[00:03] do the 24 and 25 model years compare and now that the gr Corolla offers an automatic transmission how does the automatic Faire against the manual hello everyone and welcome that will be the focus of this video and since we're
[00:17] talking about snow driving I thought I'd take my Corolla out to some nice snowy take my Corolla out to some nice snowy roads so here we are just like I planned trying to get this video filmed in the snow and the weather will not cooperate
[00:31] regardless I've spent plenty of time driving the snow in this machine so comes to driving in the snow there are three things that are really important in order starting with the most important is tires matters more than
[00:44] vehicle you're in if you're on terrible tires you're not going to have a good time in the snow so tires are the most important I am currently on Continental Viking contact sevs they are exceptional in Winter driving love driving on these
[00:57] in the snow or ice they're great Tire now this video isn't sponsored in fact I purchased these tires last year however for 2025 Continental is the official going to be doing some cool videos together later this year okay so first
[01:12] thing you need good winter tires check second thing is the drivetrain so of front-wheel drive being better than rear wheeel drive typically unless you have a really heavy rear we bias then rear wheel drive tends to be the worst out of
[01:27] those three options and then of course the all-wheel drive system itself does matter right they're not all created equal this one in the gr Corolla is very good part of why it's really good is that you're always sending torque to
[01:39] both axles it's not reacting to what it feels there is always at minimum at least 40% of the torque sent to that rear axle and you can send as much as 70% to that rear axle so you always have torque going to both axles great on top
[01:53] of that you then have to split that torque between the right and left Wheels well in both the front and the rear axles we have Torsen limited slip differentials so if one side has more grip it gets more torque when it needs
[02:07] it so exceptional all-wheel drive system here you've pretty much always got a place to put power down really great for sliding around having a good time in the snow this thing is awesome to drive in the slippery conditions okay now after
[02:20] tires and after drivetrain number three is ground clearance and here's where we're a bit limited now for a sports GARP this is at 5.3 in that's pretty however for driving in deep snow you know there are going to be times where
[02:34] perhaps the road has deep ruts you know if you're going off-road if there's deep ruts that kind of thing that you have to travel through well this is limited in ground clearance now most driving conditions on roads in snow you're going
[02:47] to be absolutely fine however it is just worth saying hey this doesn't have a ton of ground clearance there are scenarios where I take my Maverick because hey the Maverick has a worse all wheeel drive system ground clearance is one of those
[02:59] those things where you know if you don't need it doesn't really matter at all if you do need it it matters a whole bunch now before we move on to the 24 versus 25 model year differences I want to talk a little bit about torque split because
[03:12] can do as it relates to the torque split this vehicle offers so you can have this vehicle offers so you can have either 60/40 50/50 or 30/70 split front torque split matter well from an acceleration standpoint you want to send
[03:27] the torque where there's weight on the vehicle right so for example let's say this vehicle was doing a wheelie well you have no traction on the front end so there's no point in sending torque to that front axle so you'd want to send
[03:40] 100% of that torque to the rear axle now not possible in this vehicle it's going to have a 3070 split at most to send to the rear axle however it's important to realize that where you have the weight is where you want to put that torque so
[03:54] this vehicle has about a 6040 weight distribution so from a launch I ideally initially the first amount of torque you're going to apply is going to be a 6040 split however the second you start accelerating then you shift that weight
[04:09] towards the back so you can look at what is the maximum this vehicle can Dimensions you can look at where's its center of gravity that sort of thing and is going to be on the rear axle under
[04:23] acceleration now pretty much the only gear that's going to allow you to reach about 1G in acceleration mathema atically theoretically possible if you have no losses in the drivetrain in first gear only well that means in that
[04:37] first gear if you were to launch at Peak torque you would have about a 40 60 weight distribution so ideally you'd want most of the power going towards the rear to get that initial launch really well once you've started moving now
[04:51] realistically most gears cannot provide enough torque to overwhelm either axle so if you're in let's say second gear third gear maybe the maximum torque accelerate this with is going to accelerate you at about half a g in that
[05:06] scenario about a 5050 torque split is ideal and of course you can put this you have it you've got that perfect 50/50 torque distribution all right but interesting happens when you're driving on a snowy or icy surface because now
[05:22] you have more torque available then you have grip that you can put it down so let's say the icy service that you're driving on has a frictional coefficient acceleration you're going to get is about 0.1 G and so the ideal torque
[05:36] split is pretty much just your vehicle's weight distribution so about 6040 okay but now this brings us into a handling discussion so during winter Driving School Driving these gr Corollas one of the things they try to grind into your
[05:50] don't want under steer because under steer when you lose the front axle and have any control over steer as you start to slide you can actually control the weight distribution and get the vehicle to do what you want it to do so over
[06:04] steer is okay under steer you don't want and so if you choose these traction modes where you have a 50/50 torque split or a 3070 torque split and you're even though you're not going to get better acceleration you're going to
[06:17] change the handling behavior of the vehicle so that it is now more prone to over steering and it wants to slide and that can help you drive faster now of you're doing so that you don't end up in a snowbank
[06:30] Jason what did you do I uh I was nervous about the spacing I voiced my concerns and then I I did exactly what I put into the world yeah unfortunately so here we about what's ideal so from an
[06:45] impossible to think of a scenario wor 3070 torque split makes sense maybe a you've got a lot of weight on the rear axle and so maybe in that scenario 3070
[06:58] standpoint but realistically what you're doing is you're changing the handling behavior of the vehicle by putting it in at 50/50 or 3070 and that's a really driver and say Hey I want a little bit more over steer you can change the
