2024 Toyota GR Corolla vs. Mazda3: Which Is the BEST Turbocharged Hot Hatch for Under $40K?

today we have a tail of two hot hatchbacks both around $40,000 both all-wheel drive and both surprisingly similar when it comes to power output yeah these uh on paper really are pretty neck and neck even though a lot of you might not think that these cars compete and today we're going to go through everything you need to know about these two cars so case what do you got over there I have a brand new Mazda 3 hatchback but it's not just a standard Mazda 3 hatchback this is the all wheel drive turbo model and why don't I go ahead and pop the hood this is a skyactive 2.5 L 4-cylinder like I said with a turbo 250 horsepower and 320 lb feet of torque when you run this on premium it automatically derates itself if you don't but those are pretty solid figures yeah I'd say so that's a good amount of power but I think we need to peek under the hood of the Corolla see what that's packed and this is the allnew gr Corolla which is is the hottest Corolla you can get under here is a 1.3 l turbocharged three cylinder engine so you're down one cylinder compared to that Mazda but lot more power 300 horsepower out of this gr Corolla and a little less torque 273 foot PBS of torque yeah it is interesting it's about well it's 50 more horsepower and 47 fewer torque so their overall output is actually pretty similar despite the fact that this like you said is down a cylinder and it's a little more more than half the displacement as far as styling goes there is quite a substantial difference between these two cars because this Mazda is very smooth very Sleek we have it in a pearl white here with gloss black accents it looks very modern and very grown up this is it does it does look mature good way it's got that sophisticated look and there's so many hot hatches out there that you know they just are so in your face and over the top and this gives you all the fun of having a hot hatch without screaming look at me and look what I'm driving the other thing that I like about it is that it's a little bit longer than the Corolla so this is about 3 in longer than the Corolla even though it's actually 2 in narrower which is part of what gives it that Sleek elongated kind of profile especially when you look at it from the side yeah I really like the design of these mazas especially when you come around to the rear something about this big body panel here I just think is an awesome look absolutely huge pillar there the other interesting thing as far as design goes there is a little bit of chrome when it comes to the badging most everything is gloss black until you come around to the bottom of the window here and you have this one lone bit of chrome if it were me I'd kind of like to see that just match the rest of the trim all right case what do you think about the new gr Corolla I've got to admit it's definitely even though it's less grown up than the Mazda a widebody hatchback all-wheel drive turbo it's cool yeah you stepping out of this thing you it's hard not to turn your your head and look back at it it's just got that really cool stance to it uh and I think they did a good job making it really stand out but uh not making it too over the top with like a huge wing on the back or anything like that but you you definitely can walk up to it and even if you're not in the know you can tell this isn't your regular Corolla there's no mistaking what it is and I love some of the vents that are built into the wide body on this car I love the wheel design also the gr branded red brake calipers here everything about this screams hot hatch it's this for me case it's the skirt and this little piece they put on the rear door right here that seals the deal for me there is a degree to which you kind of want a hatchback to be a little iny face and a little childish and I think this is that and especially the triple pipes that are back here that's pretty cool stepping inside of the Mazda 3 this is where this car really sets itself apart from the Corolla because the materials in here are topnotch and the design is really good too it's a little hard to tell with this interior being all black that's so good wow yeah that really goes for quite a while but feel this Dash material feel how soft touch that is I've felt soft touch before this is some of the softest Touch of F yeah the Interiors on all modern mazas and especially this one just scream quality and it's not just like the obvious places you put your hands you go kind of lower on the dash everywhere that you'd be reaching even the handles here um by the lock switch it's really hard to run into anything hard plastic and sure you know if you look around you'll find it but there is some for the most part this is a really quality interior for what class of car this is and the gauges look really great the switch gear is really great hard buttons for the climate which is nice my biggest gripe is this infotainment screen it feels far away if we click on something here that highlights a little bit of the bezels the bezels are huge uh and you have to navigate it with this scroll wheel of course this is not it's not a touchscreen it wouldn't make sense for it to be because it's that far away from you so that screen is a low point on this interior for me but the Mater materials and the design and the switch gear kind of make up for it I'd agree with you in everything you just said I am totally at the point where I think everything needs to be a touchcreen I'm so sick of all these weird controls touch screens are good now let's just use touch screens and everything but besides that everything is pretty perfect in here we also have a sunroof which is always nice to I'm not a big fan of sunroofs but if you are this one's got it first things first with driving the Mazda little acceleration it's torky it doesn't really throw you back super hard in the seat but picks up speed pretty nice yeah that doesn't move too bad and uh sounds not bad either yeah it sounds okay it's just a four-cylinder but you hear a little bit of the turbo the bigger thing with driving this car is how relaxing and refined it is because the steering the handling the suspension compliance Comfort everything is is really good it's a pretty quiet interior this is is very close to a luxury car experience in my mind yeah totally once you're sitting inside of this you kind of forget that you're in a hot hatch until you step into it and start accelerating but just cruising down the road especially from the passenger seat um yeah I feel like I'm in any other luxury car and Mazda also Engineers a car that is really nice to drive it gives you feedback it's a fun engaging vehicle to be behind the wheel of even with an automatic transmission and as far as an automatic goes I like this six-speed this transmission feels like a well driven manual it's not like a crazy fast dual clutch or anything but it just does what you want an automatic transmission to do is very predictable and it just makes this car easy to use can I flip you into sport mode here sure let's give that a whirl did that did that work do you see it I see it on the dash yeah and it downshifted me and is keeping me at at a higher RPM so that if I want to slow down a little bit here and have acceleration on tap it's got no problem doing so and yeah it's it's