2009 Volkswagen Tiguan

Hi! I'm Joe Wiesenfelder with Cars.com. I've always been a critic of Volkswagen’s
earlier SUV, the Touareg so when I heard they're coming out in the smaller model, I
figured would it be any better. With the exception of the name, Tiguan or is it Tiguan,
neither of them is really very good. It’s much better than the Touareg. Now the problem
with the Touareg mainly, was that it was too heavy so now it has a pathetic 15 miles per
gallon city and 20 highway and that is for the most efficient one even though it’s really
slow.

Now this is an all wheel drive Tiguan which is the least efficient and even it gets 18 miles
per gallon in the city, 24 on the highway and you can get even better mileage if you get
front wheel drive or a manual transmission. It’s also plenty preppy. Now the Tiguan is
about a foot shorter from bumper to bumper than the Touareg and about five inches
narrower but there’s not much penalty in the inside. Actually, four cubic feet less
passenger volume is not that bad.

There's about inch less leg room in the front seat but there's actually a little bit more
headroom. Some of their nice things in this one, more modern include the option
navigation system. Now, instead of buttons along the side of the screen this is a touch
screen much better maps, better labeling and it also has this interesting wacket feature.
When you're using the zoom levels, you can just hit this one button and it zooms back. It
gives you a wide view. It might seem gimmicky but what's its doing is it showing you all
the traffic patterns because there is real time traffic information for major metropolitan
areas on this and you could see it’s all green here which is really weird. Traffic is not
usually this good. And then it goes back down where it was.

Also, for the backup camera which comes with the option when you put it in reverse
aside from just sitting what's behind you, you get lines to show you where your fenders
will be and then when you turn the wheel, it swings either way to show you where you
will go. There’s also a different mode you can push. It gives you a pattern that helps with
parallel parking, kind of neat. We haven’t seen anything like that except for in cars that
park themselves like the Lexus LS460.

So the backseat is also roomy. There’s actually a little bit more leg room and almost an
inch more headroom than in the Touareg. Also, unlike the Touareg, you can adjust the
seat forward and backward, which is good. It helps you share space between the
passenger compartment and the cargo compartment. The backrest is also adjustable for
angle. You got a center arm rest.

Now, there's more to it than that. If you pull one strap and the whole thing goes down and
that’s pretty much it. This rigid cargo cover might seem a little clunky but it’s actually
much lighter and easier to remove than retractable kind. Now, we found in cars where the
second row rolls back and forth and you get a gap. In the cargo floor and the solution
Volkswagen has here is this flap. You can’t even really tell it’s here. It keeps it smooth,
nothing falls in and if you're sliding some cargo in from the rear just slides right over.

You also get some extra storage space along side the spare tire here, so you can keep any
valuables out of sight. It is well worth having. Now, the Touareg does have more cargo
space as you might imagine. One thing it doesn’t have is a front seat that also folds flat.
So even though you have a shorter vehicle overall you’ve got a lot of room to work with
here.

Well overall, the Tiguan, I think is a much better vehicle than the Touareg especially if
you're today’s times high gas prices, etcetera. All it really gives up is a little interior
space and some towing capacity if you don’t need that, this is a much better way.