ratings, it’s well-equipped with standard safety features like automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, and much more.