Volkswagen AMAROK Review & Prices

The Volkswagen Amarok is a pickup truck that doesn’t really try and pretend it’s a working vehicle. Oh sure, it can carry a ton in its load bed, and it’s technically just as capable as the Ford Ranger with which it shares its mechanical bits - but the Amarok is definitely geared towards ‘lifestyle’ pickup truck buyers, and that’s a job it does extremely well.

With its powerful diesel engine, luxurious interior and handsome, beefcake looks, the VW Amarok is a seriously desirable bit of kit. It’s like comparing a bodybuilder to a powerlifter - the Amarok has the muscles, but they’re mainly used for show. Meanwhile, trucks like the Isuzu D-Max or Toyota Hilux are more about functional strength.

The Amarok was designed in conjunction with the Ford Ranger, and the two share a lot of components. However, you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the outside - the Amarok looks really good with square proportions, a bold grille flanked by neat LED headlights, and C-shaped taillights either side of a fairly minimalist tailgate. All versions get a silver-coloured bash plate under the front, but lower trims do without the chrome adornment on the grille and have a different pattern of LED daytime running light.

Inside, the Amarok’s shared heritage is a bit easier to see, and it’s definitely more Ford’s work than it is VW’s. You get a huge, vertically-oriented central touchscreen and an array of Ford switchgear including the window switches and gear selector. The steering wheel and the cool-looking toggle switches below the central screen are all VW, though.

Sharing a cabin (mostly) with the Ranger is no bad thing, though. It’s roomy enough for four, five at a push, and while the materials feel hardwearing there’s also an added layer of luxury you don’t get with a more workmanlike truck like a D-Max or Hilux.

That’s not to say the Amarok can’t work hard if you need it to. The load area is particularly wide, able to take a Euro pallet sideways, and nearly all variants can tow the full 3,500kg permissible by law.

The exception is the top trim level, which doesn’t have enough payload to qualify as a commercial vehicle - it’s therefore liable to pay VAT as a result and so is best avoided.

The Amarok is available in four trim levels and with two engines - a 2.0-litre four-cylinder and a 3.0-litre V6, both diesel and both paired to a ten-speed automatic gearbox as standard. Both are powerful enough, but the price difference to step up to the V6 is small enough that we’d say it’s definitely worth it. The larger engine is smooth, refined, yet effortlessly torquey, making the Amarok a superb tow vehicle as well as a great long-distance cruiser.

On the road, the VW Amarok suffers (as all pickups do) when it’s lightly laden - the stiff rear suspension is designed to cope with a full ton and so can skip about a bit on rough roads. However, it’s still very comfortable by pickup standards.

Light and accurate steering plus good visibility makes the Amarok easy to drive around town, while effortless power and great assisted driving features make it relaxing on a long drive. The Ford Ranger on which the Amarok is based is the best pickup to drive on a twisty road, too, and some of that sparkle has been inherited by the Volkswagen. You won’t go chucking it around like a hot hatchback, but you can take corners at pace without feeling as if the Amarok is going to either fall over or slide off into the verge.

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The Amarok is one of the priciest pickups around. The entry-level ‘Life’ starts at just over £36,000 ex. VAT, but from there it’s a big leap up to the more desirable ‘Style’ at around £43,500. You can add another £3,000 to that for the V6 engine, while the range-topping PanAmericana model is just over £48,000 exclusively with the V6. No getting around it, the Amarok is a pricey pickup truck.

Above this sits the Aventura, but due to its low payload it doesn’t qualify as a commercial vehicle - therefore, it’s not liable for VAT exemption and costs more than £61,500. Ouch. Best avoided.

The Life trim gets a smaller 10.1-inch touchscreen than the other models, plus manual air-conditioning - but there’s still smartphone connectivity, a rear-view camera and LED lights. The Style trim adds a smarter exterior look, 12.0-inch infotainment screen with built-in navigation, heated windscreen and electrically adjustable seats, while the PanAmericana has a Harman Kardon sound system, leather upholstery and a wireless phone charger, plus a diff lock for better off-road capability.

Strong engine options and only automatic gearboxes - the Amarok is a great pickup truck to drive

The Amarok shares its underpinnings with the Ford Ranger, and that’s a fantastic starting point as the Ford is the best pickup truck to drive. Starting with the engines - there are two, both diesel and paired to an automatic gearbox.

The Life and Style models come with a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel as standard, which produces 204hp. It’s plenty powerful enough, but does sound a little coarse. Much better is the 240hp, 3.0-litre V6 diesel, which is optional on the Style and standard on all the trim levels above it.

This engine is a peach - it’s smooth and quiet most of the time but sounds suitably fruity when you rev it. It has absolutely bags of low-end shove, making it fantastic as a tow vehicle or if you’re travelling fully-laden.

The 10-speed automatic gearbox isn’t perfect. It can be a bit sluggish to change ratios and if you want to take manual control you have to do so via an awkward switch on the side of the shifter, rather than with steering column-mounted paddles. Ten speeds is also rather a lot, and it constantly feels as though it’s shifting ratios - though this is arguably better than the six-speed automatics on some alternatives which just feel clunky.

The Amarok’s driving position is perfect and the suspension deals with bumps in the road and poor surfaces better than a lot of regular passenger cars, let alone pickup trucks.

