Volkswagen T-Cross 2019 Review – International

If you’re after a Volkswagen crossover with pretensions towards being interesting to drive, you need the Golf-size T-Roc. At the opposite end of the scale is the newer, smaller Polo-size T-Cross. Both small Volkswagen SUVs will go on sale in Australia in the first quarter of 2020.

It’s not that the Volkswagen T-Cross is an uninteresting car; it’s just that it’s uninteresting to drive. Or look at, really. Or to sit in.

The flipside is that it’s astounding value for money, spacious, fully equipped with lots of techie stuff straight out of the Polo and relatively light.

And it’s relatively light because it only comes as a front-wheel drive, where its Tiguan and T-Roc siblings can empower the rear axle.

This is the T-Cross’s way because it helps with price, more than weight, and that‘s because the front-drive layout basically imposes a maximum engine size and output on Volkswagen.

So it’s a budget crossover, but it does it in the Volkswagen style, with Volkswagen materials, which means it’s not as budget as some of the budget crossovers from other brands. Volkswagen doesn’t traditionally do ‘budget’ development very well (see: VW up!).

So the T-Cross is not the place to come to come for tinsel or thumping performance or living-on-the-edge handling. It’s the place to come for worry-free family truckstering, with lots of space and proven technology at a reasonable price.

Calling the T-Cross a high-rise Polo sells it a bit short, but not much. The T-Roc is based on the Golf, yet it’s only a tad longer than the new T-Cross, and the cheaper car feels a lot more grown up, a lot softer to drive and a lot easier to live with. The T-Cross is about six inches taller than the Polo and its luggage area is just 10 per cent larger.

Its footprint stamps it as 4107mm long (just 13mm shy of the T-Roc but 54mm longer than the Polo), with the driver’s hip point 10cm higher than the Polo. Its 2563mm wheelbase is a single millimetre off the Polo and just 32mm shy of the T-Roc, while it’s 1750mm wide and 1558mm high.

It’s more like a cheaper (and not that much smaller) Tiguan than a cheaper T-Roc, and it’s a car for people who aren’t in love with the idea of a crossover, or a car, or anything to do with driving, to be honest.

That’s no bad thing because, frankly, that’s most of the population. That’s why it’s sensible, rather than sporting.

There are clever touches that even non-car folk will appreciate, like the 100mm of fore-and-aft sliding range for the rear bench seat. That is enough to lift its luggage area from 385 litres to 455, which works.

That means is can have space for adults in the rear, or it can be squished forward for kids so you can have more holiday luggage space, thanks to a rear seat stolen from the Tiguan.

And when you’re moving house, the 60/40-split rear seat can be dropped down to make 1281 litres of space available and the front passenger seat can double over to help, too.

It’s solidly practical in the rear, especially for device-doting kids. There are two USB connectors back there, along with their own air-vents.

It’s the same up front, where the T-Cross has everything the Polo has, give or take. It just bolts the same modules into a different shape of dashboard layout.

Volkswagen took a risk in fitting hard plastic dash materials to the T-Roc to position it differently, though it makes the interior of the expensive model feel cheap. It’s done the same with the T-Cross, sadly.

The plastics are harder to the touch than we expected and while there’s the option of a fully digital instrument cluster, the stock system is a traditional two-gauge analogue unit. There’s an eye-level 8.0-inch touch-screen infotainment unit in the more expensive versions, too.

In Europe, the entry specification (more of a fleet thing, to be honest) has 16-inch steel wheels, halogen lights and a micro 6.5-inch infotainment screen, along with blind-spot monitoring, rear and cross traffic alert, autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and six airbags.

The Life pack is the entry level for private buyers, with 16-inch alloys, body-coloured bumpers, front fog lights, an upgrade to the 8.0-inch infotainment unit, rear USB plugs and adaptive cruise control.

The Volkswagen T-Cross moves up to Style (with LED front and rear lights, anodized silver roof rails, parking sensors at both ends, tinted rear windows and folding mirrors), and ends at the R-Line, with 17-inch alloys and unique bumpers and side skirts.

None of this is accidental. Volkswagen’s had plenty of time to size up the opposition and the market trends and it’s zeroed in on precisely what it thinks people want/need. And, importantly, what they don’t need or want.

That’s why you won’t see big engines in the T-Cross. Instead it will come with two 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engines (with six-speed manual or seven-speed twin-clutch automatic gearboxes), and the strongest of them has just 85kW of power and 200Nm of torque.

That gives the ‘grunter’ Volkswagen T-Cross 85TSI – the only engine to be offered in Australia -- a 10.2-second sprint to 100km/h, using 4.9L/100km, for 112g/km of CO2.

Not for the T-Cross the thrusting energy of the T-Roc. Instead, it’s a calming, rather than scintillating experience, fit for those who like their lives reconciled, rather than unabashedly active. It’s not the sort of car whose advertising will feature surfing or paragliding or off-piste skiing.

Yet it moves along nicely enough and the handling delivers that sure-footed, failsafe maturity that is the contemporary Volkswagen hallmark. Its ride quality is shockingly assured and calm, with the kind of isolation even Volkswagen doesn’t deliver in cars like the Passat.

The entire ride-and-handling envelope is clearly more ride than handling, though it won’t deliver irksome mid-corner shocks. Instead, it will flit along imbuing its occupants with a feeling of splendid isolation from the goings-on below decks.

The engine doesn’t mind a rev, either, and it delivers a delightful warble when it’s up and at them. It’s flexible, its torque is useful, rather than dominant, and its economy is pretty good, too.

In Europe, there’s an entry-level T-Cross with a turbocharged 70kW/160Nm three-cylinder engine and an 70kW/250Nm 1.6-litre turbo-diesel.

With the same 70kW motor fitted up front, the Polo (which oddly claims 15Nm more torque) meanders to 100km/h in 10.8 seconds, so the added mass of the T-Cross should add at least a second to that.

A 1.5-litre inline petrol four will also sit across the engine bay at some point, with 110kW of power and 250Nm of torque, and will comfortably slide beneath the 10-second barrier for 100km/h, and the diesel certainly will.

Regardless of the engine under the nose, there’s never a feeling that the T-Cross is missing out on anything by ignoring all-wheel drive, because the grip from the MQB-based chassis and suspension systems easily bests the engines’ ability to exceed it.

The Volkswagen T-Cross carries over the Polo’s feeling of being happiest in day-to-day driving, yet being utterly capable and competent for everything else you might want to do.

It can corner with surprising curiosity, change direction with clarity of purpose and stop hard and straight.

How much does the 2019 Volkswagen T-Cross cost?
Price: From under $30,000
On sale: Early 2019
Engine: 1.0-litre turbo-petrol three-cylinder
Output: 85kW/200Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 4.9L/100km
CO2: 112g/km
Safety rating: NA