Not what I was expecting!?! 2023 VW Arteon R Shooting Brake | 4k

I’ve been positively curious about the Volkswagen Arteon R Shooting Brake, unfortunately this £60k + car didn’t impress me too much…. A great used buy though!
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Running Order of this video;

00:00 Intro
00:44 What is it?
04:15 Under the bonnet
05:39 Interior
09:52 0-60 Test
10:46 On the road
14:03 Pushing on
20:09 My Conclusion

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DISCLAIMER:
*Some footage from this video may be edited and or sped up for cinematic effect.
*Some footage was also filmed on private land.

Welcome to my first drive video on Volkswagen’s ronr shooting break think of this on paper at least as a very practical Golf R over the past couple of years I’ve seen a handful of these no more than that driving around on UK roads and each time I see one especially

Any in this beautiful optional lapis blue I do think that myself I wonder what they’re like and finally I contacted Volkswagen UK’s press team and I’ve had this for the past week so I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experience with you guys as with so

Many cars on sale in 2023 the retail price of this car is quite shocking a base Aron r shooting brake is now going to set you back £ 585,000 and this particular press car with a load of options which we’ll talk about once we jump inside well this one retails at £66,000

In terms of its competitors to me it’s kind of a standalone product and yes many Publications and people have compared it to BMW’s m340i which is right in terms of pricing because a base m340i touring is £60,000 so next to nothing in it between them but a three series touring is a lot

Smaller and less practical than one of these and I think that’s what is so key about this particular car is its size is it space inside in the front in the rear and its massive boot in terms of styling well I think it looks really really good

It’s striking it’s Unique it stands out from the crowd and I think that’s part of what makes the Aron R such an interesting package it couldn’t be more different to something like Volkswagen’s Pat which is a brilliant car but it’s very mundane and ordinary in terms of

Styling and the way it looks it kind of fits in with the crowd whereas this well it really doesn’t it’s received so many compliments in the five or six days that I’ve had it so far even people like Patrick my good friend cameraman production wizard from Drive Talk

Podcast even he complemented it and he doesn’t like anything that’s less than 30 years old when you walk up to it the first time and you open the front or the rear doors you see that the doors are actually pillarless which is pretty cool and when

You jump in the back let’s bear in mind that the driver’s seat is set in my driving position I’m 6’4 you very quickly realize that there’s a lot of space in here there’s plenty of head room plenty of shoulder room plenty of leg room it’s a really

Comfortable and nice place to sit and this one that has the pan roof there’s plenty of light coming in here I think if this was your family car well whether you’re sitting in the front or in the back it’s just really comfortable and spacious it’s a really nice place to sit

As with so many cars if you do move to the center row though yes you very quickly lose head room that is always going to be the Short Straw seat and then when we get around to the boot it’s absolutely massive 590 L to be precise that’s 90 L bigger than BMW’s

M340 ey touring it’s about 30 L bigger than a 5 series touring and Audi’s massive and mighty RS6 evance it doesn’t stop there either underneath the boot floor there’s plenty of Secure Storage Space and when you fold those rear seats flat you’re left with 1630 lers so you’re beginning to see

That this ronr shooting brake is exceptionally practical underneath the Bonnet we have a familiar Volkswagen group 2 L 4cylinder turbocharge engine produces 320 horsepower and 420 newm of torque all of that is fed through a sspeed SG gearbox and that gets to the tarmac via Volkswagen’s for motion four-wheel drive

System this ronr also has a fancy torque vectoring rear differential guessing it’s very similar to the one that’s in the Mark 8 Golf R it does weigh about 1,800 kilos which is a lot but as we’ve already talked about it’s a massive car it’s almost 5 m long so you’d kind of

Expect expect that and Volkswagen claim it will do the n to 62 Sprint in just 4.9 seconds and go onto a limited top speed of 155 mph this particular press car is on the optional 20in wheels that are clad with 2 four five section tires it’s a square setup all around so the

Same on each corner I’m not sure what it’s claimed MPG figures are but in the time that I’ve had it I’ve averaged about 28 and on longer run runs I’ve seen 31 32 even 33 around 70 mph on the motorway so not bad at all jumping into the driver’s seat Well actually don’t

Jump into the driver’s seat if you are over 6ot tall because well one of the first issues I’ve found with this car on the time I’ve had it is this rather low roof line it’s part of the Aesthetics and the outside makes the car look fantastic and obviously we’ve already

