Can you believe Volkswagen actually listened to our feedback? Paul Maric jumps behind the wheel of the 2023 Volkswagen T-Roc and discovers that Volkswagen listened to his feedback on the original version.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Volkswagen content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen
More Volkswagen T-Roc content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen/t-roc
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 1:13
Interior 3:32
Infotainment 4:54
Safety 6:29
Practicality 7:13
On the road 10:31
0-100km/h 14:55
Driver aids 16:29
Verdict 20:12
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#volkswagen #troc #review #vw
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Volkswagen content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen
More Volkswagen T-Roc content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen/t-roc
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 1:13
Interior 3:32
Infotainment 4:54
Safety 6:29
Practicality 7:13
On the road 10:31
0-100km/h 14:55
Driver aids 16:29
Verdict 20:12
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
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Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#volkswagen #troc #review #vw
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So SUVs are all the craze at the moment, but if you don't want a giant
00:04 whopper SUV, something like this is a good alternative because it looks like an SUV,
00:09 but it doesn't take up a stack of room inside your garage. It's called the Volkswagen T-Roc.
00:14 Recently it was updated. We reviewed this a while ago and a lot of you guys absolutely
00:18 loved it. So I'm keen to see whether they fixed some of the criticisms we had with the
00:21 first one. This is called the R-Line, so it sits right at the top there before you jump
00:26 into the actual full fat R version, which I'm actually very excited to drive. This is
00:31 priced at a little under $45,000, but if that's too expensive, the entire range kicks off
00:36 at under 40 grand, which I think is pretty good when you consider what you're getting
00:40 with it. And I said this in a few other videos, there are parts shortages and stuff. So some
00:45 of the stuff that we talk about in this car may not actually be available when you go
00:48 to order. So make sure you check that first. This competes with things like the Ford Puma,
00:52 the Kia Seltos, Renault Captur, a stack of little SUVs in this segment. So today we're
00:57 going to do a detailed review of this car. So if you do want to skip ahead to other parts
01:00 of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you
01:04 can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe
01:07 to our channel and press the bell icon. That way you'll find out every single time we review
01:11 a small SUV.
01:14 So let's talk about the exterior. You've got six external colours to pick from. So depending
01:17 on which one you go for, they're all going to cost you money except white. So that'll
01:20 cost you either $650 or $900. So in terms of the T range, this is the bigger of the
01:26 two. This is the T-Roc. There is a T-Cross, and I don't know that that looks as good.
01:30 This on the other hand actually doesn't look too bad. So down the bottom here, you've got
01:33 these chrome highlights and R badge here. Keep in mind, this is not the full fat R version.
01:38 It's just the R line, which is a little bit confusing, but it still makes people think
01:42 you're driving the fast one. Down the bottom here, you've got a little piano black section.
01:45 You've got these LED lights off to the side and also LED lights in here that act as an
01:51 indicator too. And then you have full LED headlights as well. So I think it is a pretty
01:55 nice design. I'm keen for your feedback. Let me know in the comments section below.
01:59 We'll whip around to the side here. So around the side here, you're going to find a set
02:02 of 19 inch alloy wheels. They're a piano black finish. Look, I like the design, but the problem
02:09 here is the rotors are so small that they kind of get shrunk into that little space
02:14 there. So, you know, I think it looks better on the full fat R version because you get
02:18 a bigger set of brakes, but here it just kind of looks a little bit shrunk, but that's okay.
02:22 Wheel arch cladding over here. Keep in mind, this is the all wheel drive version, but it's
02:26 not really off-road focused. That's why you've only got a ground clearance of about 155mm.
02:31 It means it is easier to get in and out of, but you're not going to be doing any off-roading.
02:34 I wouldn't even be doing a lot of off-roading in this because you know, end up doing a little
02:37 bit of damage. At the top here, another R badge there. Then on the top here as well,
02:41 you have a piano black finish on there. This is actually the same finish they have on the
02:45 roof as well. So it's a dual tone set up indicator built into there. And again, part shortages
02:50 means you're going to be missing out on some of those features like a 360 camera, depending
02:55 on where you water and what the story is.
02:57 Roof rails up the top here, you have privacy glass, a little bit of carbon. I think it's
03:03 just a sticker. Go around to the back. So around the back here you have full LED tail
03:08 lights, a four motion badge down here because it is all wheel drive. Then in addition to
03:12 that T-rock along the bottom here, and then to open the boot, you actually push that in
03:16 as well, which I think is kind of cool.
