2022 VW Atlas SEL R-Line: TEST DRIVE+FULL REVIEW

Hey guys, Will here with WTF Car Reviews and today we're going to be reviewing this all-new 2022 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport SEL R-Line. And huge thanks to Volkswagen of Wesley Chapel in Wesley Chapel, Florida for making this review possible. These guys have a beautiful dealership and a really impressive inventory. I'll leave a link to it below. And if you're in the Florida area looking for a new car, I would definitely suggest checking these guys out. And for those of you guys who don't know, the Atlas has been a part of Volkswagen's lineup since 2017. That's when the first generation was released. Fast forward to 2020, Volkswagen released the Cross Sport, which is the two-row variant of the Atlas. We're still going to have the same engine options, starting with a two-liter turbo four-cylinder making 235 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. Pretty powerful motor, enough to get this car to 60 in the mid-seven second range and an optional 3.6 liter naturally aspirated V6, which we have here for the SEL R-Line. This motor is going to make 276 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque, enough to get this SUV to 60, also around seven and a half seconds. So you're not getting much of a performance upgrade with the V6, but it's going to give you a much smoother power delivery. So a lot of consumers do prefer the 3.6 liter V6 versus the two-liter turbo four-cylinder. But again, being the SEL R-Line, this is almost the top of the line trim for the Atlas Cross Sport with the base price sitting right under 48,000 bucks. What do we get for that money? Let's jump right in. So up front, you notice your fully LED headlights with dual projector beams. You can notice the LED right over here with a projector on the side. You have full daytime LED running strips as well. Loving the black headlight housing with some aluminum in between the projectors and the housing itself. Beneath, we have our poor weather lights, definitely going to help when it comes to bad weather conditions. This gorgeous, gorgeous pirate gray, pirate silver metallic color, absolutely beautiful. We have some functional airflow underneath. Not quite sure if I could pick it up for you, but beneath that, we have our full parking sensing. As far as the grill, we have the distinguishing R-Line badge, a little bit of smoke chrome material, not usually the biggest fan of chrome, but I think it really accents this metallic pirate silver color very well. Massive VW badge in the middle, going to house your advanced safety features. You have more parking sensors down here as well as additional airflow with shutters. But we'll take one more step back and take a look at the front styling. Really gorgeous with daytime running lights. As far as this wheel and tire setup, this is also where this R-Line is going to shine. Here, we're going to have our 20-inch rims. They're going to be gunmetal gray, very dark, almost a black color. They're going to be wrapped in 25550 R20 Pirelli Scorpion Zero tires, some of the best all seasons in the business. And I really like this aggressive black rim design. Continuing along, everything's going to be body color. For the rockers, we have a small chrome strip. It's going to be shiny chrome, not smoke. Running along, but as you see, I feel like it really works with the silver metallic color. You got the cross sport badge right up top. As far as these mirrors, absolutely massive. You're going to have an LED turn signal on them as well. As far as the window trim, it's going to be shiny chrome, not the biggest fan, but you can black that out after market. It still works pretty well with the silver metallic pink color. You have metallic roof rails, two very stiffs of the frame, blacked out B pillar with the Volkswagen edge right here, smart access for all four doors. So that's a huge, huge luxury touch for a pretty expensive SUV approaching $50,000. As far as the gas tank, we've got a push to open, no easy fill, not really a big deal. As you see, this vehicle does accept regular fuel, but 91 octane is recommended. Back here, we have our IQ lights, turn signals, reverse lights right next to it. This chrome strip flows all the way throughout your trunk lid with the Atlas right above it. I kind of wish the Atlas had a little bit of a contrast so you can see it pop a little bit more. VW badge right above it. Shout out Volkswagen to Wesley Chapel. You have your SCL V6 four motion badging. Down here, we still get parking sensing, but as far as the exhaust tips, you can't really see them until you go down underneath over here. We still get the parking sensors, trailer hitch too. This vehicle is rated to tow up to 5,000 pounds, pretty solid. We'll take another step back. You can take a look at the rear styling on this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport SCL R line, and let's rev it up a little bit and hear how this 3.6 liter V6 sounds. All right, guys, that was, of course, the sound of the 3.6 liter V6 sold by Volkswagen for this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. It's not that loud, but it does sound pretty good. Once we figure out this latch, we'll open up this hood and definitely a thumbs up that we get a strut. No struts, just one, but more than enough for this pretty light hood. Here you have it. Here's your 3.6 liter V6 sitting very low. Definitely going to help when it comes to center of gravity, helping the handling quite a bit. You can notice in between both of your strut