Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £18,645 to £25,525
VW image; compact size; manageable running costs; car-like driveability; reasonably practical.
Dull styling; expensive for what it is.
Pleasant, smart and accomplished, but not terribly exciting.
Volkswagen promised a mini-Touareg some time back, and indeed the Tiguan does look almost exactly like a scaled-down version of VW's big off-roader. It's around the same size as a Nissan Qashqai, although it has more off-road practicality than the Sunderland-built product.
The Tiguan is not just a raised-up, restyled Golf 4Motion. It has unique underpinnings, specific axle and suspension design, and its own unique body structure. It will have more in common with the next-generation MkVI Golf than the current one.
Engine options are, at first, VW's 138bhp 2.0 and a supercharged and turbocharged direct-injection petrol engine making 150bhp. Further petrol engines will come later in 2008, as well as a 170bhp diesel. There's a choice of six-speed manual or (for the diesel) five-speed automatic gearboxes.
There's also a wide range of options and accessories, including an excellent new touchscreen satellite navigation system, auto parking, rear-view cameras, sports suspension and adaptive xenon headlamps. It's pretty much all you'd get in a Touareg, but in a smaller and cheaper-to-run package - though not an inexpensive one.
A version called Escape comes with a redesigned front bumper, sump guard, grille protector, hill descent control and engine speed control (plus a compass) for greater adventuring potential. It's capable of towing up to 2,500kg.
UK sales start in early 2008, priced from around £19,500.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volkswagen Tiguan
wrote on 31 01 2008