Volkswagen Tiguan First Drive Review: SUV Looks, Car-Like Manners

We drove the new Volkswagen Tiguan from Bengaluru to Chikmagalur and back. Check out what this German SUV can do.

The Volkswagen Tiguan behaves like a car, but has rough-road capabilities. (Photo: The Quint)

Some German lessons folks! It's called the Volkswagen Tiguan and pronounced "Folks-wagon Tee-gwan". Interesting name, considering it is German for a supposed cross-breed between a tiger and an iguana. Go figure!

Thankfully, the rather dapper looking Tiguan looks nothing like what a mutant of these two animals would look like. Volkswagen invited The Quint to drive the new car between Bengaluru and Chikmagalur and back (a round trip distance of 500 km) to experience what this SUV has to offer.

The Tiguan is a compact 5-seater premium SUV. (Photo: The Quint) 

Long story short – it was quite an experience, considering that on Day 2, we were a little delayed while shooting the video (coming soon on The Quint) and I really had to floor it to get this peppy SUV back to Bengaluru in time!

The Tiguan's seven-speed DSG slotted in sports mode, my fingers flipping away at the paddle shifters in manual mode, putting all the 2-litre diesel's 141 horses and 340 Nm of axle twisting power to work, we made the distance in just 3-odd hours on that flying return trip. I'm impressed.

LED tail-lamps on the VW Tiguan Highline look great. (Photo: The Quint) 

Now for the slightly longer story.

The VW Tiguan is based on the MQB platform – the same platform on which the Audi A3 and Skoda Octavia are built – going to show how the company is trying to make things modular across the group.

The Tiguan is offered in two variants in India – Comfortline and Highline, priced at Rs 27.68 lakh and Rs 31.38 lakh, ex-showroom respectively.

The Tiguan is 4.486 metres long and can seat five. (Photo: The Quint) 

We had the Highline variant on test. This one comes with LED headlamps and tail-lamps, full panoramic sunroof and reverse camera, which are additional features over the Comfortline variant. The look is similar to that of the new VW Passat, with an edgy squared-off design (Personal bias warning: I like boxy designs).

That subtle use of chrome around the window line, and just hints of it in the grille and bumper, is very classy. Some Japanese brands could definitely learn this art of subtlety from the Germans.

A panoramic sunroof on the Tiguan Highline makes the car feel airy. (Photo: The Quint)

The Highline gets 18-inch alloy wheels all around. The 149-mm of ground clearance on paper may seem low, but VW says it’s because of the way it is calculated – with four on board, full luggage and 90 percent fuel.

And guess what? We were four on board, with a full tank of fuel and a 615-litre boot full of luggage on this trip. I did some very mild off-roading with it (with other occupants getting out), and it just managed to avoid getting its underbelly scraped. My advise: The Tiguan is better suited for snowy, sandy or mild slushy off-road conditions, where ground clearance is not a criteria, but traction is. It's got more than enough for mammoth speed breakers though.

The all-black interiors of the Tiguan. (Photo: The Quint)

Speaking of traction, the Highline variant is equipped with Volkswagen's 4Motion all-wheel drive system that gives you options to shift to snow, normal road mode, off-road mode, and off-road customisable mode. The last one allows you to select steering feel, transmission shifts and throttle response.

I used the normal off-road mode to check out how the Tiguan could get past a cross-axle rut (where one wheel on opposing axles loses traction), and it worked perfectly. This system is capable of sending all the power to just one wheel that has traction.

The rear seats are spacious enough for two adults and three at a pinch. (Photo: The Quint)

And then comes the highway manners. With the Volkswagen team urging us to floor it and get to Bengaluru in time, I got to test this SUVs highway run to the limit. In normal drive mode, the seven-speed DSG works smoothly, but takes its time with shifts in the interest of fuel economy.

With a shift to the sport mode and use of paddles, the Tiguan comes alive with rapid shifts, keeping it flying at a three digit speed. It corners in a very car-like manner, with no body roll, inspiring confidence as the speeds build.

Average kitna deti hai? Volkswagen claims 17.06 kmpl for the Tiguan. On our drive, we got an overall average of 13.8 kmpl, while the high-speed runs brought it down to 10.1 kmpl, which is probably the lowest it can drop to.

While the price tag for the Tiguan may seem a little steep, considering it is a five-seater SUV in a seven-seater premium SUV pricing territory (like the Ford Endeavour and Toyota Fortuner), what you do get is a very nicely loaded vehicle, packed with features.

The Tiguan’s infotainment system features Apple Car Play and Android Auto. (Photo: The Quint)

It features three-zone automatic climate control, which means the driver, co-passenger and rear-seat passengers can all set their own AC temperature levels. It comes with six-airbags as standard, traction control, ISOFIX child seat attachments and a pyro-technic enabled pop-up bonnet for pedestrian impact safety.

All this has got it a 5-star Euro NCAP safety rating. Oh, and did I mention that it handled sharp showers of rain quite nicely too, with the rain sensing wipers giving me a clear view of the road ahead.

The panoramic sunroof really makes the interiors quite airy. Subtle touches like a CD player in the glove box, convenience levers to fold the rear seats, and the party trick - remote boot opening by waving your foot under the rear bumper, are all there in the Tiguan.

The Tiguan’s 615-litre boot can be expanded to 1,655 litres with the rear seats folded. (Photo: The Quint)

The infotainment system may not have an in-built GPS navigation, but it has Apple Car Play and Android Auto. We used Google Maps with Android Auto quite effectively (except for Google once misdirecting us through some village called Thimanahalli for no reason, while we were searching for Taj Gateway, Chikmagalur, when a perfectly good road existed directly to our destination).

So what do I think of the Tiguan? If you want an SUV that's classy yet compact enough for city traffic and can handle dubious weather conditions, the Tiguan fits the bill. If big, brawny, muscular is your thing, look elsewhere.

The Tiguan is like a sniper in a tuxedo, if I had to give it an anthropomorphic description. It’s precise with its duties, yet classy enough to attend highbrow parties in.