03:18 Up the top here, you have a boot lip spoiler with a brake light integrated into there and
03:22 then a shark fin aerial up the top. So let me know what you reckon about the design.
03:26 Do you think this looks good? Or do I need to go get my eyes checked? Let me know what
03:31 you think in the comment section below.
03:32 So we are inside the T-rock. We'll start off with the key. You have lock, boot, unlock,
03:40 and then the key flips out like that. It is a proximity sensing key though, and then you
03:44 have a start button just down here.
03:47 Hey, guess what? Car companies actually watch our reviews and listen because this is all
03:54 soft now. Previously, this was all just scratchy and yuck. So they actually listened and
04:02 have changed it as part of the facelift. So it's genuinely surprised me, which I like.
04:07 So unfortunately though, they then went and stuck piano black over every surface known
04:12 to man here and that kind of takes it back one step. But anyway, and then also the infotainment
04:18 system has moved up here as well. But yeah, look, I think this is much better presented
04:22 now than it was previously.
04:24 In terms of your touch points in the centre here, it's firm but kind of soft for the elbow.
04:29 And then same story on the door there. How soft are they? Well, we've got our durometer,
04:34 we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to
04:37 others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below.
04:42 Now build quality, what is that like? It's actually all really nice and solid, very impressive.
04:48 And our door slam test, going beeping there. Feels really good.
04:54 Now infotainment, I mentioned before that the screen has changed. So it's gone from
04:57 sort of sitting here somewhere to up there. It's like one of those iPad-esque displays.
05:03 And that means you're getting now an 8-inch infotainment system with shortcut buttons
05:08 on either side. It's actually pretty straightforward to use. It has gesture control as well. Let's
05:13 see if that works. Sort of. I don't know, I find those systems a bit pointless. Yeah,
05:21 sometimes doesn't work, sometimes does.
05:22 It has satellite navigation built into the screen and in addition to that, you also have
05:26 smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those are
05:31 wireless. This is what Apple CarPlay looks like. So it takes up the whole screen. It's
05:35 pretty quick and easy to use, quite straightforward. And then Android Auto, this is what that looks
05:40 like. Same story, full screen integration. I love that these are both wireless and pretty
05:44 easy to use.
05:45 On the radio front, you have AM/FM, DAB digital radio. I promise I don't listen to Triple
05:53 J. DAB digital radio and that's all plumbed through a six-speaker sound system. There
05:58 is an optional Beats sound system, so that's what's fitted to this car. It's actually pretty
06:02 good. There's a little subwoofer there as well. So yeah, it's not a bad setup on the
06:06 sound system.
06:07 Head of the driver, you have another 8-inch display which features your virtual cockpit.
06:12 You can switch between a number of different views there. It's all sort of pretty straightforward
06:16 to use.
06:17 The only thing I don't love is the buttons here on the steering wheel. They're touch
06:20 sensitive and they've got haptic feedback, but yeah, they're just a bit clumsy to use.
06:25 Volkswagen is moving away from these on next generation cars as well, by the way.
06:29 Now safety tech. So again, parts shortages, some of this stuff won't be available if you
06:33 order a car today or have one on the way, so just keep that in mind. AEB with pedestrian
06:38 detection. You have an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. Adaptive cruise control with stop
06:42 and go. Blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror over there. Rear cross traffic
06:47 alert. Lane departure warning with a lane keeping assistant, and we'll actually test
06:51 that later on to see how well that works. Rear cross traffic alert. And then finally
06:55 you have front and rear parking sensors with a reverse view camera. I'll show you what
06:58 that looks like.
06:59 There it is there. So yeah, reverse view camera is not the best quality in the world, but
07:06 I can make out what's behind us and then you can see the sonars for the front and rear
07:10 there as well. And you have guidelines as well to tell you where you're going.
