2023 Volkswagen Amarok: Everything you need to know!

CarExpert

The all-new Volkswagen Amarok shares a platform with the new Ford Ranger, but while they may be the same underneath, the look and feel of this new ute is all Volkswagen. Paul Maric runs you through everything you need to know about the new 2023 Volkswagen Amarok. We don't know pricing yet for Australia, but it will arrive locally in early 2023.  Volkswagen Amarok AMA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdmHLcNRgfs Volkswagen Amarok full details: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/2023-volkswagen-amarok-revealed-everything-you-need-to-know  More Volkswagen content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen More Volkswagen Amarok content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen/amarok  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior Design: 1:42 Interior: 6:21 Engines: 10:13 Price and timing: 12:53 Wrap up: 13:17  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: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #vw #amarok #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. The Volkswagen Amarok has just been revealed and yes, while you think

00:05 it's probably just a reskinned version of the Ford Ranger, today I'm going to take you

00:09 through all of the details that we know so far, plus when we're expecting it to finally

00:14 arrive here in Australia. We do have a stack of videos, including a live AMA here on the

00:19 Amarok, so have a look down in the description below to get links to those that you can watch

00:23 later on. But let's get started with this. If you haven't done so already, please make

00:27 sure you subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, but let's get cracking.

00:33 Let's kick off with the platform. So before we go into exactly what this is like beneath

00:37 the skin, it is worth mentioning the obvious, this is now shared with the Ford Ranger. So

00:41 beneath the skin, the Volkswagen Amarok is effectively a Ford Ranger, but Volkswagen has

00:46 been working with Ford since the very outset of the design program and also the engineering

00:51 program for the next generation Ranger to make sure that it meets a lot of their functional

00:55 requirements. And I suspect that some of that requirement was to have a V6 diesel, which

01:00 they have integrated into the Ford Ranger and subsequently here into the Volkswagen

01:04 Amarok. It is worth pointing out here as I read off the list here, because it is quite

01:08 specific, the windscreen, roof, side, rear windows, door handles, mirror housing, and

01:14 hard points are the same as the Ranger. But the stuff that is unique to the Amarok is

01:18 the rest of the exterior, including the bonnet, the fenders, the outside door skins, they're

01:22 all unique to the Amarok. And just like the Ranger, the Amarok was designed and engineered

01:27 here in Australia. A lot of work has been done here locally on the vehicle. Now I do

01:31 have a confession to make. A little while back, we got some spy footage of an Everest

01:35 and a Ranger, except now we know that was actually an Amarok that was tested. We didn't

01:40 know that at the time. So a little fun fact there. Let's jump over to the design. So Volkswagen

01:46 is offering the Amarok globally with a number of designs. There's five to choose from. There's

01:51 the Amarok, which is the base model, Life, Style, Adventurer, and the Off-Road Panamericana.

01:58 What cool names. Here for Australia, I suspect we'll get the two top spec versions. It'll

02:03 also come in two different body styles globally as well, a single cab and a dual cab. But

02:08 again, for the Australian market, I suspect we will just be getting the dual cab version.

02:12 It is interesting though, the single cab can actually fit two Euro-sized pallets, which

02:16 I think is pretty impressive. Let's talk about the exterior first. I'm going to crack

02:20 open my vision here of the Amarok and just run you through what I think. So right at

02:27 the front there, the first time I saw this, I kind of got Colorado vibes. It has similar

02:32 headlight design to that, and probably the blue isn't the best colour. I don't think

02:36 it does it enough justice there, but you can see a different set of headlights compared

02:40 to what you see on the Amarok today. Big Volkswagen logo there. Beneath the Volkswagen logo, you

02:44 actually have Amarok text. So you can see that hidden just under there. And that is

02:50 basically just another touch point where they can stick an Amarok badge. And then beneath

02:54 that, you also have the radar sensor and your recovery points as well. It is worth calling

03:00 out here just in terms of the dimensions, it's 96 millimetres longer than the previous

03:05 version of the Amarok. That brings it in at 53, 50 millimetres in terms of length. So

03:10 this is getting to become a big ute. And that's before you put something like a tow bar on

