Daily life with one of the best pickup trucks on the market, as the Volkswagen Amarok joins Tom Webster’s household.
Update 1: Introduction to family life
On the spectrum of workhorse to lifestyle pickup, it’s fair to say that the Volkswagen Amarok largely sits at the latter end of things.
It’s one of the best pickups you can buy, too, which is why we have chosen to live with one to see how it slots into daily life. We’re throwing as many things at it as possible, but its day-to-day duties will see it act as a dad wagon first and foremost.
My kids are spoilt. Certainly as far as the vehicles I bring home are concerned, that is, as they get to ride in a variety of different cars. The fact that I have to shoehorn in their chunky car seats means I don’t bring home anything without Isofix or generous rear-seat space these days, but the turnover is fun if you are of primary school age.
But if you were to ask them what their favourite vehicle is they’d both respond in unison and in a heartbeat. Pickups are by far and away the only way to travel as far as they are concerned, and they are always sad when one goes back.
Needless to say, I’m in their good books at the moment and have been ever since the VW Amarok arrived. The ability to turn every journey into a climbing-frame style adventure makes the nursery run that bit easier.
On-road introduction
As you might have gathered, I’ve mainly been using the Amarok on road and for familial duties so far, but I won’t be alone among the VW’s buyers in doing so. This might well be the Panamerica version, complete with extra under-body protection and an easily operated 4WD system, but it is also equipped with an opulent and well-specified cabin.
This means that I have got plenty of kit that is more lifestyle than workhorse, including powered leather seats and a premium Hardon Kardon sound system. These are the only interior additions over the Style, which brings plenty of other interior treats, like the dual-zone climate control and the inductive phone charging slot. It also brings an around-view parking camera, which is strictly speaking an assist system, but it feels like a treat whenever you are parking something this big.
Most of the Panamerica-specific features are the stylistic flourishes on the outside, which is why this truck has a massive matt black styling bar around the loading bed, a pair of silver roof rails and black 18-inch alloy wheels. I know plenty of my colleagues are ambivalent about black alloys, but I think they suit a truck like this far better than a gaudy set of bright silver rims that you are doubly worried about scraping.
Those are the obvious features, but there are a few hidden away as well, such as a rear differential lock, LED lighting in the load bed and the aforementioned underbody protection.
One thing I have very much appreciated so far is the comfort suspension. My small passengers are two of the harshest critics when it comes to a vehicle’s ride, and pickups are often a real pain on this front. The Amarok isn’t perfect, as there is still some bumping around on rougher rural roads, but it is one of the best of its kind when fitted with this suspension setup.
Rear space challenges
There is a real balancing act to be had when it comes to the rear passenger space in a pickup truck. There is little point in taking loads of room from the loading bay and using it to create a huge and luxurious cabin, but you do need room for adults or a family in the back.
My youngest travels in one of the largest swivelling car seats known to man, which means it is a real test for any rear bench. I have managed to squeeze it in, but only just and only thanks to the supremely long Isofix arms on the seat. The challenges are the very upright seat back, which means that the seat can’t get as close to the Isofix loops as it does in a car, and the fact that the points themselves are set very far back.
I’ve found a bit of space by pushing the headrest up, but it is a tight fit nonetheless. I just wish that all Isofix points were surrounded by a little plastic frame that guides the arms in. I’ve had to do it blind every time so far.
We’ve managed to cover around a thousand miles in the VW already, courtesy of a couple of trips down to Dorset to visit family. That there is proper pickup country, and the Amarok has felt right at home, if sometimes a little large down the country lanes. On the rare bits of motorway or faster A-roads that sit between me and my family, the VW has been comfortably at home sitting at higher speeds. So much so that it is double frustrating that it is heavy enough to qualify for the lower commercial vehicle speed limits.
What is great to see is that the Amarok is able to interpret the UK speed signs and tell you the correct limit. So, if you are on a dual-carriageway national-speed-limit road where a car can do 70, the instrument display will tell you that you are only allowed to do 60mph. No excuses should you ever get pulled over.
Update 2: The Ford factor
The VW Amarok and the Ford Ranger will have always been compared to one another. If you have considered one of these in the last decade or so then there is a high chance you will have looked at the other one too.
The decision has been made easier/harder depending on your view on the matter now that the two vehicles are much the same vehicle having been codeveloped.
On the surface of things, though, my Amarok doesn’t feel like a Ford in disguise, even if that is what it is in many ways. The exterior body panels are almost all changed, so the two look different. Sure, the fundamental shape is the same but then what more can you do with a pickup that needs a big and strong loading bay out the back?
The interior has a real VW tinge to it, too, although it is more of a flavour than a total restyle in here. The central screen is the same portrait layout as the Ranger, and it works in much the same way too. Given VW’s preference for touch sensitive controls in recent years, though, this is very much a good thing.
The Ford elements that are obvious are the gear lever and the key. The only way that any of this is an issue is if you own one of each and are bothered by such things. After the relatively short period of time that we have been living with the Amarok they just become part of the vehicle.
Unexpected noise
I’ve noticed a slight oddity with the Amarok around town, at roundabouts in particular. Even at comparatively low speeds, the front tyres tend to squeal slightly. It sounds and feels like the vehicle is understeering, with the rear wheels pushing it around.
Colleague Tim Pollard has confirmed that I am not imagining things, and has diagnosed a tight differential. It’s not caused any actual issues yet, but I wonder if it might scrub a bit of time from the overall life of the tyres. The fact that those tyres are all-terrains, with big chunky tread, might also be a contributing factor.
