I know there’s a few lovers and haters on here but having taken delivery of a Tiguan last month I can say I’m really impressed with the car.
Last Monday I drove 140 miles of M’way and A and B roads and when I got to my destination I felt I’d only driven 10 miles.
This was achieved by using the almost autonomous driving aids the car has. That said if you don’t get on with computers I would be wary of the systems and take a bit of time getting to know how the systems work as it can sometimes take you on, what I call a “fairground ride” where it would take you around a bend faster than what I would go around it had I’d been in control. You may hear bad things about “Lane Assist” where the car steers itself and while it does get quite a bit of getting used to, again, once you get your head around how it works it really is a great feature, a great feature that some don’t like however and end of the day you can turn it off if you want to.
I know we all hate being stuck in traffic but with “Traffic Plus” turned on I look forward to traffic jams where I can relax and let the driver in front do all the driving. Same goes for those fairground rides where your speed into bends is controlled by the car in front. Don’t be too frighten by my fairground rides remarks as simply touching the brakes turns the system off.
The car is comfortable to sit in and drive and even backseat passengers have plenty of legroom with there own heating and AC control as well.
I won’t go on much more other than to say my Tiguan is the R-Line but would have preferred the Elegance where you get the sunroof, IQ Lights and reversing camera as standard though I’m not sure you get the “Traffic Plus” I mentioned above but does get the adaptive cruise control that controls the car on Motorways but not sure about if its capable of of bring the car to a complete stop and start again in traffic jams. I think the Traffic Plus option does not have a big ticket price if it does have to be added to the Elegance however I think its over a grand for the base Life model to add.
One thing to beware of is the boot has not got a flat floor so can be awkward for loading and unloading disability equipment. If you add the full size spare wheel (yes another cars without a spare) I think you get the variable floor so it can be raise or lower to make it flat but unfortunate for myself I never added this £275, I think, option and had to build the floor up myself so that its level.
Delivery times are a nightmare and is the only thing that would put me off ordering one today after waiting 15 months for mine. The new Mk 3 Tiguan will be out towards the end of the year so this could mean a lot of the old Mk2.5 models becoming more easily available over the summer and possibly some AP discounts from dealers soon too.