03:15 it, which extends it even further there. The width is 34 millimetres less. I do remember

03:20 every time I sat in the back seat of an Amarok, it actually felt really nice and wide. It

03:24 was very cramped for legroom, but it felt very wide. That's going to feel slightly narrower

03:29 now and that is to comply with some of the dimension tax elements you have in countries

03:35 like Thailand. So that's why they've had to shrink that given it shares a platform with

03:38 the Ranger. In terms of other dimensions worth calling out, the wheelbase, it's grown by

03:43 173 millimetres. That is huge. And the wheelbase is the length between the front wheel and

03:49 the rear wheel. The reason that's so important is it means that it should finally have decent

03:54 legroom in the second row. So it means you're not really compromised all that much for cargo

03:58 volume, but it does afford you more room inside the cabin given the length has increased as

04:02 well. So that's really good to see. Just on the exterior there, you can see they've hidden

04:06 V6 badge just up there next to the headlights. Then if we whip around the side of this car,

04:11 you can see the big sail plane at the back there on this top spec version. That actually

04:16 looks really cool. You've got chrome door handles. On the side profile within the door

04:21 skins, you can see there's a little cut out there that's unique to Amarok. I think, I

04:25 don't think it's similar to what they do on the Ranger. Some of those wheel arch flares,

04:29 it really just gives this quite a sort of muscular appearance out on the road. The roof

04:33 racks, they can hold 350 kilos, which is a huge increase compared to the previous generation

04:39 of the Amarok. So it's pretty impressive there in terms of the amount of load you can actually

04:44 stick on the roof. It's interesting to see the extensive use of chrome here. So chrome

04:48 on the front there, chrome on the door handles, chrome on those mirror caps as well. They

04:53 have gone to town there on a fair bit of chrome. Now around the back, this is probably the

04:57 bit that I like the most. I love that they've embossed Amarok along the back. They've got

05:01 the V6 badge, but I love the taillights the most. So they're LED taillights, they light

05:06 up beautifully. You've got those inner sections that are body coloured as well, just to give

05:10 this a bit of a unique character. The tailgate looks similar to the Ranger there in terms

05:14 of its profile. It looks like it's got a little lip on the top of it. The Ranger actually

05:18 has inbuilt things like your holders for clamps and that kind of thing. I can't see any of

05:23 that here on the Amarok, but I suspect that they will eventually offer that given it is

05:26 built into the platform. The tray on the back there is electric, so it can zip out of the

05:30 way if you need to. And I think that sailplane really gives it a bit of character. It extends

05:34 the cab a bit and makes it look like a much bigger vehicle instead of it just being a

05:38 dual cab ute. You'll notice here with the headlights, the fancy little dance that they're

05:41 doing there. This will be available with matrix LED headlights. Now that's a big thing in

05:48 the dual cab ute game because it means that if you are travelling through the country,

05:51 which a lot of owners of dual cab utes are likely to be doing, you're going to get excellent

05:55 projection out onto the road. You're going to be able to then block incoming vehicles

06:00 from seeing your high beam. It will gradually shut down those lights as it goes. And I think

06:04 that is really good news. I can't actually think of any other dual cab utes that offer

06:08 matrix LED headlights aside from the Ford Ranger that's just about to be launched. So

06:12 good to see that they've actually gone to the effort of putting all of that in there.

06:16 Let's go inside the cabin. This is where they've really gone to town on just giving this a

06:19 luxury appearance. Righto, this is what I'm talking about. So there are two versions here

06:26 of the screen sizes. So you can go 10.1 or the higher 12-inch screen. Now it is interesting,

06:32 Volkswagen obviously has their own infotainment system, but what they've done here is they've

06:35 taken the Ford SYNC 4 system and then overlaid a Volkswagen skin, but it is a little bit

06:40 unique in some regards. So you've got a manual volume knob down the bottom there. Up the

06:44 top, it looks like a home button. So it's similar to what they've done with new Volkswagen

06:48 Golf. I don't really love that infotainment system. So hopefully this one works significantly

06:53 better than that, but it is a big screen and you're going to get the same functionality