Talked about those lovely pillarless doors but as you get in you got to be very careful about this because the driver’s seat and the passenger seat for that matter they don’t sit particularly low as you can see if I’m sitting up in my seat here well my hair is just about

My lack of hair is just about touching the uh headlining the actual wheel itself is nice but it has these haptic buttons on them I’m not sure how you would describe them I think they’re described as haptic buttons they’re the same buttons and I think it’s the same

Wheel that’s lifted straight out of the current mar8 gol R feels nice but you do tend to foul some of these buttons that’s not great the paddles are quite nice I think they’re plastic but they feel quite good and obviously they’re connected to that seven-speed DSG gearbox in terms of the actual

Infotainment well we know the Volkswagen group infotainment system isn’t the best uh but this particular setup’s not too bad because we actually have the uh climate control Etc on a separated section and even things like the heated seats are on separate buttons down here they’re not part of a touch screen menu

System which to me is a big plus this has uh Android auto Apple carplay you have a few uh different options on your displays because this is obviously essentially like a virtual cockpit I forget what Volkswagen called it but it’s it’s reasonably adaptive but I found myself just going back to the

Traditional dials like I do in most modern digital layouts if I can um but otherwise aside from the slightly odd driving position and aside from the fact that I think if this was my car would really struggle with it because of the lack of sort of headro getting in and

Out Etc um it is a nice place to sit it doesn’t feel like in this car’s case 70 Grands worth of car the fit and finish is really nice but yeah I would say it’s more like a 45 to 50 Grand car but once upon a time a couple years ago when it

Was release in 2021 that’s probably what it did cost back then but obviously with inflation well yeah it has gone up a fair amount in terms of options on this car I’ve got them on my phone here so we have that gorgeous lapis blue metallic paint that’s

£1,200 uh we have PR naav ,500 quid we have Matrix LED lights which are fantastic I’ve tried them a couple of times at night and they really really are good this also has an electric toe bar it’s 950 quid it has the optional 20-in esteril allo wheels that we talked

About on the outside which look gorgeous and do fill these archers probably I think the 19s would be too small although you probably lose a little bit of ride quality and they’re only 620 quid I think that’s quite good value has a head-up display although the one in

This car for whatever reason I can’t get to work that’s 600 Quid climate windscreen which we definitely don’t need in a day like today but you probably would need for 8 months of the UK year and that’s 390 quid and a surround View Camera which is really handy on anything

That’s quite large like this uh that’s 350 quid let’s get this car out on the [Applause] Road first things first let’s test out this car’s claimed acceleration figures Volkswagen say it will do the n to 60 Sprint in just 4.9 seconds I’m in R for race mode I’ve got all the traction control and stability switched off because we don’t need it in weather like

This with four-wheel drive traction my race box mini is ready to go my left foot is hard down on the brake right foot on the floor here we go pretty hard off the line straight into second we need third for 60 and there we go

4.85 seconds to 60 M an hour see you can add a tenth to that actually it’s a roundabout what Volkswagen [Applause] claim one of the most important things for a car like this as far as I’m concerned is what it’s like when it’s not trying to be a golfar when it’s just trying to be a good practical runaround now if we go back down to this

R button on the steering wheel we can cycle through various modes so we got Comfort sport race we got an individual one there as well but let’s just knock it back into Comfort I can also use the touch screen and there’s a button down here I think that’s a little bit of

Overkill I’m going to leave it in automatic this particular model the Aran R comes standard with DCC which is dynamic chassis control and that’s not a two-way or a three-way chassis control there’s about 15 different um minute adjustments in there but when you’re in Comfort it’s knocked

Right back and I have to say the ride quality in this car is really really good especially when you consider that we’re on 20in super low profile tires um there are also run flats and when you consider that the R2 andr is dropped about 20 millimeters lower than the

Regular Aran but ride quality is really good and I think that’s very very important if you’re going to be using this as let’s say a family car or if you’re going to be using it in the UK full stop because our roads perfect timing are horrendous they really are just terrible

There’s no other way of describing them and I think doesn’t matter how good a car is if the ride quality is not better than average in the UK then you’re really really stuck the reason I’m in Alsbury is my good friend um Josh from Swift performance actually messaged to say

