2013 Volkswagen Beetle TDI: Comfort and Cargo
What's New:
- The 2013 Volkswagen Beetle TDI is identical to the 2012 standard Beetle in terms of its available comfort and cargo features.
Despite its plain presentation, the 2013 Volkswagen Beetle TDI delivers in most of the important areas when it comes to passenger comfort. Dull as it might be, the Beetle’s dashboard is laid out logically enough, and we never found ourselves reaching for an awkwardly-placed button or switch. The driver and passenger’s seats (upholstered in cloth in our tester) were quite comfortable and offered ample leg and headroom – adjectives that can’t necessarily be applied to the vehicle’s usable, but tight rear quarters. The Beetle TDI is a coupe, not a family conveyance, and most buyers interested in this type of car are well aware of the fact that its backseat is intended for occasional use. Cargo space under the rear hatch is adequate for a pair of passengers, expanding to up to 29.9 cubic feet with the rear row folded forward, but falls short of most hatchbacks in its price range.
We did have one complaint about the layout of the Beetle TDI’s center console. The parking brake, which is located directly beside the driver, also happens to be situated underneath the vehicle’s one armrest. For all practical purposes, it is impossible to deploy the parking brake without having to put the armrest up first, which virtually guarantees no parking lot shenanigans or epic drifts through slippery corners. More importantly, it’s a very awkward design decision that had us routinely jamming the parking brake into the armrest and getting it stuck there until we could wrestle one of the two free.