towers, you are going to have a stick running between both of them, kind of functional as a strut tower brace. Not quite, but with these cross supports on both sides of this chassis over here, it should definitely help the overall stiffness of the 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. Really excited to see how this vehicle performs once we take it out for a drive. Of course, this motor makes 276 horsepower, 266 pound feet of torque, enough to get this thing at 60 in around seven and a half seconds. We'll check all that out once we take it out on the road. Shutting this up, we can take another step back, really digging those daytime running lights, but let's take another step and check out the interior on this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. And again, we have smart access for all four doors. Stepping inside, soft touch materials for the upper part of the door panel. Definitely nice. It's aluminum trim underneath. It's going to be a plastic, but it does have an aluminum look to it, but some carbon fiber look and trim too. This grab handle is going to be very well rate-resisted. Lock and unlock one of your speakers next to it. Very nice contrast stitching for this leather wrap material. Very soft, nice area to rest your arm. Power one touch for all four. Four-way adjustable mirrors. You can lock the windows too. There's a grab handle, not any storage. You can see it just falls right through. Down here, not going to be lined with felt. It was lined with felt in the GTI, so kind of unexpected. You can fit a massive, massive cup here. Easily a big gulp. Probably fit like two or three candy bars right next to it. Open up your trunk right here. Another one of your speakers. You have an aluminum little door sill stepping inside. It's not going to be Atlas name-plated, but if you look at your floor mats, it does say Atlas right up top. These seats, they're going to be three-person memory, lumbar control. You can drop them, lift them, slide them, and recline them right here. They're not going to be genuine leather. They're very high-quality seating. Then you see the perforation right here, going to help when it comes to the heated function. The headrest also extremely soft, very comfortable. We'll take a step inside and really check out the interior on this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. First thing we notice is the steering wheel. Volkswagen's really been killing it with the steering wheels lately. Very thick, not the largest 10-in-2 bolstery notch, but we still have one, making the 10-in-2 relatively supported. Very nice perforation for the 9-in-3. Really high-quality flat-bottom steering wheel overall. You get the R-Line distinguishing little badge on it. Aluminum outlining the frame. You have the skip controls, volume controls. Definitely an improvement compared to the GTI that we reviewed. The GTI did not have any buttons. Everything is a touch sensor. Cruise control settings over here. In the middle, we have our rubberized horn, as far as the horn itself. Pretty aggressive-sounding horn. Not the most aggressive. I think the GTI sounded a little bit more aggressive. Not a big deal, though. Right here, you can adjust the infotainment screens for this 10.25-inch display. As far as the wiper stocks, very satisfying click. They are a little bit flimsy because of how skinny it is for the stock itself, but pretty satisfying, nevertheless. Rain-sensing wipers, that's a great feature, of course. As far as this gauge display, we can adjust it with these buttons right here. As far as the adjustments, of course, right now, we're looking at a tachometer going to about 6,000 RPM. In the middle, we have our compass. On the right, we have 160-mile-an-hour speedometer. Up top, we have another compass with a clock, lane departure warning, and temperature outside. Next to it, you also have your hill descent control information, fuel tank on the right side, and the coolant temperature to the left. Pressing this button to the right, you can also adjust between the audio, telephone, vehicle status, so that tells you when you need to get your vehicle serviced and whatnot. You have the driving data, the digital speedo, and an additional one in the middle. You can also check between speed, road sign, oil temperature, trip, economy, overview, range, energy, consumer, speed. My personal favorite would probably just be speed. Continuing along, you can have the assist systems. You can see the lane departure information, blind spot warning, all on your heads-up little instrument cluster, and of course, your navigation. When you have the navigation set up, you can see the turn-by-turn on your digital display at all times. That's a really convenient feature. My personal favorite, I guess we could leave it in this compass. Continuing along, up top, we have a stitch dashboard. Not going to be a true leather stitch, but definitely a really premium look with the stitching material. Outside of the air vents, we have this plastic aluminum-looking trim. It's throughout the entire interior with this carbon fiber right outside over here. Again, that stitching is going to continue throughout the entire dashboard. Right here, we have our eight-inch touchscreen, very responsive touchscreen. We can check it out right over here for the map. Very responsive. Volkswagen does make some really responsive touchscreens, but it would be nice to get a little bit of a larger screen for this SEL R-Line. Here, we have shortcuts for the radio, media, phone, voice, nav, apps, car, and