07:13 Now moving on to your practicality and we'll start off with connectivity. So you have two
07:17 USB C ports down the front there. Wireless phone charging and a 12 volt outlet. Phone
07:22 can be stored sort of all over the place. There's a couple of little clever storage
07:26 spots in addition to your wireless charger. What about your coffee cup? So it can live
07:32 sort of down here, which is fine. There are no sort of teeth or dividers, I guess, but
07:37 no real sort of teeth to hold it in place. But there is actually a very handy, literally
07:41 coffee cup holder in the centre. That actually doesn't work too badly. Hold that bottle in
07:45 fine but like I said, no teeth. So that sort of moves around a little bit. It fits inside
07:50 the door. There's actually a stack of room in there. I think a big bottle will fit as
07:54 well. That is so cool. There is heaps of room around there. Other storage, you have centre
07:58 console here. That is very small but still usable. And then finally you have a glove
08:05 box as well. It's like a little bin. That's great.
08:07 Now comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control. You have heated seats for
08:13 the front row as well. In terms of seat adjustment, it's electric. So you can go forwards, backwards.
08:19 Backrest can go forwards, backwards. You can lift the front of the seat, the back of the
08:23 seat as well. And then you have lumbar adjustment. And you've also got seat memory for the driver.
08:28 Passenger seat is manual. Seats are interesting. They've got like a faux carbon weave in them,
08:34 which I think is pretty cool. And then the R logo in there as well. Pretty comfy seats
08:38 too, which I'm a big fan of. Steering offers both tilt and reach adjustment. That's manual.
08:44 And then on our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.
08:47 So second row, it is pretty cramped back here. My knees are kind of wedged into the seat.
08:52 My seat is pretty far back, but yeah, not a big fan of that. Stacks of toe room though
08:56 and headroom is excellent as well. While they did improve all the materials and the touch
09:01 points up the front there, this is all still pretty scratchy in the back here, which is
09:06 a little bit disappointing. You do have map pockets in the back of the seats, air vents
09:10 and USB-C ports. ISOFIX points for the two outboard seats with three top tether points.
09:16 Center armrest here with adjustable cup holders, which I like. So you can pop your bottle in
09:21 there without any dramas. Bottle fits inside the door as well.
09:25 Now, in addition to that, you can also fold this down to get access to the boot as well,
09:30 which is pretty handy. And then our all important window test. So it's auto up and down. Boom,
09:37 goes all the way down too. Very impressive. So cargo space, I mentioned before you open
09:44 the boot by pushing that. Powered tailgate is an option and fitted to this car. So you
09:49 have under 400 litres of cargo space available here. It's not a huge boot, but I think it
09:54 is pretty functional. Beneath the cargo floor, you have a reasonable amount of storage under
09:59 there. You do have a space saver spare, but you can tuck other sort of bits and pieces
10:02 into there if you need to. I'm just having a look for a 12 volt here, but it doesn't
10:06 look like it has one. I'll show you what it looks like with our bags in there. So there's
10:10 one. I'll pop this second one in. It doesn't fit in long ways, but it does fit in sideways.
10:15 So that is pretty good. And then what you can do as well is drop the second row to give
10:21 you a bit more space. Once you do that, it's actually pretty much a flat floor there and
10:26 that expands the space to over 1200 litres.
10:34 So we have just hit the road in the T-Roc R-Line. Now under the bonnet of this 2-litre
10:39 turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine makes 140 kilowatts of power and 320 newton metres
10:46 of torque. And that's all made it to a seven-speed dual clutch transmission. Let's see what this
10:52 feels like at low speed. I'm going to slow right down here and we'll take off gently.
10:57 That's not too bad actually. What are we in? Yeah, we're in comfort mode here, so that's
11:02 actually not too bad. It's nice and gentle, but not too laggy or annoying, which is good.
11:07 So tick for the dual clutch transmission in this. And what does it all feel like behind
11:12 the wheel? Well, typically with a dual clutch, they're quite quick and eager to shift down
11:16 gears. Let's see if I bury the foot there. It's okay. A little bit slow on the downshift,
11:22 but once it does grab that gear, it really sort of shunts you back in the seat. Despite
11:26 this not sounding like it has a lot of power and torque, it is actually a pretty decent
11:29 number for a vehicle this size. So it does feel quite sort of quick behind the wheel
11:33 when you do get stuck into it.
11:35 Now let's talk fuel economy. So Volkswagen claims a combined average of 7.3 litres per
11:42 100 k's. Our long-term is currently sitting on 8.6, so it is higher than that figure.