That I’ve had some Michelin tires delivered to them they’re actually for my M2 which is still in bits with the engine out so I’m going to go down there and pick up the tires cuz I thought well there’s probably not a better car or vehicle to go and pick up four Michin

Tires so let’s head to Swift which is about 10 minutes away chck the tires in the car and then we’ll continue with this first drive review well we almost got four massive cup two tires in the boot of this car with the seats up they’re 295 section

They rear tires for my M2 which is out of action at the moment almost got four of them in the boot we did get four in the boot but it just wouldn’t quite close so I have one just behind the passenger seat here hopefully that gives

You a good idea of just how big that boot is wouldn’t dream of doing something like that in my M3 for instance you would barely get two across the boot of that so it’s a very useful and practi practical space what we haven’t talked about is what this car is

Like when you ramp things up a little bit so I’ve put it into my individual mode which is great because it gives me loads of settings Dynamic chassis control settings as we talked about earlier on I’ve got infinite ones of those I’ve got that towards the softer

Setting CU it gives you a better ride quality um steering throttle response un name it it’s pretty much there like it is in let’s say uh my M3 touring what I am going to turn off though is this Lane assist because it is dangerous and it is

Really annoying just like so many modern cars now when you pick the throttle up for the first time well we already know it’s pretty quick it’s not lightning fast I mean a few years ago not 60 in 5 seconds flat was very quick but nowadays well it’s quick enough I think for your

Family wagon there’s enough torque in the mid-range I think the maximum torque of 420 Newt MERS is available from about 2,100 RPM so although this does weigh a lot about 1,800 kilos probably closer to 2 tons with me in those tires in it that available torque is really

Useful and it does get this car going in pretty much all gears [Applause] It doesn’t mind revving this engine in fact that’s where all that power is well above 5,000 RPM so you have that low down torque and you have that power up top but you do feel that this car would have really benefited from a six-cylinder engine something like the 2.9

V6 that Audi use in the RS4 or various S4s and I believe the rumor is that this car was destined for that engine but it never received it due to emissions and the world that we live in that just is making things more and more boring for us petrol heads I wouldn’t

Say this ea8 2 L 4 cylinder turber charge engine struggles to pull this weight around but I can imagine when this car is fully loaded you’ve got four or five passengers in here with a boot full of luggage at that point it’s definitely not going to feel quick but it does have

Ample torque and ample power and as we talked about on the outside it’s actually been surprisingly Frugal because this engine it’s never been the most efficient engine on the planet and it has improved over the years but I thought with a car of this size and weight that

It would struggle but it doesn’t seem to have it’s been really good on longer runs and I think a lot of that has to do with 7th Gear being really high and the fact that although this car is almost 5 m long it’s a very aerody Dynamic

Looking shape and in fact you don’t hear much wind noise on the uh motor when you’re doing speeds over 50 60 M hour you do get a fair amount of Tire raar in here but you kind of get that in most cars in the UK because again our road surfaces

Tend to be pretty Dreadful when you’re on a smoother bit like this that tire raw seems to disappear so I wouldn’t say it’s bad and like I said the actual wind noise and the insulation in here in general is pretty good I wouldn’t say this is the ideal

Road to talk about driving Dynamics and handling on this car but I have had it for for the past 5 or 6 days and I have thrown it down some of my favorite roads and it’s definitely not bad in terms of handling but you’re very quickly

Reminded how long this car is you see from the driver’s seat it kind of feels like you are in a golf R and you’re in something relatively compact when you look in the rear view mirror you very quickly realize that you’re not in that and the second you turn in any Bend

Whether it’s a long sweeper like this one or a much sharper one you very quickly realize that there’s a lot of car behind you because although the nose reacts quite quickly you can feel the rear end of the car taking its time to go around the corner and that’s quite

Nice on faster Corners actually longer wheelbase the car feels a bit more stable but through tighter twistier stuff I wouldn’t say it’s the most rewarding car in the world you keep expecting to feel a bit of and to be fair well I haven’t felt any of that but

You just don’t really know what’s going on the car isn’t communicating to you that brilliantly like a golf r or GTI GTI Club sport would those cars definitely give you a lot more feel and feedback in comparison to this and I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the