Update 3: Multi-user experience on holiday
It’s summer, which means school’s out, which means it’s time to load everything into your car and head off on holiday.
The Webster family has done just that of late, sticking to the UK as I need another few years to mentally prepare for the idea of flying with two small children. One reason for this is the vast amount of kit that holidaying with two youngsters involves.
In lesser cars, I’ve found myself having to perform detailed levels of Tetris-style packing in the boot just to get all our things in. The roof-top box is a perfectly fine approach, but I would like to avoid it if I can – the extra space would only get filled up with yet more stuff.
The Amarok, unsurprisingly, is not in the least bothered by any of this, though, and it swallowed absolutely everything we threw at it. We went on holiday with some friends and we could have got all of their stuff in there too if we had wanted.
Don’t worry, I’m not using this update to report on the shocking revelation that a pickup-truck can carry quite a lot of stuff. There’s more to it than that.
Rolling out the cover
I’ve driven about in pickup trucks a fair bit in the past, and maintain that they can be the greatest or worst family vehicles you can buy. Which one they are depends largely on whether you have a cover over the rear loading bay.
I’ll never forget the trip to the in-laws at Christmas in a Toyota Hilux with no load-bay cover. We were travelling with a newborn baby and all the stuff they come with, all our own bags and a load of Christmas presents. Oh, and it was snowing.
Funnily enough, we didn’t fancy putting any of those things in the loading bay, particularly given we were setting off from South London with lots of sets of traffic lights where anything could be lifted out in a matter of seconds. We ended up cramming everything into the remaining space in the rear and around my wife’s feet.
Anyway, I digress. The Amarok has a cover, which is great. It is also powered, which is brilliant, as you can prod a button and get it to slot back in place while you are wrangling the family into the cabin.
You can also double tap the unlock button to open the cover, which is great, if you know that is what is going to happen…
The final point of note with the cover is that it keeps almost all the elements out. It’s not fitted on tight like a hard-top, so it isn’t 100% waterproof. It’ll be fine in lighter rain, and I’ve not had anything get totally soaked, but I’ll certainly be bagging up anything that has to stay dry if the forecast is for a downpour.
Scratches appearing
One thing that hasn’t fitted into the back of the Amarok is my mountain bike. This says as much about the ever-increasing size of modern bikes, though. Thankfully I managed to squeeze it in with the wheel off, though.
Had it not been such a tight squeeze, I would have been putting something under the bike to protect its paintwork – I keep an old pair of pillows in the garage for this.
However, a glance at the truck’s loading bay suggested that the protection should have been the other way around. A few tough weekends’ work (in the hands of some of my colleagues) has resulted in the black protective paint wearing off, exposing the blue underneath.
The perils of different drivers
My wife and I were sharing the driving on our longer trips on holiday, and in the main this was fine. She and I were both able to get into a comfortable driving position without too much seat adjustment. A memory button would be handy, but it is quick enough to do using the powered adjusters.
What is more annoying is the infotainment, as there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind which of our phones it chooses to pair with when we travel together. It isn’t the phone name in alphabetical order, otherwise it would always be my wife’s, and it isn’t the last one it connected to. And given we are often both in the car together when we turn it on for the first time, it can’t be which one is closer when we press the start button.
Normally it is the one that we haven’t just used to map out our route, just to annoy us.
Update 4: Losing grip
Another month and another trip to a set of relatives in a far-flung part of the country. This time we were out to the Wales/Shropshire borders, which feels very much a natural home for the VW Amarok – that there is pickup country.
Parts of the local area feel very much geared around vehicles of this size but others don’t. There are some spectacularly narrow lanes at some points where you hope that you don’t encounter anything, let alone another truck or, even worse, a tractor.
But the relatively quiet nature of the area means that there is generally plenty of space to find a parking space that isn’t squeezed in among loads of other vehicles. You can normally get the holy grail that is a slot with a free one either side.
That’s because you’ll definitely need it – the doors fling wide on the VW, and a bigger opening makes it easier to clamber up into the cabin, particularly in the case of my small children. However, the step and seats are easily accessed even by my three-year old, as she can get purchase on the various elements on the way up.
Part of the issue is that the Amarok feels bigger than it is, to the extent that I always get wary when I approach urban height restrictors. I know that it’s lower than 2m so it will fit into almost anything around town, but it doesn’t stop me wincing whenever we go under anything low. So far so good though.
RWD moments
The Amarok’s driven wheels are the ones at the rear. This is barely noticeable the vast majority of the time, as I’m hardly chucking it around corners at any pace due to the basic laws of physics.
But I did have one moment recently on our Wales trip where, leaving a roundabout, the back end of the vehicle started to carry straight on while I was turning left. Thankfully it all corrected itself fairly rapidly, thanks partly to a quick spin of the steering wheel but I suspect mainly due to the stability control.
I’m so used to the Amarok feeling planted and secure on the road that it was a bit unnerving. This was no ordinary situation, though, as it had rained overnight, the road had a bit of dirt on it and it was slightly downhill, so gravity was against me as well.
It certainly had me more aware of the Amarok’s size and how there is a tipping point for all vehicles regardless of what systems it has controlling it. It did also have me popping it into 4WD when I next went down that patch of road, just to give a little more assistance in case there was anything nefarious on the surface.
