2018 Volkswagen Golf Alltrack

Aside from perhaps Volvo, no car company has championed station wagons in the United States as consistently and as ardently as Volkswagen. While other automakers abandoned the body style as SUVs and crossovers rose to dominance, VW has persisted in selling wagons in America for more than 50 years now. But over the past few decades, a charge led by the Subaru Outback has caused even the niche wagon market in America to skew toward a preference for all-wheel drive, raised ride height, and SUV styling cues, and VW responded by introducing the Alltrack variant of the Golf SportWagen for 2017.

Ardent champions of the station wagon that we are, we’ve just welcomed a Golf Alltrack into our long-term stable. It follows a 2015 Golf GTI and a 2015 Golf SEL as the third version of the 10Best Cars–winning Mark 7 Golf to go through our 40,000-mile test regimen. Our Alltrack, like almost all 2018 Golfs, is the beneficiary of a mild visual refresh and an updated infotainment system, and it now also sees wider availability of some active-safety features.

Choose Your Own Wagon Adventure

For our long-term car, we decided to take advantage of the 2018 Alltrack’s new paint-color option, the attractive Great Falls Green Metallic, which looks natty with our Marrakesh Brown leatherette interior. Every Alltrack comes standard with 4Motion all-wheel drive and a turbocharged 1.8-liter inline-four making 170 horsepower. We chose the mid-level SE trim so that we could row our own gears courtesy of the six-speed manual transmission (the top-trim Alltrack SEL comes only with a six-speed dual-clutch automatic). Compared with the base S model, the SE adds a panoramic sunroof, proximity-key entry, forward-collision warning and automated emergency braking, and an 8.0-inch touchscreen with SiriusXM satellite radio.

Volkswagen no longer offers any option packages for the Alltrack, but we did shell out $235 for rubberized floor mats to help protect the car’s interior during the winter months and $546 for a roof-mounted bicycle-attachment kit. The total came out to a reasonable $31,396, some $6000 less than the better-equipped SEL.

Manuals FTW

This was the first time we’ve strapped our test equipment to a stick-shift Alltrack, and we were surprised to find that it’s significantly quicker than the automatic version. Zero to 60 mph happened in just 6.7 seconds, which is 0.8 second ahead of a 2017 Alltrack SEL automatic we tested. After a quarter-mile, the manual has a 0.6 second lead. This despite the 15 lb-ft of additional torque in the automatic cars.

Our Alltrack SE’s different wheel-and-tire package also turned in better results than the SEL, with the 205/55R-17 Falken Sincera 250A all-season tires pulling 0.86 g on the skidpad and helping the car stop from 70 mph in just 162 feet—that’s compared with 0.84 g and 172 feet for the wider, lower-profile 225/45R-18 Continental ProContact rubber installed on the SEL.

That tire size is a little odd, or at least not very popular, because the only winter-tire option available at our usual source, Tire Rack, was a Pirelli run-flat. Instead, we looked at Nokian’s line of Hakkapeliitta winter rubber and found that the R2, a tire that won our last winter-tire test, was available in that size. Nokian sent us a set, but online retailers sell them for about $200 apiece.

What We Think So Far

Spoiler alert: We’re loving the Alltrack already. It’s a manual-transmission station wagon, but beyond that novelty—and the aesthetic appeal of the green-on-brown color combo—there’s also plenty of substance: the generous 30 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats, for instance, and the plush ride quality, the strong and refined engine, and the smooth-shifting manual.

As with any long-term test, the topic of reliability will be on our minds throughout our time with the Alltrack, even though neither of the most recent Golfs presented any major mechanical issues during their long-term tests. But notably, our car, along with almost all other 2018-model-year VWs, now comes with vastly superior warranty coverage as part of the company’s new People First Warranty, which increases both bumper-to-bumper and powertrain coverage to six years or 72,000 miles.

We won’t be keeping our VW for that long, but we are looking forward to spending 40,000 miles behind the wheel of this attractive and well-rounded wagon, the first longroof in our long-term fleet since our 2014 BMW 328d finished its tenure.

Months in Fleet: 1 month Current Mileage: 1851 miles
Average Fuel Economy: 25 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 14.5 gal Fuel Range: 360 miles
Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback

PRICE AS TESTED: $31,396 (base price: $26,805)

ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, iron block and aluminum head, direct fuel injection

Displacement: 110 cu in, 1798 cc
Power: 170 hp @ 4500 rpm
Torque: 184 lb-ft @ 1600 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 103.5 in
Length: 180.2 in
Width: 70.8 in Height: 59.6 in
Passenger volume: 94 cu ft
Cargo volume: 30 cu ft
Curb weight: 3419 lb

PERFORMANCE: NEW
Zero to 60 mph: 6.7 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 20.6 sec
Zero to 120 mph: 36.6 sec
Rolling start, 5–60 mph: 8.1 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 16.1 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 13.8 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 15.3 sec @ 89 mph
Top speed (governor limited): 128 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 162 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.86 g

C/D FUEL ECONOMY:
Observed: 25 mpg
Unscheduled oil additions: 0 qt

EPA FUEL ECONOMY:
Combined/city/highway: 26/22/32 mpg

WARRANTY:
6 years/72,000 miles bumper to bumper;
6 years/72,000 miles powertrain;
7 years/100,000 miles corrosion protection;
3 years/36,000 miles roadside assistance