Volkswagen has given the Sharan a minor facelift – the refreshed MPV is set to go on sale in Europe from July this year. The majority of the changes are under the skin, but visually you’ll be able to tell the new Sharan from the old one via the new ‘Jakarta’ alloy wheel designs and the new LED tail lamps. There are also two new colours – Hudson Bay Blue Metallic and Crimson Red Metallic.
As with the pre-facelift, you can choose from a two-row five-seat configuration, a three-row six-seat configuration or the one available in Malaysia, a three-row seven-seater configuration. The seats have an EasyFold design that can fold flat into the floor of the vehicle. There’s options for powered sliding doors and a powered boot, all of which are standard on the Malaysian Sharan.
Say goodbye to RNS 510 – the Sharan facelift gets the new family of Volkswagen infotainment systems that optionally support MirrorLink, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. You can either have the five-inch Composition Colour system, the 6.5-inch Composition Media system or the 6.5-inch Discovery Media system with navigation support.
The engine line-up has been completely revamped. The 1.4 and 2.0 TSI engines now output 150 PS and 220 PS respectively – the latter 20 PS up from the pre-facelift’s 200 PS. For those who are in the market for a TDI engine, there are 115 PS, 150 PS (up 10 PS) and 184 PS (up by seven PS) tunes to pick from.
All engines except the 115 PS TDI use a six-speed dual clutch gearbox, which now has a coasting function. In addition, the 150 PS TDI can be had with 4MOTION all-wheel drive.
There are new driver assistance systems too. The Automatic Post-Collision Braking system is installed as standard. The optional Front Assist ambient traffic monitoring system alerts the driver if the distance to the vehicle ahead is too short and applies the brakes as necessary.
A Blind Spot monitor alerts drivers to the presence of vehicles in the blind spot when changing lanes, and there’s also a Rear Traffic Alert, a system that warns of cross traffic when reversing out of parking places.
The integrated City Emergency Braking function automatically initiates an emergency stop at speeds of under 30 km/h if a collision is imminent. Another new feature is the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system. The electronic parking brake now comes with an Auto Hold function, and the Park Assist system has been upgraded to a third-generation system that can also help exit from parking spaces.
Other changes to the interior include a new colour multi-function display, a new steering wheel design, and the option for a massage function for the optional 12-way adjustable seats. You can also upgrade to Vienna leather with an embossed diamond pattern. There are three new trim designs – Platinum Silver (Trendline), Piano Black (Highline) and Mirror Oak (optional for Comfortline and Highline).
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Whew! Luckily the changes aren’t that big.
Not a big fan of the wood trim and should have updated the instrument cluster to be like on the new Golf instead…
But still a pretty solid MPV. The brilliant thing is how it is so composed at speed, better than some Asian makes.
I agree on the experience at high speeds. Had to rush a couple of times and it didn’t at all feel like a big mpv. More like an agile mid-size suv. This, coming from something that is bigger than the alphard (spec-sheet compared). Although as far as any-size-mpvs go, the S-Max drives bettter though (albeit being waaaay smaller).
More important, does it have 350Nm?
What a car from VW. For a family man, this one really really good. Luxurious, wide space, and so many new features that will likely help the driver.
such a crap car