2025 Toyota Corolla Cross: The Drive Dog Review

The 2025 Toyota Corolla Cross is a cute compact SUV. There’s nothing exceptional about it but it looks good, rides well, and can comfortably carry a few people and their cargo. Today we’ve tapped our Canine Correspondent Bramble (Australian shepherd/golden retriever mutt) to help us decide if it’s a good car for dogs and their owners.

Now that cars are getting too big for normal parking spaces, I’m starting to miss the small SUVs of the ’90s. Remember the first-gen Toyota RAV4? It was tight inside but versatile, practical, and good on gas. I was hoping that the Corolla Cross would be a return to that, but, believe it or not, this new car is still over a foot longer than that old RAV4. And to be brutally honest, the interior materials don’t feel as robust as I remember the ones in the ’90s model being, either.

On the upside, the Corolla Cross Hybrid claims an impressive 42 mpg in combined driving and is an IIHS Top Safety Pick—smoking Toyota’s old SUVs on two important metrics. Bramble, however, was more interested in things like door sizes, window height, and accessibility.

Hop-in Heights

Rear Seat Ease of Access: Read More