A big load bed with some neat features, though top models are severely restricted on payload

The Amarok’s bed isn’t the biggest in the business but it’s a useful size nonetheless. Unlined as standard, a bed liner is a sub-£400 option and can be paired with a soft tonneau bed cover, a hard roller one, a full hardtop or crossbars for additional load carrying.

There are bright LED lights on all but the base version, plus the option of a 230V socket in addition to the standard 12V socket in the load bed compartment - with a 400W inverter, this is perfect for things like charging up tool batteries or running a small fridge.

Volkswagen Amarok internal and external measurements

Exterior dimensions

Length: 5,350mm
Width including door mirrors: 2,208mm
Width not including door mirrors: 1,910mm
Height: 1,884mm

Load bed dimensions

Maximum load length: 1,624mm
Maximum load height: 529mm
Maximum load width: 1,584mm
Maximum load with between wheelarches: 1,227mm

Towing capacity

Every version of the Amarok currently on sale can tow the maximum of 3,500kg allowable by law, though the gross train weight isn’t high enough to allow you to carry max payload while towing this full amount.

Payload

Payloads for the Amarok are good for most variants. All of the Life, Style and PanAmericana models can carry over a ton in their load beds - from a tow of 1,006kg for the Style with some optional extras, up to 1,067kg without them.

The exception is the Aventura trim. This has a payload of just 870kg, so it doesn’t qualify for commercial vehicle tax breaks - making it very expensive to buy.

All models can carry a useful 85kg (dynamic load) on their roof bars, ideal if you want a roof tent or similar, and you can have handy crossbars over the load bed too.

Comfortable, car-like cabin that’s stylish but not especially hardwearing

The Amarok’s interior is more Ford than it is Volkswagen, with Ford screens and plenty of Ford switchgear. Despite this, there’s some feeling of that trademark VW solidity, and the steering wheel is a VW item, so it doesn’t feel too much like you’re sat in an imposter.

VW has also applied its own fonts and skins, and some of its own logic to the way the software runs. However, don’t go in there expecting it to be as plush as a Touareg - you still get some hardwearing plastics.

There’s lots to like about the upright dashboard, with its big, clear infotainment screen in the middle. It’s a shame that VW gets rid of the discrete climate control panel you get on the Ford Ranger, though - if you want to adjust the temperature or fan speed, you have to do that through the touchscreen.

Whether you go for the smaller-screened Life model or one of the higher-spec trucks, you get wireless smartphone connectivity, and there’s a wireless charging pad on Style models and above too.

Space in the back is good. Passengers of six-foot-plus can get comfy in the back, and the cabin is wide enough to fit three adults without nudging elbows too much.

There are pockets on the seat bases for a little extra storage, although it’s a shame the bases don’t flip up like those in a Toyota Hilux to provide extra space for bags.

On the other hand, there are air vents between the front seats to keep everyone cool, and grab handles for when the boss starts doing donuts on the building site (or mum and dad decide to take the scenic route to school).

It’s pretty easy to get to grips with the Amarok’s engine range - 2.0-litre or 3.0-litre diesels, both with the same gearbox. VW claims a maximum fuel consumption of 32.8mpg for the 2.0-litre unit, and up to 28mpg for the 3.0-litre.

In practice, you might achieve just over 35mpg with the 2.0-litre and up to 30mpg with the larger unit - if unladen and driving carefully. During a week with the 3.0-litre unit, we spent plenty of time plying the country’s motorways and included a long cross-country trip on single and dual carriageways, all unladen. However we also sampled the Amarok as a tow vehicle, adding on quite a few miles with a 1,500kg trailer - and fuel economy by the end of the week stood at 29mpg.

Certainly, the extra fuel economy from the 2.0-litre doesn’t make it compelling enough to give up the larger engine’s effortless power and meaty exhaust note.

CO2 emissions are understandably pretty mega, sitting at 265g/km for most of the 3.0-litre variants, and 229g/km for the 2.0-litre. They’ll therefore make pricey company cars. It’s yet to be announced whether Volkswagen will offer the Amarok with the same plug-in hybrid engine as the Ford Ranger.

The Amarok inherits the five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating of the Ford Ranger, as the two are mechanically identical under the skin. That’s great news, especially as commercial vehicles often perform quite poorly in crash tests. It certainly supports the notion that the Amarok might be a lifestyle, family vehicle.

All models come with driver, passenger, side and curtain airbags, plus one for the driver’s knees. There are a whole glut of safety and assistance systems - adaptive cruise control, autonomous emergency braking, lane-keeping aids, a 360-degree camera system on some models. The speed limit warning can be easily disabled by holding the ‘LIM’ button on the steering wheel. An alarm with interior monitoring is standard on all models.

VW’s commercial vehicles are pretty well-regarded, but the Amarok is basically a Ford Ranger - so while there shouldn’t be any massive concerns, don’t expect it to be faultless either. Ford and Volkswagen as brands don’t perform brilliantly in owner satisfaction and reliability surveys, but there are some big differences from model to model.

If you value reliability above all else, we’d pick the Toyota Hilux from the current crop of pickup trucks. It has the benefit of a 10-year warranty, too, so long as it’s serviced by a Toyota dealer.

If the Amarok does go wrong, you can call on the generous five-year, 124,000 mile warranty. The 5+ promise also gives you roadside assistance, five services, and three MOTs at no extra cost.