Volkswagen T-Roc review

Volkswagen isn’t the interior leader that it once was, but the T-Roc feels solid enough, with a smattering of soft touch materials about the place. It’s not a showy interior either, everything is laid out in a sensible and orderly fashion. If you want something a bit more stylish then you’d be better off looking in the direction of the Mini Countryman. 

What’s the rest of the interior like?

Every model gets a digital instrument panel as standard, measuring either 8in or 10.25in in upper spec trims. It looks smart enough and there’re plenty of different displays to choose from, but as ever, we always found ourselves reverting to round clocks for speedo and rev counter.

The infotainment display comes as eight inches as standard. It’s a familiar VW item but doesn’t offer anything in terms of excitement. Fortunately wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come as standard, which minimises the extent you need to interact with the screen.

VW also decided at facelift time to lob the easy to use, buttoned climate control panel of old in the skip, replacing it instead with a touch button panel – complete with sliders performing the functions of knobs and buttons – that will likely have you pulling your hair out. To be fair, it’s not as bad as some of the recent efforts that Volkswagen has come up with, so there’s always that.

Is it comfortable?

Up front is comfortable enough, especially in terms of the width of the car, but the short wheelbase does mean that rear passengers suffer. This isn’t one for families with teenage children, unless you want an earful about the limited legroom on every journey.

Front-wheel drive variants offer 445 litres with the seats up (bigger than the Golf's 380 litres), while folding the seats down offers 1,290 litres. However, opting for a 4WD variant reduces boot space to 392 litres (seats up) and 1,237 litres (seats down) due to the rear drive. The adjustable boot floor can be fixed pretty much parallel with the boot lip, though, which comes in handy for the weekly shop.

Other storage and versatility is fairly limited – there’s a drawer under the front seats (a VW staple) and large-sized pockets in the doors (big enough to fit a 1.5-litre bottle of water up top). But you won't find sliding seats, hidden bins or nets or clips. Not like a Honda CR-V or Citroen C3 Aircross. Active lifestyle eh?