Wheelbase a lot of it has to do with the fact this is a bigger and heavier car so if you’re buying one of these with driving Dynamics at the top of your list you might be disappointed I wouldn’t say it’s dull to drive I wouldn’t say it’s underwhelming but it’s not the most

Dynamically brilliant and fastest state car that I’ve ever driven I was hoping that it was going to have some form of magic in it but as far as I can tell it really doesn’t seem to supports its weight really well it puts it traction down really well it stops very well and

It does handle well but not [Applause] amazing as you can probably tell I’m really confused and not sure what I think about the RR shooting brake I think a lot of it has to do with how much Volkswagen are charging you for this car now 58 a half Grand base this

One’s well over 65 Grand it’s just too much money if you don’t need this excessive cabin space and boot space an m340i touring is Miles better in every single area as far as I’m concerned maybe it’s not as aesthetically pleasing is this car on the outside cuz I think this looks really

Good and though I’m not being a BMW Fanboy I’m giving you a genuine verdict and I think a lot of uh magazines and journalists out there have said similar and when you think that they’re both very similar in terms of price yeah I mean for me the m34 iing gets my vote

Every day of the week but if you do need more space and more practicality then well this car blows the three series touring away it really is much bigger the back seat and it really does have a much bigger and more usable boots another big Contender and problem

That the artist on R has is a model within the Volkswagen group I’m talking about the scoda Octavia vrs estate that car is brilliant and actually spec for spec works out about 20,000 less than this and yes it doesn’t have the all-wheel drive platform and

Yes it’s not quite as practical it is a little bit smaller I would say it’s a bit more practical than the three series touring but you can’t argue with the fact that it costs well under £40,000 and it has very similar ingredients essentially has the same engine it is D-

Tuned but the Octavia is so much lighter it’s more than 10% lighter than this car so once you’re on the move at least and you’ve got the line really doesn’t feel any slower than this car so if you really wanted to get new and you were

Set on a vol Volkswagen group car my money would go on an Octavia vrs estate and Volkswagen probably won’t like me saying that but it is true because I think that is the standout value there is a caveat to that [Applause] though a 12 to 18mon Old RT onr shooting

Brake will set you back well under £40,000 and that’s a Tidy Car with 10,000 miles at a main dealer suddenly this starts to make a lot of sense at that kind of money you’re getting so much car so much practicality a decent amount of performance decent amount of

Economy you name it you get it for less than £40,000 I think that’s the only way that I’d be persuaded into buying one of these if you’re looking for a brilliant family car that’s really big and would cut around your two kids and all of the stuff that comes with them I really

Think a 12 to 18mon old r2r shooting break is about the best car you could get for that kind of money as a new proposition though I just can’t get my head around it I know that new cars are costing a lot of money we talk about it all the time on the

Channel but yeah this just doesn’t feel like 65 plus Grands worth of car are it’s good but it’s really not brilliant in any area and yeah I think if I just spent that kind of money I’d be left feeling a little bit cold and a little

Bit ripped off and then when I looked at used values and realized that I was going to lose 15 20 grand in the first year wow I mean that’s that’s hard to [Applause] swallow yeah this car hasn’t set my world on fire in the week that I’ve had it it

Hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong apart from its awkward driving position and driving ergonomics this low roof line has hit me in the head a few times but I’m sure I’d learn to avoid that if I had it for a longer period of time but I think new

Versions at 60 Grand plus well yeah to me it just doesn’t add up I know new cars uh costing more and more and we talk about it a lot on the channel but this one just doesn’t add up to me especially when you look at something like the Octavia vrs um or something

Like BMW’s m340i touring I mean the b58 in that car alone must be worth half of its value so I can see where the money goes in that car I can’t really see where it goes in this then when you factor in the horrendous residuals that

They’ve got and what these cost at 12 to 18 months old well oh I don’t know you’d be a brave man or woman buying one of these new unless it was on a very good Finance deal and you could hand it back in 3 years if you paid cash for one of these

Well yeah you’re going to be burning a lot of it anyway I hope you’ve appreciated and enjoyed this very honest review on the Aron R there’s probably a reason that we don’t see too many of them out and about they are cool I will continue to have a

Lot of respect for one when I see it driving past me and as I say for less than 40 Grand as a large practical reasonably sporty family car slightly used wow it makes a lot of sense it really does thanks for watching as always take it easy and I’ll see you at

Another video very very soon cheers