this is a 2021 vw atlas and it's big there's no arguing
that biggest volkswagen i've ever been in big wheels 20 inchers
big space inside big trunk especially when you have the third row seats down
but when they're up just have room for passengers in the third row
and they made this for americans even cup holders for the third row seats now
volkswagen may be a german company they were designed for the american market
they started 2018. it's a newer design they're making
what they feel americans want a big suv and it seems to
be working out for them because this and the smaller one the tiguan so far in
2020 has accounted for 60 percent of the
sales in the united states they know americans want suv so they're building
them and like any suvs they come configured
in a lot of different ways you can get a thirty five thousand
dollar one with the turbo four cylinder engine this
is a demo so of course it's the top of the line this is a fifty thousand dollar
v6 all-wheel drive as we look under the hood
got a big old volkswagen engine and you know what i like about it
it doesn't have one of those stupid beauty covers on it the germans have
realized they're a joke they don't serve any purpose
you get to see the engine and one thing i do have to say
look at the working room normally volkswagens are tight hard to work on
there's a lot of working room on this baby now we get into the nitty gritty
this v6 puts out 276 horsepower and it's connected to an ultra smooth
eight speed with overdrive tiptronic automatic transmission
being a full-size suv it's not a racehorse and it's also not a gas miser
you're going to get in the teens of these things
is going to be your average gas mileage i've been driving this thing around
i'm getting about 18 miles a gallon in it yeah
you know the gas hawks all big suvs are gas hogs
it doesn't matter i'm talking about real world gas mileage
not the fantasies that they give you out now the four cylinder version
is rated at higher gas mileage of course that's rating
it's a four cylinder turbo you give it a lot of gas you push it you put a lot of
weight in you're not going to get that rated gas
mileage you're still going to end up getting in the teens if you push it hard
it's a 4 500 pound vehicle and the gross weight is 5900 pounds that's almost
three tons you can't get heavy giant vehicles and
get fantastic as much it's just against the law of physics let's put an electric
motor in them now as you can imagine in a full-size
suv market it is crowded it is ultra competitive there's so many
choices out there even with this volkswagen you can go
from 35 to 53 000 depending on which one you want to
buy it's a full-size suv it's got a lot of things going for it
very spacious a lot of high technology now as you can see it's got an excellent
backup camera but the strange thing is it's got the
backup camera in the center and it's got its main readout in the
front here now personally when backing up i would have rather had that
screen in the front here be better to look at because i really
like this front screen watch as we drive
you're getting your map and directions right in front so instead of having to
look over to the side to see it you just are
watching the road and you can glance down and see your directions
a very good design but truthfully i would have the backup camera over here
than over here when you're backing up because then you get it all in the line
of sight now one of the first things you notice is it's a very quiet vehicle
it doesn't make much noise and it handles fine for a big suv
now let's see what kind of power it has step on it
it goes it's not particularly heavy on the acceleration
very smooth shifting do realize this is a four wheel drive vehicle and they all
do accelerate quite slower unless they're an electric
vehicle in which case they go faster because they have a motor at each wheel
now as you drive around hey this absorbs the bumps there's no
arguing that i could get in this thing and drive to california no problems at
all it's got a comfortable ride and it's pretty high up in the air too
took me a while to get used to because i'm used to load of the ground vehicles
and motorcycles now if you want you can have fun with the transmission
you can put it into a direct shift one as you see when you whack it to the side
then it goes to manual where you can ship the gears all you want play around
with them or you can just be lazy and put it in drive let the computer do all
the shifting first it's got the fancy sunroof on it
and there's a german they got a nice windscreen too
so you don't get that noise it also keeps bugs from getting and whacking you
in the head it's got freezing cold air conditioning
now they are making them in tennessee so they learned a lot about america
finally the germans have ice cold air conditioning gets
really hot in tennessee now as we close the door
you can see it's a pretty solid vehicle and as you can also see