06:57 that you get there in the Ranger, which means hopefully over the air updates, it means they

07:01 can give you new features over time, which I think is a really good sort of thing to

07:05 have. Up on the top there, you can actually see there is a hidden glove box. So you've

07:09 got a glove box down the bottom, but a storage container up the top. So that should mean

07:13 that you can flick little bits and pieces in there. The air vents look different to

07:16 the Ford Ranger as well. And if you look along the dashboard there, they've actually went

07:20 to a lot of effort there in terms of the material. So the dashboard looks like it's like a leather

07:25 style material. It looks fairly premium. And that's what leads me to believe that this

07:30 is going to have a higher price tag, but let's wait and see. This is also interesting as

07:35 well, Harman Kardon. So we have seen in the Ford Ranger, they've gone down the path of

07:39 Bang & Olufsen with the B&O Play sound system. Harman Kardon is what Volkswagen works with

07:45 in the rest of their passenger vehicles. So you can see they've gone down the same path

07:48 for the dual cab ute. And that's pretty exciting because if you love your music, driving a

07:52 dual cab ute these days, the sound systems in them are generally pretty bad. This is

07:56 at least going to mean that you can pump your tunes while you're on the way to work or,

07:59 you know, doing something else interesting on the weekend. The seats look typical Volkswagen.

08:04 They've got that sort of multi-tone colour layout. I'd love if they came with like a

08:08 massage function. I reckon that'd be pretty cool given how hard you tradies work. You

08:12 want a little light massage on the way home without having to stop somewhere. I think

08:16 this could be a really cool option to kind of relieve your stress. Centre airbag as well,

08:21 which means they should get a five-star safety rating. A centre airbag is required these

08:25 days for that. And on the safety front in general, I just want to call out some of the

08:28 features here. So AEB, it's the tech that stops the car if you don't. Blind spot monitoring,

08:33 rear cross traffic alert, lane keeping assistant, traffic sign recognition, adaptive cruise

08:37 control, front and rear parking sensors, 360 camera, semi-autonomous parking, but most

08:42 importantly airbags in the second row. Gee, who would have thought that would have been

08:46 a nice thing to have? The current Amarok, which is still on sale in Australia, still

08:50 doesn't have rear airbags, which is just absolutely insane given how old that platform is. So

08:56 I think here on the interior, they've done well. A big TFT display there ahead of the

08:59 driver too. So I haven't seen any mention of a head-up display, both in the Ranger and

09:03 this, which is a little bit disappointing. A head-up display these days is something

09:07 really handy, especially here in Australia where our driving laws are so bloody strict.

09:12 The steering wheel as well looks different to the rest of the Volkswagen steering wheels.

09:16 That's great news because I'm really not a fan of the haptic feedback steering wheel that's

09:20 on a lot of new Volkswagen products. This actually has physical buttons there that you

09:24 have to push, which I think is significantly better than something that's half-baked with

09:28 those haptic feedback controls. Before I jump on the engine, I just want to talk about this

09:31 Panamericana. I reckon this is probably the pick of the range. It's kind of the off-road

09:36 focus version. You can see that it has a meaty set of these all-terrain chunky tyres on it,

09:42 and it's good to see that they are actually thinking of that. So this looks like it's

09:45 the off-road focus version. I also prefer the front end on this, and I don't know whether

09:49 it's just the colour scheme, but they've kind of blanked out that sort of halo effect they

09:54 have down the bottom, and it actually looks really nice and tough. So if you are into

09:57 your off-roading, this is probably going to be the pick of the range. So I can see rear

10:01 disc brakes there, and I don't know if that's just for the V6 versions. So still TBC on

10:07 that, but it is good to see that it does have rear disc brakes, similar to what the existing

10:11 Amarok does in V6 trim. Let's talk about the engines. I think this is the most impressive

10:17 part here. So they have a number of engines to pick from, and it is a little bit confusing.