11:46 Generally, with a press car, they tend to have a hard life, and for a long-term average
11:52 to be sitting there compared to the combined claim is actually not too bad. Now this actually
11:57 sends torque through an all-wheel drive system, so it means that you do actually have that
12:01 added assurance as you're going through corners or if you're driving through the snow or something
12:05 like that, that you do have that extra bit of traction. And if you go down here to the
12:08 drive modes, there's actually a stack to choose from. So you have a snow driving profile,
12:13 a road driving profile, off-road auto and off-road expert. So they obviously will change
12:19 things like your stability control and the amount of slip that each wheel is allowed
12:23 to have. And if you do press the middle button here, it actually shows you all the other
12:27 driving modes. You have eco, comfort, normal, sport and individual. So this is all linked
12:32 to the adaptive dampers that are fitted to this particular car, and you can actually
12:36 notice a difference as you move between each of those. So what I'm going to do, I'm going
12:40 to leave it in comfort. We're going to jack our speed up to 130 for our sine waves. So
12:45 if you've seen our other videos, the sine waves are where we get a chance to see what
12:48 this is like on poorer quality roads and for things like overtaking. And 130 is the maximum
12:54 speed limit in Australia, and also a speed limit you're likely to hit on a country road
12:58 if you are overtaking. So here we go on our sine waves. Let's see what this feels like.
13:04 Wow, that is remarkably good. That is excellent body control at that top end there. Really
13:11 just settles nicely and it doesn't fuss about or stay up too long. So really impressed with
13:17 that. In fact, really impressed with the ride in general. There's enough difference between
13:20 all of those drive modes there in terms of the feel behind the wheel. And then in and
13:24 around the city, the ride is fantastic. It really soaks up everything nicely, despite
13:28 the fact you're sitting on fairly big wheels there. So really impressed with the suspension
13:32 setup. Okay, let's go for a little punt here. We'll pop this into sport mode. Oh, instantly
13:41 I can feel that get heavier and the steering become heavier as well. Diving back through
13:46 gears, pop it around our track. Really impressive. So it has a little bit of body roll there,
13:55 but very eager to start moving. I'm not feeling any understeer, which you sometimes feel in
14:01 those on-demand all-wheel drive systems. God, it's revving all the way out as well. It's
14:06 actually not too bad. I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near as dynamic as it is. It's
14:12 actually quite fun. So I think if this is as fun as it is now, can you imagine how much
14:17 fun the actual full-fat R model is going to be? I think it's going to be an absolute weapon.
14:23 I cannot wait to drive that. So coming up to our back section here. This is higher speed.
14:30 It's actually really communicative. I've got good feel through the steering wheel. There's
14:36 still plenty of traction. As we roll onto the back straight here, I can just feel it
14:41 sort of winding on more and more power. It's actually really eager to please. So it's sort
14:47 of putting on that speed very nicely. So very impressed with that. Nice job, Volkswagen.
14:56 Now let's chat 0 to 100. I'm going to pop this into sport mode. So the claimed figure
15:01 is 7.2 seconds, 0 to 100. So I'm actually going to use launch control and I will switch
15:07 off stability control as well. It's a little convoluted. There is no button here. So you're
15:11 going to go into vehicle, then settings and then ESC system, ESC sport. And then to activate,
15:19 I'm going to switch this top start off as well, and to activate launch control, foot
15:22 on the brake, foot on the throttle. You'll see a message come up on the screen there
15:26 saying that launch control is active. So here we go. There it is. Oh, that's nice. Push
15:40 off the line there and we'll go all the way to 120 as well so we can see what our overtaking
15:45 speed is. It's actually moving along really nice and quickly. Very impressed with that.
15:49 And there's 120 there. I'll just pull up. All righty, let's see how we went. 0 to 100
15:57 in 7.3 seconds. Nice. It's pretty much bang on the claim there. And then 80 to 120 in
16:03 5.6 seconds, which is also not too bad. So it does show that at that top end it starts
16:07 losing a little bit of pace, but 0 to 100 in 7.3 seconds I think is pretty impressive
16:11 for a vehicle this size. Okay, time for our reverse test. So I'll pop this into reverse.