[07:12] balance of the car by using these settings so in scenarios where you have a lot of grip and you're in a high gear that means you're not going to be able to overwhelm those tires regardless of your torque split or in a scenario where
[07:24] you have basically no grip you're driving on ice and no matter what torque welm all four tires well in those scenarios changing that torque split is simply a handling change that you're making rather than acceleration change
[07:37] all right so moving on to the 24 versus 25 model year after having driven both so one of the disappointing things just as we were mentioning that 3070 torque split you can no longer select that as a set Target for the torque split in the
[07:52] 25 model year the new track mode varies it between 60/40 and 3070 but you as a driver do not have the control over that so the maximum rear bias you can set it to Target at just individually is the 50/50 in the new gravel mode versus that
[08:09] is now track mode in the 24 which is the 50/50 so they changed everything around to make it confusing between the two a bummer that you can't Target that higher torque split for that more you know over steery natured driving behavior with the
[08:22] 3070 torque split that said you do get more torque so you get 295 lb feet instead of 27 another 22 lb feet of torque so that is a nice welcome change to see same amount of power but a better torque curve overall in the new model
[08:38] year you also get a new front end and an optional additional cooler up front so didn't like the new front end after seeing it in person now I do actually change I think it looks really good I'm happy still with what I have because I
[08:53] love this blue but I do think the new cars look cool and after seeing them in person I do actually like the new bumper they also have significantly revised the suspension so there is a significant update for that suspension different
[09:05] things that they've got going on with that but personally haven't driven both I don't necessarily see hey if you're choosing between one or the other there's any huge reason why you need to pick a 24 versus a 25 they both felt
[09:18] fantastic to drive both of them are exceptional driver cars and for the 25 they are now offering an automatic transmission so let's talk about the manual versus the automatic all right manual transmission versus automatic of
[09:31] course my personal preference is the manual transmission it's more engaging it's a lighter vehicle it's more fun in my opinion however that said after driving the automatic that Toyota offers for the gr Corolla I was impressed there
[09:44] are three reasons why I liked it first of all it's not that big of a weight penalty so if you look at Vehicles like the Subaru WRX and you go from the manual transmission to the CBT it's about 140 lb weight penalty that's
[09:58] really significant if you look at the Golf R you know not that bad actually going from the manual to the DSG about a 75lb weight penalty for the gr Corolla it's only a 45 weight penalty to go from the manual to the automatic so cool to
[10:12] close in performance second reason I like it aggressive gearing so it's now an 8-speed rather than the manual is a six-speed and gears 1 through six in the automatic are all more aggressive than gears 1 through six in the manual so
[10:27] that means aggressive acceleration I love to see that that they didn't have gears seven and eight they are taller than six in this so you drop that down for Highway cruising drop down your RPM love the strategy with the gearing on
[10:41] the automatic transmission and third it wasn't annoying to drive and I mean that was fine that's good when it comes to automatics fine is good when it comes to fine to drive it didn't seem in the way it didn't seem annoying it was fine and
[10:56] just as a comparison of why I say okay fine is good like if you look at the previous generation WRX with the 2.0 ler not the current WRX current WRX CBT is actually awesome previous generation 2.0 L WRX with the CBT it just ruined the
[11:11] Driving Experience everything about the vehicle was worse and it was more expensive and it's like why would you want this it makes everything worse so here it's not that big of a penalty in the Corolla switching from the manual to
[11:24] aggressive gearing it's a little bit heavier yeah so acceleration pretty much the same but it's not a big penalty so overall thumbs up on the automatic transmission still prefer the manual now that's not to say the automatic doesn't
[11:39] have its downsides because yes it's heavier but also it gets worse fuel economy than the manual what what and in addition to that it is a $2,000 option so it's more expensive heavier and you get worse fuel economy
[11:54] so again go with the manual or don't it's fine so I thought I would wrap this up by talking about my ownership of this 24 and what it's been like so far I've got about 1,500 M on the car I've had it for a little under a year and I love it
[12:07] to figure out you know what is what are the things about it that really make me happy and one of the things that I love about this machine is that the throttle control is exceptional it's exceptional so those little things that you don't
[12:20] when they're good the throttle control is one of them here where it just makes you feel so connected in that you can put your foot at whatever amount of the boost gauge and it'll just hold it right there it's very precise in its
[12:36] throttle control and that's rare for turbo engines especially tiny turbo engines so the throttle control is just really good and you get exactly what you ask for and as a result you do feel very connected to the machine and yeah I
[12:49] mean it's just fun to drive makes cool sound as you're letting off there coming into this corner here IMT rev matches for you if you don't IMT rev matches for you if you don't want to do it yourself get back on the
[13:08] they're all pretty minor but there are some things that I don't like first of all cruise control is always about 1 mph off so for example if you set your cruise control to 70 mph you're going to be driving most of the time at 69 nice
[13:23] second thing the heated portion of the steering wheel does not fully cover the heated that's a bummer I love heated steering wheels I think they're awesome the steering wheel third thing they have an awesome menu system here where you
[13:37] can choose what you want to look at and I love that however tire pressure seems and you can set it within the menu but when you turn the car off and then turn it back on suddenly it changes that tire menu to a trip computer and it's like
[13:51] single time you turn the vehicle on and off it eliminates that tire pressure from being an option within the menu silly and for fourth it has a wireless charger for your phone but it is absolutely worthless it will not charge
[14:04] position you can hold it there and see that it starts charging and then 15 seconds later it stops the wireless charger never works it's useless but have absolutely loved this machine whether you're driving on the snow
[14:18] with this thing it's an exceptional driver's car really do love it if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below thanks for watching to leave them below thanks for watching oh