Roger St. Pierre road tests an updated VW favourite.
Touareg, Touran, Tiguan – Volkswagen’s three Ts have made a dramatic impression on the nation’s new car sales charts, especially in the public services sector.
According to Steve Thornton, managing director of the Motor Source Group on-line dealership: “The Tiguan has been the most popular choice of new vehicle among police, fire service and NHS staff over the past year. They need dependable, practical transport to get them where they need to be safely and in the right frame of mind.”
The Tiguan is spacious, quiet, smooth and pleasant to drive. It makes a good family car too, with a good four-wheel option to get them safely to where they need to be, even in the worst of UK and Irish weather conditions.
Our test car was in no sense a sporting vehicle but it whisked us smoothly from 0 to 62 mph in 9.3 seconds, which is faster than our lips could rattle off its full model designation of Volkswagen Tiguan SE Navigation 2.0 TDi 5CR 4 Motion 150 PS 7spd DSG.
That long-winded tag reveals that this latest addition to a range that was comprehensively upgraded a year ago features a power train based on the introduction of the well-proven straight-four diesel lifted straight from the engine bay of the popular VW Passat range, mated to four-wheel drive through a seven-speed automatic transmission.
Top speed is cited as 124 mph but that’s pretty academic when you take into account the current massive clamp down on drivers exceeding speed limits. If you should be pushing on, you’ll find the handling and road-holding more than capable of stretching the Tiguan’s legs with a confident stride.
Take it easy on the right foot and a 50-mpg fuel consumption figure can be achieved.
Some of the trim is a little flimsy but the overall impression is of a well designed, well constructed piece of machinery that’s equally on home ground, be it green roading, rutted country lanes or the smooth tarmac of a motorway. It’s not as kind to your wallet though.
To the basic on-the-road book price of £31,035 was added such goodies as adaptive cruise control, emergency assist, keyless entry and electric tailgate, Vienna leather upholstery, dynamic chassis control, tyre pressure monitoring, park assist and rear view camera bringing the total to an eye-watering £38,085.
Author Bio:
Roger St. Pierre is a seasoned professional travel and motoring writer and editor with over 40 years in the industry and one of our regular contributors.
Photographs courtesy of Volkswagen UK
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