10:22 So depending on where you are around the world when you're watching this, you're going to

10:24 have a different selection of engines. In total, there are four different engine types

10:29 available in Amarok, but they have a number of different states of tune. You have a stack

10:33 of different gearboxes, so you have a five and a six-speed manual. You also have a six

10:37 or a 10-speed automatic. Let's talk about what's coming to Australia first, and kicking

10:42 things off will be a 2.0-litre single turbocharged diesel. It makes 125 kW of power and 405 Nm

10:50 of torque. This is likely to just be available in entry-level models. Stepping up, then you

10:55 get the 2.0-litre twin turbo diesel four-cylinder, and that one makes 154 kW of power and 500

11:02 Nm of torque. That's the same as what we're seeing in the new Ford Ranger. It's a really

11:06 good engine, and it actually works really well with that 10-speed auto. The one that

11:10 is going to get all of you excited, though, is the V6 diesel. So this mirrors what Ford

11:15 will offer with the Ranger. It's a 3.0-litre turbocharged unit, 184 kW of power and 600

11:22 Nm of torque. That is nice and meaty. That will be exclusively available as an all-wheel

11:27 drive, so it'll be a permanent all-wheel drive setup, but you can switch it to two-high if

11:31 you need to, where it'll send torque to the rear wheels. And exciting news for Australia,

11:36 we're actually also getting a turbocharged petrol. So we're getting the 2.3-litre turbo

11:41 four that's offered in the Ranger in the States, 222 kW of power, 452 Nm of torque. I am excited

11:49 for that to be offered in Australia, because at the moment we are a diesel nation, so it

11:52 would be cool to see a bit of a peaky fun-to-drive four-cylinder turbo petrol. I know petrol

11:58 prices are expensive at the moment, but I would like to see that. It is worth calling

12:02 out as well that there are a couple of other engines available in other markets. So some

12:07 of the African nations will get a smaller version of that single-turbo four-cylinder

12:11 diesel that'll make 110 kW of power and 350 Nm of torque. And then Europe's also going

12:17 to get a detuned version of the V6 diesel that makes 177 kW of power, but strangely

12:22 still makes 600 Nm of torque. 80-litre fuel tank as well.

12:27 In terms of your actual driving, there's a couple of stats here I want to point out.

12:31 800mm weighting depth, so that matches Ranger, and it's up from the 500mm on the Amarok previously.

12:37 3,500kg brake towing capacity, so that means you can actually tow properly with this. Up

12:43 to 1.16 tonnes of payload in the tray, so a certified workhorse in some variants. The

12:48 rear shocks are mounted outboard of the chassis rails, also like the Ranger.

12:53 So let's talk about timing and pricing. Australia, we're not going to get this until early next

12:59 year, and the whole reason for that is the current Amarok can't be sold beyond November

13:03 this year due to side impact safety rules. So they're going to try and milk as much as

13:08 they can out of that. So there will be a slight hiatus between production of Amarok ending

13:12 for Australia in November and this going on sale early next year.

13:16 How much is it going to cost? Well, let me know in the comments section below how much

13:19 you're expecting to pay for this, but given how Volkswagen has been moving in terms of

13:23 pricing for the rest of their vehicles, I can see this going up. I see things like that

13:27 sort of leatherette material along the dashboard and some of those extra niceties they've fitted

13:32 to this car, and it makes me think that it's probably going to be a little bit more expensive

13:36 than the current Amarok, and potentially a little bit more expensive than the Ranger.

13:39 So they're going to have to be careful there, but I don't think it'll be more expensive

13:42 than the Ranger Raptor. It's going to be built in South Africa for the Australian market,

13:47 but they will have other build locations for other countries, but for us, it'll be coming

13:51 from South Africa.

13:52 So there it is, the new Volkswagen Amarok. We cannot wait to drive this, and we cannot

13:57 wait to drive the new Ford Ranger as well. I mentioned earlier that we did an AMA where

14:01 you guys got to ask any questions you wanted live. That was heaps of fun. So scroll down

14:05 to the description below where we have links to that, plus also links to stories on our

14:08 site with all of the details you need to know about the new Volkswagen Amarok.

14:12 Now, if you did enjoy this video, please share it with your mates, hit the like button, and

14:17 if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel so you can watch more of this

14:20 stuff as soon as it goes live. But until next time, take it easy.

Category

Transcript

Recommended