again it's more than adequate acceleration from this car I'd be pretty happy with the speed that you can hit in this yeah I think uh you could definitely have some some good fun days out in some mountain roads on this and at the same time we've got nice leather seats we have a Bose sound system uh pretty nice looking wide screen up there that shows us our map even though it's not the best infotainment system in the world but uh yeah good place to spend [Music] time oh man cloth seats doesn't matter case why does it not matter right there yeah you can't get a manual with the turbo and all-wheel drive on the Mazda so you've got that going for you yeah this is the highlight of this Interior right here I can forget about everything else that's in here it's still not a bad place to be but it's not the quality interior you get in the Mazda over there definitely some soft touch but hard plastics on the doors and pretty much everywhere you look and if I start it up here we'll take a peek at the technology not a bad screen system still have a digital cluster in front with a lot of cool information really big fan of that this car also yells at you a lot when you start up but not quite as much I do like the information that you can pull up on your in instrument cluster there that's all good it doesn't look quite as nice quite as premium or even nearly as nice and premium as it does in the Mazda and then this screen I'm not sure that this is really any better it is touchscreen but the bezels are even bigger uh it's not a spectacular setup yeah I'd agree I mean I do like that it's a touchcreen it's easier to interact with um and apparently a little slow to load but yeah it's all right I do again really like the boost gauge I get here and the little G meter but I again I can forget about a lot of the stuff in front of me purely because of this you're going to have to yeah all right case the gr Corolla which I think is a little more fun to drive yeah I would agree with you on that and it's definitely more dramatic acceleration yeah I mean it makes it feel faster because you have to row through your own Gears so that added step makes you feel like you're doing something a little more exciting it's not you know crazy noticeably faster than the MS that we just got out of but uh I still think uh in just about every way this is a little more of a fun cart drive yeah and definitely more aggressive and you notice that this leans more performance than the Mazda in the way that it goes over the road surface because it's for sure stiffer yeah it's definitely stiffer um definitely comes on to boost a little harder I think you can feel it pick up a little more yeah but all of those things do make it a lot of fun to drive so if you really want to go tear up some Canyon roads have fun this is going to be more engaging and again not that the Mazda isn't engaging to drive it is but this even more so this is a lot stiffer and I can really tell now going over these these little Expansion Joints here it's noticeable just like the Mazda 2 a couple different Drive modes so we have this one switch up here that'll go between Eco normal Sport and custom but then you've got a separate selector back here uh to kind of change the power distribution so I have at 60/40 right now but you can also go to a 3070 split where you can push in the center to go to a GR4 track mode which is a really cool thing to be able to adjust at the end of the day if you want a more aggressive vehicle and if you're okay with daily driving a more aggressive vehicle then this is definitely going to be the car to go for the Mazda is just a lot more comfortable a lot more relaxed and more [Music] refined see how the back seats are I'm going to do both back seats because I'm a little bit larger than Alex although I'm not sure he quite agrees seat's pretty far back right now the passenger seat is further forward that would probably be a better place to sit but yeah one way or another no matter how you spin it it's it's a bit cramped back here I also don't have any Vents and if I fold this down I do have cup holders but that's about it not a lot of amenities here in the back seat yeah it looks like the seats are cut out a decent bit for your knees to slide into but still it's not helping a whole lot no I would definitely ask the driver to move the seat up a little bit and then it would probably be be fine but Alex how's the uh trunk looking it's not bad at all and uh it actually goes down quite a bit here drops significantly when you get in so you can get a good amount of stuff in here it's about 20 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats and you've got this little cargo cover keep all your stuff nice and hidden as well yeah your liftover height isn't super super low but let's see how that compares to the Corolla all right let's try the back seat of the Corolla and uh I'm still knees up against the seat in front of me maybe not quite as much as in the Mazda similar head room and a similar lack of features back here in fact just like the front it's also cloth back here so nothing too special and also like the Mazda I do have cup holders but that's about it yeah let's uh take a peek at the trunk too while we're back here and pretty big difference you can notice right away this floor is pretty much right up here at the opening so doesn't drop down quite as far and a good bit less space you're down to about 17.8 cubic feet of cargo space in the rear of this yeah it's definitely not a massive trunk now to wrap things we have to say which one we would actually choose to take home and buy and I'm going to start off by saying that this car is about $38,000 as spec that car is about $39,000 aspect so in that way they're very comparable but this is of course the real world and in the real world a lot of dealerships do markups and we've seen those markups on these gr Corollas and this being marked up a lot more than that I personally would have a hard time spending my money if it's that going to be that much more expensive yeah I totally agree with you this as it sits as it spec on paper MSRP just over close to $40,000 it's like 396 and some change and at that price I'd be a customer all day long and I would be more than happy to pay a little more for the gr Corolla than the Mazda over there but seeing these $10,000 markups I couldn't justify paying over 50 grand for one of these it just doesn't feel like a $50,000 car to me so if you can get one of these at MSRP I'd go all day long with the Toyota and if you can't the Mazda is a great pick till these come down in price anyways let us know what you guys would pick down in the comments below that's all for this video you can check out even more of our videos on altf fl.com we'll see you in the next for

Channel: TFLnow

Views: 19,000

Keywords: tflnow, the fast lane, tfl, toyota corolla, toyota vs mazda, mazda3 vs corolla, 2023 toyota corolla, toyota corolla vs mazda 3, mazda 3 vs toyota corolla, toyota, corolla, 2024 toyota gr corolla, civic vs corolla, 2024 toyota corolla, corolla vs mazda3, toyota gr corolla 2024, toyota corolla review, toyota corolla 2023, mazda3, 2023 toyota corolla price, 2023 toyota corolla review, toyota gr corolla, honda vs toyota, mazda 3, toyota corolla vs mazda 3 2022

Id: Ea2nmndm0B8

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2024