Today I drive and review a 2023 Volkswagen Atlas 2.0T SE!
Okay so continuing along here in the atlas um some other stuff see comfort’s really good i kind of talked about that in the walk around but hey everyone it’s ben hardy here and today is going to be reviewing the all-new volkswagen atlas first and foremost a huge shout out thank you to the strong volkswagen here in downtown salt lake for giving me some time with this
New atlas i’m gonna put a link to their inventory in the description down below so you can see what they have currently something that’s awesome about these strong volkswagen here in salt lake is they have a lifetime powertrain warranty and on top of that they also have a vip package that gives you cool stuff like free car washes who doesn’t want free car washes
Also paintless dent repair and there are a lot more items if you have any questions whatsoever just ask for alex like i said link the inventory in the description down below and then on a side note if you save time money the next time purchase car link to my carbine guide in the description down below as well let’s get into it foreign we have a turbocharged
2-liter four cylinder that goes through an 8-speed automatic transmission fuel economy’s 20 around town and then 24 on the highway with power outputs being 235 horsepower and then 258 pound-feet of torque now let’s go over the front end of the lamborghini urus i mean volkswagen atlas i mean it’s it’s all the same platform isn’t it anyways you guys can see you’ve
Got these distinctive lines here on the hood and then coming down below you guys can see here with the day timer lights i think those actually look pretty dang sweet and then the headlights are actually super bright i love how the daytime ring light kind of turns into chrome trim and how that goes into the grille that is really cool when it comes to design details
Got the volkswagen logo front and center and then you guys can see the venting off to the side and then the darker trim here at the bottom and there’s obviously some silver trim wrapped around that and overall i think this is a pretty dang good looking suv from a front-end perspective come here on the side here turn wheel setup is 245 60 18 on the front and over
In the rear as well and then you guys can see here with the design on the wheels you got the silver on the top and you got like the black below that i think it actually looks pretty cool overall and then you guys can see here with the fender flare that contrasts the white paint on this one and then the love how there’s this body line it’s like above the fender
Plate it kind of like mimics it it does go all along the side here of the atlas and then something that volkswagen is very proud of with the new atlas is that it has independent front and rear suspension which should help out with the ride quality quite substantially but there’s your full side view so here’s a key fob for the atlas pretty simplistic got the vw
Logo there on the back we have our lock the unlock for the hatch and then the regular unlock function now with this particular package the hatch is hydraulic with the opening it’s not power but you can get higher up packages on the atlas which we’ll review those later this year anyways first aid kit and then i love how you’ve got like this cover here but if we go
To the corner here and kind of pick this up it does have some velcro to keep it in place you guys can see the storage space underneath and so you guys can probably guess what that is because if we pop underneath well we have the muffler i suppose interesting anyways more storage space here on either side and then as for the seats you’ve got this little latch here
That you can just grab and then throw the seat forward and then you have the strap which you can just grab and then pull the seat back into place pretty simple with the overall functionality on that and that’s the rear when you’re done they give you this nice handle to just boop now let’s go to the rest of the rear of the atlas so you guys can see we actually
Have this little spoiler here at the top and then we do have a rear wiper some suvs don’t have those anymore which is kind of strange to me anyways got the vw logo atlas and then you guys can see sc and then four motion here on the other side and then look at the tail lights i think those look pretty cool they kind of remind like that the wise kind of reminds
Me of lamborghini tail lights like i said this is basically a urus so and just take that into account and then also you can probably see here at the bottom we’ve got fake exhaust tip covers because while the exhaust is actually underneath so here’s the door panel in the rear first off we have a sunshade here for the rear passengers which is a nice feature and i
Actually really like this look at the stitching that goes across in the padding down below i think that looks pretty neat and then we’re actually going to start things off with a third row i know pretty unusual look how easy that is that’s why i want to start things off the third row like this is probably the easiest like seat situation ever in terms of just like
Pulling it forward to access now popping in oh a little bit cramped ah and now that i’m back here legroom so headroom is great leg room obviously is a little bit cramped but it’s not an atlas thing it’s just this segment of crossover slash suv they’re always cramped with the third row got some cup holders there so yeah just like i’ve said in the past with this
Segment so like you know ford explorer dodge durango i typically would reserve this for kids but they actually get vents here in the back of the atlas that’s actually nice not a lot of automakers will do that so let’s head to the second row now actually going into the second row last thing i want to mention i was able to get this seat back into place all with one
Hand so like first system i can do that that’s pretty impressive anyways got nice stitching on the headrest and then it’s actually perforated there in the center pretty cool and the institution continues there alongside i think the seats look pretty nice and then popping in there’s your leg room yeah i saw it with the headroom as well and then you guys can see a
Little storage pocket there and then i got some vents we got our climate controls here for the rear and we got a 12 bolt down below for charging then of course our cup holder armrest and yeah these seats are really comfortable and they also have a recline function like what more could you ask for let’s head to the front so here is the front door panel i actually
Like this trim piece here at the top that looks pretty neat got a door lock and unlock controls blind spot monitoring here for the mirrors and then look at the trim down below just like the door panel on the rear i think at normal stuff like your window controls and then the mirror adjustments all that and then here are the front seats they’re just like the rear
Except the bolsters are a little bit chunkier and then there’s your whole bottom view power adjustments here on the side pedal layout down below and then we have our light controls right here steering wheel is manually adjustable let’s pop in so here is our steering for the atlas we actually have a nice soft touch trim all around nice contrasted stitching on the