menu. Of course, we have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and the map itself. Really, really high resolution. Beneath that, we have our dual zone automatic climate control, heated seats, no cooled seats, which would be nice considering that the SE GTI does have ventilated cooled seats. Down here, we have our auto start stop, which we can disable for the purpose of this review. Hazards. Down here, we have two USB-C ports and a 12-volt right next to it. Good spot for a radar detector as well as a wireless charger. Also, really nice touch. Back here, here's your gear selector for your eight-speed automatic transmission. You do have manual shift modes back over here. They're not in the proper directions. Downshift, you pull back to upshift, you push forward, but not a big deal. As far as this backup camera, you guys can see, really not the best resolution. I would be expecting a slightly better resolution backup camera, but we still get guidance lines and trajectories, so you see just about everything you would need to see. Really not a big deal. Next to the gear selector, everything's going to be flat black. That's definitely a thumbs up. It's not going to be covered in fingerprints, but we do get some piano black on the outside of it. The start stop button is going to be right here, electronic parking brake. You have drive mode select and off-road modes. The parking sensors are right here. As far as the drive modes, you have normal, sport, custom, eco, and normal, of course. We're going to start off in normal, then transition into sport. As far as the off-road modes, we have snow mode. We also get... Well, we have to get out of this. We also get normal mode. We get off-road auto, and we have off-road custom, so you can adjust it to your own liking. That's pretty cool. For the purposes of review, we'll just leave it in normal because we're not taking this thing off-road. As far as the cup holders, I like the pads, too. You can easily fit a phone. Large cup holders, too. You could probably fit a 20-ounce in there with really no issues whatsoever. This armrest is also super soft. Really thumbs up for Volkswagen. Huge armrest, too. As far as this console, check this out. You could probably fit your groceries in there. One of the largest consoles in the business, and you have an additional USB-C port in there as well. As far as the glove box, you pop this latch, you see absolutely huge, huge glove box. You'll fit two pairs of shoes with basically no issues whatsoever. Up top, we have a frameless mirror with a compass with our garage home link settings, too. You turn on and off the auto dimming function as well. Back here, you can slide this massive shade for this moonroof. The moonroof does open up, too. We'll check that out in one second. If you double-click the shade button, it opens up completely for you, even for the rear passengers. As soon as it opens up, we will press this button, and it opens up the panoramic moonroof itself. We'll see how far it opens up. It's a really sunny day right now in Wesley Chapel, Florida. Hopefully, you guys can still see with this camera. Again, beautiful day right now in Wesley Chapel, Florida. It's sunny and 75. You can shut this moonroof right up by double-clicking it. It shuts up pretty quickly. We'll leave the shade open for now so you guys can see how the cabin appears from the backseat. Let's take a look at this window sticker really quick and see any of the features that I may have missed. Again, this is the 2022 Atlas Cross Sport V6 SEL R-Line, Pirate Silver Metallic Exterior, Titan Black Leatherette Interior, 8-Speed Auto Tiptronic 4Motion Transmission. You can take a look at all your standard features. As far as performance, we have the 3.6-liter Dual Variac Cam Narrow Angle V6 engine, 4Motion All-Wheel Drive with Active Control Drive Mode Selection, Engine Start, Stop, Electric Power Steering, 4-Wheel Independent Suspension. Outside, we have our 20-inch rims with all-season tires, Automatic LED Headlights, LED Daytime Runners, and LED Tail Lights, Adaptive Front Lighting System with Dynamic Cornering Lights too. As you turn the wheel, the lights do swivel and show you a side view so it helps you make turns at night. Heated Foldable Power Adjustable Side Mirrors with Position Memory and Passenger Side Auto-Tilt Function, Rain Sensing Variable Intermittent Front Wipers, and Heated Washer Nozzles too. Rear Window Washer and Wiper, Power Tilting and Sliding Panoramic Moonroof, R-Line Grille and Exterior Trim, and a Trailer Hitch which is rated to tow up to 5,000 pounds. Inside, we have Dual-Zone Automatic Climbing Control, Leather-Wrapped R-Line Steering Wheel, Heated Steering Wheel, Tilt and Telescoping too. Driver's Seats can be Heated, Power Adjustable, Position Memory. Rear Seats can be 60-40 split with a Center Armrest, V-Tex Leatherette Seating Surfaces, but all that. We're not going to go through all these features. As far as Advanced Safety Features, you can pause, take a look at all those. We get Travel Assist, Semi-Automatic Driving Assistance, Adaptive Cruise and Stop and Go, Lane Keep Assist, Emergency Assist with Semi-Automatic Vehicle Assistance in a Medical Emergency. Definitely something to look into. Front Assist, Forward Collision Warning and Autonomous Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Warning. Active Side Assist, Blind Spot Monitoring, Rear Cross-Traffic Alert. As far as Technology, we get 10.25-inch Digital Instrument Display, Anti-Theft. We have Keyless Access, 8-inch Touchscreen, 6-Speaker Sound