Volkswagen Golf Alltrack 2015 Review

The Golf Variant (wagon) is a little-understood, little-bought version of the all-conquering hatch and the Alltrack is an even less-understood version of that. But it doesn’t deserve to be. It’s an alternative to a soft crossover SUV, complete with surprising competence off-road, plenty of grip on-road and all the same high-quality Golf Mk7 interior materials you’re used to.

You’ve seen this sort of soft-road thing from Volkswagen before, with the Passat Alltrack, but it’s more commonly associated with Audi’s Allroad franchise and Volvo’s XC sub-brand.

It’s a short-cut to a crossover; using a bodyshell already in production and lifting it a bit, fitting it with all-wheel drive and uncovering a new kind of buyer.

That it is being done with Volkswagen’s big-selling Golf tells you a lot. The five-door hatch is clearly the biggest selling version and it outsells the five-door Variant wagon by about 15 to one worldwide.

That leaves the Variant with an image problem, one Volkswagen hopes to solve by lifting it 20mm, giving it bigger wheels and tyres, some unique tough-talk bodywork and a surprising amount of off-road ability.

The Alltrack hits Europe with four different powertrains, but Volkswagen only had the range-topping 135kW turbodiesel, err, variant for us to drive, probably because it didn’t want it to be too badly shown up by being launched alongside the Golf R Variant and Golf GTD Variant.

The result is a car that’s predictably assured and composed, combining the solidity we’ve come to expect of the Golf 7 with the practicality and extra luggage space of the wagon and the perceptions of ruggedness you get with these kinds of things.

It’s everything Volkswagen says it will be, with one possible exception. Oddly, while stepping up to Allroad status improves the ride in the Audi wagons, it doesn’t seem to do the same in the Alltrack version of the Golf.

Volkswagen instead seems to have focused on making sure the car’s handling still feels crisp, confident and assured, despite the higher roll centre. So it’s a slightly more honest interpretation of the road surface that comes through the multi-link rear-end and MacPherson strut front-end than we initially expected.

You can change that by opting for smaller wheels and tyres, with a taller aspect ratio, but we can’t help what Volkswagen chooses to present us with.

The rest of the package is more initially reassuring and convincing. It’s a hard car to fault on any reasonable level, actually, but that’s before the Australian pricing and timing have come through.

You’ll be able to pick the Alltrack by its taller-riding stance and, if that’s not enough to distinguish it from the almost-identical Golf wagon, there are obvious black wheel-arch extensions that run along the side sills, above the protective layer of silver-painted mouldings.

The 18-inch alloys on our test car weren’t standard (they're going to be 17-inch), but the silver mirror caps, the silver roof-rails and a matt-chrome strip beneath the side windows will be.

It attempts some mirror cred with a high-gloss chrome grille with honeycomb black inner bits and an Alltrack badge. So, not much mirror cred, then. There is a touch of silver-coated under body protection at the front and another one at the rear, where the diesel sites both of its exhaust tips to one side.

The packaging of the Variant is impressive, right from the moment you set foot inside it. The rear cargo area can swallow 605 litres of cargo, even with all the seats occupied. Even with the seats up, the cargo area is 1003mm wide, 936mm high and 1055mm long. Use it all, with the split-fold rear seats folded flat (which gives you 1831mm of length), and you’ve got 1620 litres of space.

It’s all pretty easy to use, too, with the backrests folding forward automatically when you pull levers on either side of the luggage area and while that leaves you with an extended luggage area that isn’t quite flat, it’s close enough to flat for most jobs.

Volkswagen insists it has given the Alltrack the interior specification of a car with a “sporty, off-road character”, which might explain the firm ride.

Up front, it has a beautiful leather-trimmed, ergonomic steering wheel with a rim that feels just right, with leather also coating the gear lever for the six-speed dual-clutch transmission and the seats.

It gets some niceties, too, that belie the Golf badge, like the ambient lighting in the doors, the LED reading lights for all four external seats, a touch-screen infotainment system, satellite navigation, Bluetooth, radar cruise control, climate-control air-conditioning and the word “Alltrack” popping up all over the place. Otherwise, it’s familiar territory for anybody who’s been inside a Golf 7.

