Gadgetory

ever since VW brought back the beetle as the new needle they've also had a whole new legion of people sneering at it no one seemed to take the cute little rounded thing seriously that's finally changing the whole new design kind of chopped and channeled and slam and some new guys in this BR line let's drive it and check the test now I could call this a turbo there's a big badge on the back it says that but that doesn't distinguish this beetle anymore because recently even the base beetle went turbo 1.8 this is a bigger turbo at 2.0 you also get a sports suspension of the Arline bigger and more aggressive looking wheels a body kit that particularly changes the way the bumpers are molded and if you haven't checked out a beetle at all in a while well it's worn a new look since 2012 let's round it over the top a little more broad-shouldered inside you got a very cool little gauge cluster on top of the dash we'll see in a moment independent rear suspension came to beetles recently as well in general you could call this the GTI of beetles it's a good summary for the R line now no bud base this is a much more businesslike cabin in the beetle our line first of all you see you've got three clear analog gauges here your speedo your tack and your fuel gauge but it gets much more interesting up here this little blister is an R line thing where you've got an oil temperature gauge you've got this interesting lap timer in the middle and over on the right you've got your turbo boost gauge all of these of course speak to a very different mission than your standard beetle now we have the top package on this vehicle which is called Sun sound and navigation the Sun is the roof overhead pretty big for an arch top car the sound is the fender audio system around the vehicle they little sub in the back and fender branding all around the navigation is right here the navigation the screen is pretty small by today's standards this is the iPhone of car head units way behind the pack in size once you get past that though your choices are pretty solid you've got the usual media options that range from Bluetooth streaming to a pretty silly SD card slot right here the MDI is the multi device interface over in the glovebox notice that this is the first time I've seen a Volkswagen Audi product that has the correct adapter for the new iOS devices basically you want for nothing on the media side the navigation screen has several views but no earth view nothing that's too complex there's no connected navigation going on here either dot pitch and resolution isn't bad it's basically a perfectly good system but there's something cutting-edge about it but in general this interface still makes no organic sense to me neither my mind or my eyes organized the world as balls around the ark but response to inputs is at least crisp and quick and as you can see the system is fairly verbose with a minimum of cryptic icons if you get the VW carnet app set up you'll have crash notification roadside assistance stolen vehicle location remote access to lock and unlock the car and such also you can set geofencing boundaries to know if the cars left a certain area or if it's driving beyond the speed you've preset we're talking to your teenage kids there some other our line touches are these sports seats a flat bottom sporty wheel as is the fashion these days push-button starter over here and two glove boxes you got the standard one here that's standard Beatle stuff and right above that is what they call the high four five I told you this is not a show for kids and this is old beetle stuff a retro touch now under its short snout you've got a hotter engine than in a base beetle but as I mentioned earlier all these guys get turbo engines now but this is the somewhat bigger one it's a 2-liter turbo inline 4 of course sitting sidesaddle driving the front wheels that's beetle architecture aside from turbo charging it's also got direct injection so all the major hits of current engine designer in here the numbers 210 horsepower 207 foot-pounds of torque the beetle is fairly spelt at 3000 pounds or so it's up to 60 and six and a half seconds your mpg with the manual is 23 31 if you get the automated transmission it goes one MPG the opposite way 24 City but only 30 on the highway removing all that power to the wheels of course means going to the front wheels there's something going through the bottom of the car here there's no all-wheel drive all those performance purists might like it but you do have those a limited slip differential in the are line if you're unclear on that go see our car tech 101 from CNET on cars about LSDs and you have two choices of gearboxes we blessedly have been given the six-speed manual yes this is a rarity these days I bet most of these are going to ship with a 6-speed DSG that's a dual clutch automated manual gearbox now I'll tell you I came prepared to really love the beetle our line looks so good on paper doesn't look so good on the road the engine I give an a - it's got great power minimal turbo lag makes a nice note when you're really gonna get winding into it then you've got a whole different personality than the suspension which has kind of got up a lot of floats and porpoising going on is your on and off the power it doesn't match with the motor there's something disconnected here and that's fine if you want to do a compliant suspension at least dial out the road noise and they don't do a good job of that I'm getting a lot of really annoying drumming from the road surface out of all four wheels it's just it's just irritating so it's a bit of Jekyll and Hyde going on here I wish they've gotten the underpinnings to be more of what the engines trying to deliver it's not a bad car to drive I don't dislike it but it's not of a piece no driver assistance tech to speak of on the are line not even a rear camera which is very odd at this point in history okay let's price our little round red friend about twenty five eight for an our line delivered then I'm gonna add 1100 for that DSG because while I like this manual gearbox I don't love it I think that DSG is gonna be a hot setup now I'm gonna go another twenty nine hundred for the Sun and sound package but not the Sun sound and nav package my phone does a better job than VW Nav in terms of WoW me and I can live without the leather the 19's and the bi-xenon but you may have a different opinion there I'm all in just under 30 grand for a beetle that's kind of pulling across purposes it's got one mission under the hood another mission under the floor pant I wish they pull those more into line you