there's a lot of room in the back seats got the full ac and heat here
you can adjust it yourself this isn't oh could you please turn the air
conditioning up or down for the people in the back
they can do it themselves and they get all the electronic additions here to put
their stuff and plug it into including 112 volts well
they say 115. now they're very comfortable seats you see the middle
person's gonna have to be thinner than the side people
and if you're not using it it's got a nice arm rest with all the cupholders
and everything the germans have learned about americans
the led lighting's a nice touch i mean really look at the room in the
back you can put up the third row seats and if you're not using them
look at all the space you have now they started making them in 2018
this is a 2021 so i can't really give any long-term history of the vehicles
because they haven't been around all that long
i haven't seen any particular problems yet with them and i would say
if you're gonna buy one i'd go for the v6 i would not go for the four-cylinder
volkswagens had history of problems with their four-cylinder engines if you put
them in a bigger vehicle you're straining them more
and yeah the turbos can make them go but i stick with the six-cylinder engine
myself in this thing because the four cylinder has
about 40 less horsepower and a turbo charger
and even with the six this is no stallion it's no race car now i know
most suvs are not but this is quite a bit
slower than its competitors now my grandfather
taught me how to fix cars he was a mechanic too
he'd be rolling over his grave when he found out people were paying fifty
thousand dollars for a volkswagen but back in his days they only made
little beetles he'd be shocked if he got one of these
things if you compare this to the early volkswagen vans they were
relatively big inside nothing as big as this but they were relatively big inside
but they handled like buses the wind blew them off the road this is a heavy
stable vehicle you feel safe in this thing
there's no arguing that and like any full-size suv
it's got the old roof racks you can stick all kinds of stuff on if you want
there's plenty of room inside i couldn't see any reason why but
and it's a very stylish car fancy dual exhaust on it
got a trailer hitch and if you bought the fancy one like this
it can tow up to 5 000 pounds got all-wheel drive nice pulling ability
can tow quite a bit five thousand pounds is nothing to
sneeze at i guess it beeped in agreement i didn't do anything at all
except lean on the car maybe it's more intelligent than i give it credit for
now many people have rated this thing give it about 8 out of 10 stars i tend
to agree not the perfect suv but it seems quite
capable i've been a mechanic for 52 years
there's no way i'd pay 50 000 for any car i always buy them used save
a bunch of money that way but if you're forking out for a brand new suv
from 35 to 50 grand as your choice with these things
and if you've been watching me for any length of time you know i'm generally
not a fan of volkswagen at all but i do have to say i was pleasantly surprised
by this atlas made in chattanooga tennessee the germans seem to have done
their research on what americans want just like ages ago toyota sent some
japanese to california to study what americans want in cars and
they came up with the v8 lexus the first ones that
they made they saw what do americans want they
made it and boy look what happened with that it exploded
into lexus and now sure the full-size suv market is a very crowded mark
it's a very capable vehicle as far as i can see driving it around i have yet to
see any problems with these any major problems now they've only been making
them since 2018 so they haven't been around all that long
but it's not like there's some fiat that's falling apart the minute you get
it they seem pretty solidly built from the one i'm
driving around here and for my customers who bought the
earlier versions 2018. some people are volkswagen fans
and they're going to go buy a volkswagen one of the reasons they buy this is
because they like volkswagen it's very smooth
it rides nice handles perfectly fine hey they're not race cars you want them
to ride nice if you have a car that really handles
well guess what it rides poorly i've been in two hundred
thousand dollar cars that man they handled like a dream but
they rode like crap you did the bumps you feel them off
this thing with its weight which is part of the deal
cancels out a lot of the bumps also cancel out a lot of the road noise
they're quiet on a highway when you're in the city on all those potholes
they go through them pretty good scotty didn't totally dish a volkswagen
cars are more or less fading away maybe volkswagen's realizing
since 60 percent of their sales in the united states this year so far
were these and the smaller tiguan suvs he might be onto something
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