The powertrain should be familiar, too. And it’s good. The diesel is strong enough that it cedes four-cylinder ground only to the GTD version of the Golf inside its own family.
Its 135kW of power arrives at a lowly 3500rpm and stays on until 4000rpm, but the engine keeps pulling hard for a few hundred revs beyond that.

It’s easier and more effective to drive it in its torque band, though, with its impressive 380Nm hitting from just 1750rpm and it’s still all there at 3250rpm. While it revs low, its range isn’t unusual for a modern diesel, and it has an effective performance band of about 3000rpm, from 1500rpm to 4500rpm.

Smooth and sophisticated, it sounds better at idle than some higher-priced, more premium four-cylinder turbo petrol motors (we’re looking at you, BMW) and that’s an impression that only gets stronger as you work the motor across its range.

Its engine takes charge early, delivering strength and confidence, and you warm to it quickly, revelling in the obvious benefits of spending the extra money on the most powerful standard diesel. It even sounds strong and impressive.

Coupled with its all-wheel drive system, it’s capable of hustling around corners with impressive verve and stringing a series of them together with aplomb. It’s almost impossible to provoke it into putting a foot wrong.

With its all-wheel drive system shuffling torque from one end to the other quickly and effectively, it’s difficult to see why (other than icy winters) VW even bothered with a skid-control system. It’s that comprehensively good.

Normally, though, the system runs as a front-driver, only engaging the rear-end when there’s a need to spread the love.

With the engine pulling strongly out of even uphill bends, there is plenty there for overtaking and it’s even enough fun that it can change the weight transfer mid-corner from the front to the back again. And it loves longer bends, even those with chunky bumps in them, because it allows it to show off its exceptional body control.

There is plenty going on below decks to deliver this feeling and it’s very high tech stuff. For starters, there’s an electro-mechanical steering system and the Haldex V all-wheel drive, which can send 100 per cent of the torque to the rear-end in an instant if needed.

Then there is the electronic version of a locking differential, with the Electronic Diff Lock piggy-backing the ESC software to work as a diff lock on both the front and rear axles.

The Alltrack also gets the XDS+ system, which, if needed, puts in tiny, almost unnoticed braking applications onto the inside wheels in fast corners to keep things in line without bothering the driver with the details. And it’s all automatic, barely felt and, for most, a welcome safety addition. Purists might not like it, but they won’t be buying this kind of car anyway.

The only thing, again, is that ride quality, which felt every bit as firm as standard Golfs, on the test roads Volkswagen chose.

Then there’s the bit that makes it not like the other Golf wagons. Its driving modes include an Offroad profile that squeezes all of the electronic safety gizmos together and repurposes them though software that tells them to work for maximising their bush-bashing grip.

It has a hill-descent system, longer throttle travel, changes the ABS threshold for loose-surface bite and moves all the skid-control thresholds to let the car move around a little more.

We had just a brief sojourn off-road, where the Alltrack proved to be a competent little jigger, laughing off steep climbs on dry, rutted tracks and easing its way downhill without setting pacemakers jingling.

Its ride seems softer when the going gets tougher and it tackles diagonal cross ruts and well-made dirt with equal aplomb. The only limitation seems to be its ride height and the actual (rather than visual) strength of its under-body protection.

It’s a very, very good car, actually, and in Australia its positioning will be protected by only having one of its internal competitors on offer. Because as good as the Golf Alltrack is, the Skoda Octavia Scout comes with the same powertrains, chassis and suspension systems at lower prices in Europe.

2015 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack wagon pricing and specifications:
On sale: October
Price: Under $40,000 (estimated)
Engine: 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder turbodiesel
Output: 135kW/380Nm
Transmission: Six-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 5.0L/100km
CO2: 132g/km
Safety rating: TBA

What we liked:
>> Rugged looks
>> Assured handling
>> Terrific interior quality

Not so much:
>> Ride could be softer
>> Cheaper in-house rivals
>> No, that’s about it