Looking for a family car?. Many would suggest buying a hatchback, but the same family comfort may be found here. In the new Volkswagen Tiguan.
But strangely, that isn’t the case. Nissan well and truly made its mark on this area of the market by pre-empting the popularity of the SUV with the Qashqai. It now regularly features in best-sellers lists. It – as well as rivals like the Mazda CX-5 and Renault Kadjar – have left the big players in the family car market, of which Volkswagen is, running to catch up.
The latest Tiguan is intended to attract more buyers from these competitors, then. But it won’t have an easy job; their all-around competence, value and quality mean the VW has a fight on its hands – not least from the Seat Ateca, which shares many of its components.
Here’s a list of pros and cons.
Space in the Volkswagen Tiguan
The Tiguan has the largest boot in its class – but there’s a catch. That only holds true for the petrol model; the diesel version, which most buyers will choose, has a larger fuel tank which impinges on boot space, meaning its carrying capacity is actually toward the smaller end of the spectrum.
Otherwise, the Tiguan does well for space. Head, leg and elbow room in the front and the back are more than adequate, and the rear bench features a prominently raised centre section which has the effect of creating slightly more legroom for the middle passenger.
You can slide the rear seat forward in order to increase boot space at the expense of rear passenger space, should you have a particularly large load to carry – a useful extra bit of flexibility.
Access is good through all doors, and there’s a decent amount of storage space for any odds and ends you might wish to carry around with you.
Comfort in the Volkswagen Tiguan
Want a comfortable Tiguan? I’m guessing you probably do – in which case, I’d advise against choosing the R-Line model. This version, with its thin tyres and stiff suspension, isn’t very smooth, crashing and bouncing around with every imperfection the road cares to throw up. Adding the Dynamic Chassis Control adaptive suspension helps, but even then the Tiguan still feels unsettled.
Choose a car with the standard suspension and smaller wheels, though, and the Tiguan becomes a lot more easy-going, even if it still doesn’t quite have the composure of a Nissan Qashqai. What’s more, supportive seats help to make long journeys easy to endure.
However, no matter which model you choose, you have to put up with quite a lot of wind noise. It’s not that noticeable in town, but get on the motorway and you might find yourself having to turn the radio up to drown it out. The diesels are also noisy when cold.
Dashboard Layout of the Volkswagen Tiguan
You shouldn’t have any trouble finding your way around the dashboard of the Tiguan. All the controls are well-positioned, with a large touchscreen taking pride of place to allow control of entertainment and navigation options, and slick, well-placed controls for ventilation below.
You can specity the Tiguan with Volkswagen’s virtual cockpit, or “Active Information Display”, which converts the physical dials in front of the driver to a screen that can be customised to display whatever vehicle information you like. This is a neat system, but the graphics aren’t quite as clear and appealing to look at as the equivalent Audi versions, and nor is it as intuitive to use.
The dashboard itself is finished in the sort of high-quality materials people have come to expect from Volkswagen, though its design might be an acquired taste if you’re not a fan of angular lines and straight edges, which are everywhere.
Driving Ease of the Volkswagen Tiguan
Easy-to-twirl steering and light pedals make the Tiguan easy to drive for most people. That said, the clutch feel is a little woolly, which can make manual versions tricky to pull away for drivers who aren’t entirely confident. Combined with the slightly underwhelming performance of the diesel versions, this can make the Tiguan sluggish to get going.
Fortunately, there’s a decent spread of very smooth automatic versions to choose from; these are probably the versions to choose.
The Tiguan is pretty easy to see out of, with well-positioned door mirrors that don’t obscure traffic at junctions and well-designed window frames that don’t get in the way. And while the ridges in the bonnet help you to judge where the front end’s extremities are, it’s still worth choosing a model with parking sensors, which come as standard on all but the cheapest version.
It’s unlikely you’ll be buying a Tiguan for its sharp handling, but there are cars like this that allow you to have a little bit of fun when you fancy it. The Tiguan is not one of them.
True, its handling is always safe and entirely predictable, which is what matters with a car like this. But the Tiguan’s responses are slow and deliberate, rather than zippy and invigorating, and you can feel its weight moving around uncomfortably if you try to corner too quickly.
Throw in remote-feeling steering with very little feel, and you have a car which never really comes close to being exciting.
You might think the sporty R-Line model improves matters, but you’d be wrong. In fact, its stiff suspension makes the Tiguan feel so unsettled on a back road that it gives you even less confidence to push on. And while the 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine sounds good on paper, in reality, the Tiguan’s weight blunts its performance.
Reliability of the Volkswagen Tiguan
Kia beats Volkswagen on its warranty offer; the Sportage comes with a whopping seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty, whereas Volkswagen only offers three years and 60,000 miles.
In that regard, it’s also beaten by Toyota and Hyundai, who both offer five-years of cover, the former limited to 100,00 miles and the latter unlimited by mileage, and Renault, whose warranty is for four years or 100,000 miles.
The Tiguan is one of the heaviest cars in its class, which really doesn’t help it when it comes to fuel consumption.
It’s not particularly awful, to be fair, but most diesel rivals do use less fuel, both on paper and out in the real world. The Mazda CX-5, in particular, will get much closer to its official figures, which also happen to be better than the Tiguan’s.
Petrol versions fare a little better because a few rivals still use thirsty naturally-aspirated engines, but even so, the Tiguan’s stats are average, rather than outstanding, and in reality it’s not that easy to meet the claimed figures either.
Interestingly, the Seat Ateca, which features similar engines and the same underpinnings, is also noticeably lighter and better on fuel.
The story is especially bad if you choose a four-wheel-drive version; so-equipped, the Tiguan is one of the worst for fuel economy of all its rivals.
Safety in the Volkseagen Tiguan
The Tiguan comes with all the safety equipment one could want as standard. Every model gets autonomous emergency braking – a system which senses an impending head-on crash and alerts the driver or applies the brakes to prevent or mitigate it and reduces the likelihood of a crash by 38%.
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