Volkswagen Tiguan

Our first impression of the Tiguan was a positive one. The SE we bought came with Volkswagen’s Keyless Access feature, which locks and unlocks the doors using a touch sensor on the handle and when someone with a key in their pocket or purse approaches or walks away from the vehicle. It worked well and was easy to figure out. Once the doors were unlocked, getting into and out of the vehicle was easy in both the first and second rows. The Tiguan benefits from hip-height seats, narrow sills, and plenty of room to slide your feet in.

We liked the Tiguan even more once we sat down. The cushions aren’t too contoured, so they’ll fit a wide variety of body types, and they offer decent bolstering and plenty of padding. Multiple drivers told us they were able to get comfortable due to a wide variety of adjustments. One of our testers always mentions his appreciation for cars with four-way lumbar support, and he was pleasantly surprised to find it in this sub-$40,000 SUV.

Like the previous Tiguan, the rear bench provides generous room, full thigh support, and bolstering for good posture. There’s no optional third row.

The Tiguan’s interior may be its biggest selling point. If you’re a fan of clean and minimalist European design (handle-free kitchen cabinets, modern furniture with simple lines, etc.), you’ll love the Tiguan. It’s not fancy, but it’s honest and well put together. Switches and buttons move with a solid feel, and we encountered no rattles or squeaks. Most of the materials are plastic, but they don’t pretend to be anything else. Accents that feel like suede and a leather-wrapped steering wheel add some warmth.

The Tiguan’s handling is a bit sharper than most of its competitors. Nimble and tied-down, its steering feels responsive, and the suspension does a good job of keeping body roll at bay.

Volkswagen did a good job subduing most wind, road, and tire noise. The four-cylinder engine can sound a bit strained when passing or accelerating hard. Sometimes we enjoyed hearing the “whoosh” of air surging through the turbocharger, but its underlying wheezing sounds were less pleasant.

What We Don’t Like

When leisurely cruising around town, the Tiguan’s eight-speed automatic transmission shifts reasonably smoothly. But if you ask for a little more power—for passing, accelerating, or driving on a winding road—the bumpy upshifts and lurchiness are noticeable. In a situation where you accelerate after slowing down—like when the driver ahead of you takes a turn off a busy main road—you’ll wait a second until you get a lower gear ratio with your added pressure on the accelerator. This can also happen when the adaptive cruise control (ACC) is active and the car resumes its set speed after a stop or slowdown.

In theory, an adjustable center armrest that can both tilt and slide is a good thing. We had no problems with a similar setup in the Audi A5 and Q6, but the Tiguan’s mechanism is very clunky and hard to use. One driver got his fingers pinched when he squeezed the release lever, and a few folks complained that it was difficult to tell when it was locked in place. When you slide it forward, it blocks the cubby and wireless charger.

As with many modern cars, a few drivers had trouble adjusting the steering wheel so that it didn’t block the gauges and displays behind it. Even without these visibility issues, we wished it had more of a telescope range for comfort.

As always, we’ll perform our own fuel economy tests on our Tiguan, but the in-car display says we’re getting in the high-20s for fuel economy, and the Environmental Protection Agency estimate is 25 mpg combined. That’s respectable for a gas-only car, but so many of the Tiguan’s top competitors offer hybrid versions that get fuel economy in the mid-30s. We wish Volkswagen offered hybrids the same way that Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, and Toyota do.

A few drivers found that their phones got too hot in the unusual wireless charging cradle, which clips a phone to the inside of the center console storage.

We were disappointed that a heated steering wheel is only included on the Tiguan’s top trim SEL R-Line, even though this feature is available on the lower-priced Taos SE.

What We’ll Keep an Eye On

When VW first showed off the updated Tiguan’s controls, we were afraid they’d taken things in the same wrong direction as the ID.4 and GTI. After all, the old Tiguan had some of the easiest-to-use buttons and knobs in the business. The new car’s controls certainly aren’t as easy to use as the old ones, but it’s not as dire as we feared. The infotainment screen responds quickly and is easy to see. It’s easy to switch between the native system and Android Auto/CarPlay, and the separate temperature controls work well even though they are touch-sensitive. We especially like that the Tiguan’s steering wheel has physical buttons as opposed to the annoying touch sliders and flush panels found in the VW ID. Buzz and ID.4.

Still, we don’t like that VW crammed the wiper controls onto the turn signal stalk, and that drivers have to rummage around in the inexplicably named “CLIMA” menu to find controls for fan speed and airflow mode. The twist-to-shift column-mounted gear selector is unusual, but we got used to it pretty quickly.

There are two volume controllers: One slider is on the base of the touchscreen, about where you’d rest your hand to make a selection. The other is between the front seats and is also used to select drive mode (Eco, Comfort, Sport, etc.) and adjust interior lighting. Considering most people will never or very rarely mess with drive modes, and maybe set up their ambient light settings once, we would much rather that the knob mute/pause the audio when pressed.

The ride is firm, but the suspension absorbs broken and grooved pavement well. Bigger impacts seem to punch through into the cabin, however. We’ll keep an eye on this as we test the Tiguan over a variety of road conditions.

During our initial break-in period, we noticed that the brake pedal didn’t feel responsive until it was pressed farther to the floor. We’ll see if that changes as we put more miles on the car or if we get used to it.

Every Tiguan gets standard automatic emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning (BSW), rear cross traffic warning (RCTW), and adaptive cruise control (ACC). Unlike most vehicles, the Tiguan’s BSW warning light is on the inner exterior of the mirror, not the mirror glass.

The IQ.Drive active driving assistance system comes standard. It can help steer the car within lanes at speeds over 35 mph. Pairing lane centering assistance (LCA) with adaptive cruise control (ACC), it’s designed to reduce stress during highway driving. LCA performance is comparable to what we’ve seen in recent VWs. It’s able to keep the vehicle centered with some wavering within the lane, but it’s very smooth.

In terms of crash protection, the Tiguan now has standard driver knee, center, and rear side airbags.