Center portion and then we have practical controls like our voice command controls from control to a center stack we’ve got a cruise control here on the other side and then if you guys are wondering that’s for the volume control right there turn signal stock windshield wiper stock and i also like the new like volkswagen airbag cover i think it looks pretty cool
Now here is our gauge cluster digital gauge cluster this must actually have a pretty decent sized fuel tank it’s 485 miles of uh driving range i think that’s pretty impressive but you guys can see i can scroll through some different menus here so i can go to like economy for example um but i mean this car hasn’t really been driven so like there’s not going to
Be anything for us to see there but yeah that’s that’s the center portion right there now when i do change the drive mode it will show up there in the corner so you can see right there at the drive mode but there’s a cool animation on the screen and i just hit the windshield wiper that’s all for the center now here’s a snare infotainment screen you guys can see
With the backup camera now we do have fixed trajectory lines resolution lines pretty decent now moving from that to the rest of the screen now this is obviously volkswagen’s like smaller like base unit and first off i’d have to say that response times solid for being a base unit so like i think that they did a great job with that i do like the physical buttons
Because then it’s easy to just go back to the main page but it’s it’s simplistic like you can connect your phone to it you can listen to music like you know it’s got all the stuff you need and nothing that you don’t i do want to mention this is nice got some stitching here on the dash and look above the glove box got some or that wood trim and then down below we
Have our climate controls so we have our climazone here for the front and then notice we have heated seats as well we got our auto stops our function if you want to turn that off then we have our charging area some usbs shifter for that eight-speed automatic and then you got your engine stop start button here and then parking brake now we do have our drive mode
Select which is pretty cool so i can press that button and that actually pulls the whole thing up um but notice we’ve got a snow we have a normal and then we have an off-road mode and then we have an off-road custom but you guys probably notice the normal mode we have more modes because we have a sport custom and then eco so instead of having like this whole dial
Filled up they kind of made the dial have a little bit less on it and then you do have to use the touchscreen to kind of go into some of the modes let me know what you guys think about that but i like the little like picture they give you now this is awesome the center console it’s actually very big for this size of suv and then got the glove box there and then up
Top there’s basically just a sunglass hole you got controls the lights and then lighter colored heather nothing crazy so here’s our wind sticker for this 2023 atlas and it looks like pretty much everything is stand equipment that we went over base price is 36 500 so it looks like okay well the paint color doesn’t add anything so the bench seat 327 uh yeah other
Than that everything’s from a standard total msrp and yeah i guess that someone’s uh dog got a hold of this window sticker i’m just kidding anyways 38 162 dollars let’s see how this drives let’s talk about visibility before we set off you should visibility over the hood both the mirrors do a blind spot monitoring and then throw out the rest of the rear and let’s
Set off so setting off in the volkswagen atlas and i’m actually really excited to review this because i’ve never reviewed an atlas with the turbocharged 4-cylinder i’ve only reviewed atlases that have the v6 powertrain and so yeah it’ll be pretty interesting to see how this performs and also in today’s market of crazy prices it’ll be interesting to see what a more
Affordable car is like and i’ve kind of talked about this in several videos but i’m making a strong attempt to review a lot more affordable cars this year because you know that’s what a lot of people want to uh look at right now especially with the state of the economy but anyways ride quality is actually exceptional uh seriously like this is a really good platform
And that’s why uh well volkswagen group uses it for a lot of different vehicles that uh have a lot of different price ranges right and so that’s one of the benefits of actually purchasing a modern volkswagen is you actually get a car that is that has a platform that underpins it that is built for far more expensive vehicles and so this actually rides like pretty
Much like a luxury car okay so continuing along here in the atlas um some other stuff see comfort’s really good i kind of talked about that in the walk around but just wanted to mention that again and i didn’t adjust my mirrors before i drive don’t be don’t be like ben hardy adjust your mirrors before you drive folks um okay so um i made a few video mistakes so
We’re kind of uh taking things back a little bit in the video so see comfort here with the atlas is actually really really solid um i’m super impressed with that and just the overall driving experience so far now i do have it in the sport mode now um we’re in a slow uh zone right now so we’ll get an acceleration in just a moment but something i want to mention
Is yeah it this this feels like a really small vehicle so i can just press the button in and then i’ll also change the on-road drive mode so we’re in sport and some other stuff here with the atlas is it’s just i like it just feels surprisingly normal i guess it’s a good way to put it um it doesn’t do anything that annoys me like so i think that’s i think that’s a
Good thing and get a little acceleration here definitely some turbo lag but once you get into the turbos it moves it moves at a very decent pace you just have that initial bit of turbo lag that you got to kind of work around which makes sense again it’s a two liter four cylinder that’s pretty typical for four cylinder turbos but i mean overall it’s it’s actually
Pretty solid i when i looked at the power figures this is this is the funny thing about like normal car journalists i look at the power figures and the the thing was this is the power underwhelming extremely underwent like that was what was next to the power figure it’s like okay buddy okay um but yeah this is it’s really this is really comfortable uh it’s quiet
And i think that volkswagen has done in amazing job here with the atlas from just everything the ride quality and i’m super impressed honestly i’m super impressed with this and so yeah if you’re looking for more of like a you know i would say like a luxury car experience and uh and not at a luxury car price that’s what the atlas uh provides you with it really it
Really does they’ve done like i said volkswagen’s done an amazing job with this and especially considering the price point like a lot of other manufacturers for a similar package to what this has they’re charging you know what 45 50 000 and this is less than forty thousand dollars i think this is a really good value that’s because something’s up with our video on
This atlas again a huge shot and thank you to the strong volkswagen here in downtown salt lake bring me some time with this atlas check them description down below ask for alex i’ll see you guys
Transcribed from video
2023 Volkswagen Atlas 2.0T: Is This Better Than Expected? By Ben Hardy