System. So, that's definitely a minus for Volkswagen. I would expect for a vehicle to be starting around $45,000 to have a better sound system than a 6-Speaker, but we get Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Wireless Charging. As far as the options, of course, the Pirate Silver Metallic is going to be no charge. Same with the interior color. For $355, we get the Auto-Dimming Rearview Mirror with Home Link. That's the garage settings. The Monster Mats are going to run you an additional $260. For $200, you get the Privacy Cover for the Cargo Area. That's going to be like a ton of cover. And $100 gets you the First Aid Kit and Roadside Assistance. But that's about it, guys. After a $1,200 destination charge, expect a total vehicle price to be sitting right under $48,000. So, you really do get a lot for that money. There are a couple options and features that I wish this vehicle came equipped with, such as cooled seats and a slightly better sound system, but not really a big deal. This is actually the cheapest way you can get into an R-Line Atlas Cross Sport. So, I'm not going to knock it too much. There are a couple of packages you can choose above this one. Over here, you do have a little bit of secret storage. Tilt and telescoping steering wheel, you can pop the hood right over there. But that's about it for this front seat, guys. Let's hop out back real quick, see how much space is offered back there, as well as the overall quality of the materials. All right, guys. Hopping out back into the 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. For the upper part of the door panel, we're just going to get some hard-touch materials. Not really expected. I would expect some softer touch. But the areas where the passengers will be touching, everything's going to be soft-touch material for the Armrest 2, Power 1 Touch, two speakers on the door. As far as these rear seats, not a whole lot of bolstering. It's going to be basically just a flat bench. They are still perforated, though. So, that's a nice touch. As far as legroom, I'm 6 feet tall sitting behind my seat settings. And, wow, as you can see, I have a ton of space. I usually have at least 6, 7 inches of legroom, a ton of space for my feet. So, as far as space, definitely more than enough for five full-size adults. We get map pockets behind both the driver and the front passenger. A little bit of additional storage over here underneath your air vents. USB-C ports, two of them. You push right here and it shows you a 115-volt AC adapter. That's also a nice touch for this Atlas Cross Sport. As far as the center cubby, you can pull this string. Check it out. We're going to have some plastic over the cup holders. So, we'll just pop it up real quick. Check them out. So, here you have two rubberized cup holders. You have a shot glass holder in the middle, too. Pretty cool design. We'll put this back. You have padding on both sides of this plastic. We can put this back right here. That's about it for this back seat area. Super spacious and you have just about all the charging ports you would ever need. Really nice view out of this cabin. I know the sun's really, really shining into us. So, I hope you can pick it up. That's about it for this back seat. Let's check out the trunk real quick and then take this car out for a drive. All right, guys. Step inside this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. You just pull that latch and it opens up automatically. As far as the step-in height, it's pretty high. As you see, I'm six feet tall. My knee is at least like six inches below the step-in height. So, if you have older or shorter pets, don't expect them to be able to jump in here very easily. But as far as space, absolutely massive cargo area. Even for this Cross Sport, the Atlas itself will be much more impressive. It even has a third row. But even for this Cross Sport, you fold those rear seats down. I would expect you to fit anywhere between a 75 and an 80-inch TV with really no issues. Very impressive cargo space. But you press this button right here, check out the trunk fall right down. And as soon as it does, we'll take this thing out for a drive. All right, guys. Now, we've just about seen everything we need to see with the inside and outside of this all-new 2022 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport SCL R-Line. Let's take it out for a drive. We're going to start off in comfort mode, transition to sport, and see what the overall differences are. But immediately, very good throttle response. Yields about 1,800 RPM, and we're already at 30 miles an hour. So very good tuning when it comes to low-end torque. And throwing it in right here, very sharp steering, too. Definitely responds just about immediately. Very responsive steering. On the gas about halfway, not a whole lot of torque, but we get to speed pretty quickly. And just cruising on this road, going about 40 miles per hour, really quiet, very smooth, too. One of the first things I noticed, very, very soft, composed suspension. And it doesn't really compromise when it comes to handling capability, too. When you throw it in, really limited body roll. I'll throw in the POV camera in one second, try to give you guys a firsthand look driving this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport, and I'll catch back with you in one second. All right, guys. Stepping out over here, we're still in comfort mode. The steering is extremely light. And coming out. Yeah, definitely not the quickest, but you get to speed pretty quickly. The engine