How diff erent our roads would look if the sport utility vehicle had never been invented For generations most cars were pretty much saloons and hatchbacks. But with the 1980’s giving us the Mantra Simca Rancho and Suzuki Vitara it is no wonder it took until the turn of the Millennium for the idea to really catch on.
And caught on it did, now the latest generation of the Tiguan is Volkswagen’s third highest selling car in the UK – after the Golf and the Polo. For avoidance of doubt Wikipedia states: “A sport utility vehicle or suburban utility vehicle (SUV) is a vehicle classifi ed as a light truck, but operated as a family vehicle.
Th ey are similar to a large estate car, usually equipped with four-wheel drive for on or off -road ability” Th e medium sized SUV sits bang in the middle of cars in the hotly-contested segment Now we have SUV’s that come in small, medium and large, plus the whole other concept of the Crossover. Th e fi ve-door, fi ve-seat Tiguan sits fi rmly in the centre of the segment, and is more than a Golf on stilts, as early detractors coined it.
It is easy to disappear down a wormhole when you are choosing a car from this sector. Is it as well built as an Audi Q3, bigger than a BMW X3, as reliable as a Nissan Qashqai or cheaper than a Mazda CX-5? Th en throw into the mix that it is closely related to the VW parent-owned Seat Alcata.
Depending how you spec your Tiguan it can cost from £22,000 to £42,000 so there is a model to take on all rivals. This is the second generation model and was launched last summer, eight years after the original.
Th e model we tested was the Tiguan SEL TSI 4Motion with a basic on the road price of £32,820. VW off ers it with seven diff erent engines, three petrol and four diesel. Th e unleaded variety comes as two 1.4-litre turbo units with either 123 bhp or one, with cylinder deactivation technology, that off ers up 147 bhp.
Our test car had the 177 bhp 2.0-litre TSI which is good for a top speed of 129 mph and a 0-62mph time of 7.7 seconds. It is a good match for a load-lugger and will take you as fast as you would want to go with your family on board. With the standard seven-speed TSG automatic gearbox, changes are as smooth as we have come to expect from this well established unit. It could do with a bit more punch at the lower end though.
If you really want to pull out of a junction in a hurry, it can be useful to use the wheel-mounted paddles to check you are in the right gear. Diesel engines include a trio of 2.0-litre TDI power plants, one with 114 bhp. Th e other has 148 bhp and VW expects that to be the most popular among UK buyers. Th ere is also the range topping 237 bhp option with twin turbos.