16:18 I left it in sport mode just in case. Let's wheel it off. Here we go. That's a hard little
16:25 cut off there at 30 k's an hour, bang on the dot. So it is time to test our lane support
16:31 systems and any of these semi-autonomous steering functions. So I'm going to bump the speed
16:36 up to 70 k's an hour and let's see how we go. So this has a lane departure warning and
16:45 a lane keeping assistant as well. It's called travel assist. Let's see how it works. We're
16:49 going to test it in the three outer lanes. So right now it's holding our bottom lane
16:54 perfectly fine, which is all good. I'll jump over one lane. Let's see how it goes. You
17:01 wait for that to go green down there, little indicator. Let go of the wheel. We're riding
17:06 very close to that line. Yeah, it's better. It's kind of corrected itself there. So with
17:13 these systems, they're all designed for you to keep your hands on the wheel, but I'm just
17:17 letting go a little bit here just so we can demonstrate what's going on. Let's try up
17:21 on the third lane. This is the one that pretty much all cars struggle with and it's a sign
17:25 of how well this system is calibrated. This is interesting. So this has come up with a
17:34 stack of failure messages on the screen now and the last Volkswagen we had here, the Tiguan,
17:41 did the exact same thing. There you go. Maybe we've uncovered a bug here. Interesting. Okay.
17:51 I'll update this video later on once we get an answer from Volkswagen on what is going
17:55 on here, but the exact same thing happened when we tested the Tiguan here on lane or
18:00 the outer lane. So interesting. Okay. So sorry to interrupt your viewing. We've taken a break
18:05 from filming just so I can run you through the explanation from Volkswagen on the issues
18:09 we're facing initially with the Tiguan and then with the T-Roc for our lane support system
18:14 test. So according to Volkswagen, their system doesn't work, this is what the manual says,
18:19 on steep roads and they class that as a steep road because of the angle that it's on. And
18:24 further to that, they say lane detection doesn't function at that angle because marked roads
18:28 are not built at that angle. Please test such functions on roads, both for which they are
18:33 designed and which represent real life situations. The whole reason we use that particular section
18:40 of the banked road is not to test how the car performs on a banked angle. It's actually
18:45 to test how the car performs when applying steering load and that is a torque to the
18:50 steering wheel to keep it within its lane. We found a lot of the better and newer systems
18:54 will actually apply enough torque to keep the car centred in that top lane and that
18:59 is representative of real life as well. Where you approach a bend on a freeway, the car
19:03 is able to apply enough torque to get it around there. The systems that don't work well typically
19:07 don't work well on that outermost lane. We can see now that Volkswagens, for whatever
19:11 reason, don't like that angle because it isn't representative of a real life situation so
19:16 we won't be testing Volkswagens on that road anymore but we will continue testing all the
19:20 other cars that continue to perform well there as well.
19:22 Okay, road noise. What's it like? There is a bit coming into the cabin here on coarse
19:30 chip surfaces, especially at higher speeds, so you will tend to notice that if you're
19:35 doing a highway drive. With a lot of these SUVs, they super-size them from the hatch
19:40 and don't really add extra padding in and it's a bit of a shame because it would actually
19:45 be a beautiful place to be seated if it was a little quieter in here but it's fine. Not
19:49 the end of the world but it is just a little bit noisy for my liking.
19:51 Let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the car there, the wing
19:57 mirrors are nice and big with the blind spot monitor built into there. Visibility out the
20:00 back isn't too bad. It's a fairly narrow envelope but you can sort of see the outer edges which
20:05 is nice and then in terms of parking, you have the semi-autonomous parking mode that
20:08 makes life pretty easy.
20:09 So, the Volkswagen T-Roc, what do we think? Look, I think it's a little let down by the
20:18 lack of legroom in the second row, especially if you're buying this as a family or expecting
20:22 a family. You kind of want just a little bit more space, loading baby seats in and all
20:25 that sort of stuff but it does make up for it with a pretty big boot. It is really nice
20:29 and punchy and it makes me so excited to drive the T-Roc R, the full fat version. I think
20:34 that is going to be an absolute hoot to drive. Rides really nice, it's got all the latest
20:37 tech bells and whistles and easy to park, all that sort of fun stuff. So, let me know
20:41 in the comments section below, have you bought one? Are you finding all of these chip shortages
20:46 and inconsistencies around spec as annoying as I am? Let me know down there. If you did
20:50 enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates and if
20:53 you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon but until
20:56 next time, take it easy.