sounds pretty throaty. Where this motor really shines is throttle response. You really accelerate immediately off the line. But then again, we're still only in comfort mode. Okay, so now we're in sport mode. The transmission immediately becomes more sensitive. Half throttle. Yeah. See? That wasn't really half throttle. It was closer to a third. We'll slow down right here, try one more little rolling acceleration run. Half throttle. There we go. That's more like it. All right, we have to push it a whole lot farther. But as you see through the corners, this vehicle stays very, very flat. On the brakes, throwing it in. Really nice. That low center of gravity, thanks to the hood, definitely helps so much when it comes to handling. We have a roundabout coming up. It should give you a good opportunity to see this vehicle's body roll. We're going to go a little bit quicker than we should. Boom. Steering is on center. Look at that. Just about no body roll. This is one of the flattest SUVs that I've honestly ever driven. And coming out, pretty quick, honestly. Yeah. Once you get into sport mode and you're mashing on the throttle, the power is actually pretty impressive. Very limited body roll. Pretty fun SUV. And now that we're in sport mode, the steering definitely feels a little bit heavier. I definitely feel a little bit more through the wheel, especially during the turns. But not too much. The steering is still very, very light when it comes to daily driving. It just feels a little bit more of a sporty wreck once you put it into sport. But even in sport mode right now, we're cruising around 2,000 RPM at 47 miles an hour. So we are losing in overdrive gear. We're probably rolling around sixth gear right now. So when it comes to fuel economy, I'd recommend just keeping it into comfort mode for daily accelerations. You're not really improving that much in sport mode. So if anything, I would just do custom mode where I can have this. What is this guy doing? Come on, dude. But I'll put it in custom mode so you can have the sporty steering, but without having the sporty transmission. But other than that, we'll step onto this multiple lane highway as soon as we get the chance and see how this vehicle performs for daily driving conditions. All right, guys, stepping out here, we'll throw it right back into just regular normal mode and see how it performs on a multiple lane highway. First thing I noticed, steering gets a lot lighter, noticeably lighter, and about half throttle. Not the most torque, but we get to highway speeds pretty quickly. I don't know why this guy's on the brakes in front of us. I guess he's making a left turn as soon as he does. Try a highway pull. Yeah, not the most torque, at least not in comfort mode. But throwing it into sport really, really livens this vehicle up. All right, guys, we'll turn around right here. We'll try out these manual shift modes to start off in first gear. I'll only gas. Pretty strong, guys. We don't have to push it a whole lot farther than that, and it responds really quickly with this little gear selector down here. I wasn't actually expecting that, but we have a red light coming up right here. Should give us a good opportunity to see how this vehicle can accelerate off the line, and I'll catch back with you in one second. All right, guys, on the gas. Oh, really strong. All right, we don't have to push it a whole lot farther than that. I wasn't expecting it to take off like that off the line. Really strong torque. It kind of falls on its face a little bit once it gets like 50, 55 miles per hour, but getting up to that speed, it is really, really sharp, and you can see very little steering effort, and we can change directions really, really effortlessly. Overall, guys, I'm very impressed with this 2022 Atlas Cross Sport. For $45,000 base price, I'd probably recommend you guys to just go with a regular Atlas. If you don't need the third row, I'd probably recommend just going with a smaller vehicle all around, but if you really want the large vehicle without the third row, this is one of the better ones you can get for the money, but the Atlas itself, you're not really going to be compromising a whole lot when it comes to performance or handling, and that third row can really help families even if you don't really use it very frequently. Other than that, though, huge thanks to Volkswagen of Wesley Chapel for making this review possible. Beautiful dealership, really impressive inventory. I'll leave a link to it below, and I definitely recommend anybody in the Tampa area looking for a new car or truck, well, just a new car to check these guys out, but other than that, guys, thank you so much for watching. I had a great time making this video. If you're new to this channel, please subscribe. If you've already subscribed, thank you so much. You guys know I have endless gratitude for all the subscribers. The channel is just not possible without your constant support, and I really appreciate every single one of you for it, but again, if you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe. Leave a like, too. It really helps me out with the YouTube algorithm. That's how these videos get promoted to new people. Leave a comment. Let me know what you like. Let me know what you don't like. Leave a comment. Let me know if there's any specific videos you'd like to see reviewed in this channel, too, and I'll definitely try to get those videos for you as soon as possible, but other than that, again, thank you so much for watching, and I hope all you guys have a great day.