[Joxster]

When I went through the Jeep Compass review, I thought it was the most detailed TBHP review so far, but this one is also right up there. Rated the thread a full 5 stars.
Honestly though, I would personally pick the Jeep Compass over the VW Tiguan any day. There's just something about the Compass that makes me want it

Mods - I also noticed a discrepancy with the tire sizes for the Comfortline model mentioned in two different parts of the review. I'm quoting both below, so that it can be corrected.

Originally Posted by Aditya

Ride & Handling

I must add that the poor ride quality is probably accentuated by the 18" rims and 235/55 profile tyres. The lower Comfortline spec with 17" wheels and 215/65 tyres should offer a more compliant ride due to its taller tyre sidewall. Won't be a world of difference though.

Originally Posted by Aditya

Exterior

Highline gets 18" alloy wheels shod with 235/55 section Hankook Ventus S1 Evo2 tyres. They provide good grip even for spirited driving, but have a harsh ride (rear passengers will feel it the most). The tyres are self-sealing, which means there is a liquid sealant inside the tyre which fills the leak when there is a puncture. This sealant takes care of most punctures, reducing the chances of getting a flat tyre while driving. Do note that 18" tyres won't come cheap when replacing. The Comfortline trim gets 17" alloy wheels with 235/65 section tyres and lacks the self-sealing tech

Cheers

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Chethan B G;4274477[ATTACH

1678657[/ATTACH]
Is this a Sun-glass holder?

I don't think so. Looks like an after thought to me. Chocolates given at the toll, toll ticket, Parking tickets and any other knick knacks can all go in here.

[Turbohead]

Interestingly the power to weight ratio and torque to weight ratio for the Vento diesel and Tiguan are similar. I guess their current customers have nothing to upgrade to in the same brand.

The price is the REAL downer! No wonder people are getting encouraged to spend even more and get Beemers which seems great value in comparison!

[sgmuser]

One of the most detailed Tiguan review! Kudos! I was seriously considering Tiguan as Fortuner was out of the list due to the ingress height posed issues for the elderly in the family. But somehow, this one ticks all the right boxes except the price. Understated, classic design atypical of VW, adequate (a bit less!) power, neat interior and equipment package. But costly by at least few lakhs especially Kodiaq is around the corner with 7 seats with may be a better engine output. Options spoil us otherwise, I would have picked this one up straight. Waiting continues.

[vishy76]

An excellent review with great attention to detail! As someone already mentioned, the clever engineering in German cars and the attention to detail that Team BHP puts in go hand in hand. It literally feels as if I have been in the Tiguan.

I am not very impressed with the product though. To be honest, this car might end up just like the 2013 Passat did only because the Superb came in. I have never liked the idea of launching two cars under the same brand name , but I don't think VW cares much.

Additionally, I think only one of the two, that is VW or Skoda should concentrate on the premium segment. VW could go mass market due to a slightly better A.S.S perception and Skoda should go premium due to its competitive product pricing strategy in the premium segments.

Just like most other Volkswagens, the Comfort line definitely makes more sense from a VFM perspective. It's not a far stretch from the Tucson, and also has most features that the Korean has. The highline only makes sense when compared to the big three , not otherwise.

Regards,
Vishy

[kpower11]

Originally Posted by abhishek46

The Tiguan Highline costs a cool 38 Lakhs on-road, in Bangalore.

Agreed, it offers lots of gizmos and excellent build quality, for the price. However, 38 lakhs is still too much, considering that the 190HP version of the Tiguan costs around 33,000 GBP in UK/EU (roughly 8 Lakhs less than the low power version available here)

I second that.

The problem with the whole theory of the Tiguan being a 'de-badged' alternative to the X1, Q3 and GLA is that they are already overpriced compared to their prices in the EU (an X1 xDrive 20d M Sport costs around Rs 31L in the UK vs Rs 41L in India). So that basically means that the Tiguan is just as overpriced in India as the big 3 are.

Besides, in this segment there are only two things which make a car sell - sheer street cred or the badge. The Tiguan lacks both.

In my opinion the Tiguan Highline trim should have been priced:

A) Around 1-1.5L or so more than the Tucson;

B) Around 4L more than the fully loaded Octavia diesel (to account for the slight VW badge premium vs Skoda and the SUV markup).

Both criteria point to a price of approx. Rs 26.5L for the Highline trim.

It really is a shame as there seems to be a serious dearth of choice combining elegance, practicality and finesse south of the Rs 40L mark and the options available (except the Octavia) are grossly overpriced.

[Voyager-1]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Reversing camera is neatly integrated and located just above the number plate, to the right of the electromagnetic boot release. Considering the poor rearward visibility of the car, you will need to use the camera more often than not:

The reversing camera comes with its own tiny washer jets! Great attention to detail by VW. Please add this to the main review.

I had test driven Tiguan twice along with my neighbor. It has excellent stability and handling. It did not feel under powered on the highways, despite its lower power on paper (We went for a long drive on the Bengaluru airport road, twice). Today, if someone needs a Crossover SUV with go anywhere capability (not hard core offroading), understated luxury, sophisticated features, superior comfort, Tiguan is the only choice. I agree with GTO that, Tiguan will create it's own segment which did not exist before it's arrival. Of course, Kodiaq will give some competition, even though Kodiaq will come with 7 seats, the last row 2 seats are strictly for kids, even for rides within city. For this reason, the Tiguan's Allspace version in Europe is advertised as 5+2 seater and not as a 7 seater.

Even though people tend to see Tiguan as within the reach of the X1, Q3 and GLA, this is applicable to only to the entry level variants of them. If one needs to buy the top end model of X1, Q3 and GLA with equivalent features of Tiguan (example: all wheel drive), they are costlier than Tiguan by 12-14 lakhs. Tiguan offers all the features of the X1, Q3, GLA and some more, albeit with less power. For example, the top end X1 doesn't even come with cruise control! Also, Tiguan has larger cabin space and boot space.

Couple of observations I had:
1. Tiguan's LED headlamps do not bend. And, it doesn't come with dedicated cornering lamps, the fog lamps are doubling up as cornering lamps. But having said that, the LED headlamps light the road very well.

2. Even though Tiguan has 3 zone AC, the rear AC is still having some dependency on the front ACs and it is not completely independent. Also, the rear AC is just adequate. For ex: if one sets the temperature to a low value like 20 or 18 degrees for the front AC, the front blowers would throw air at high speed. This doesn't happen with the rear ACs. Even at the lowest temperature setting, the rear AC air was just oozing out and not blowing strong. And changing the front AC's temperature had some variations in the rear AC's blowing speed. The relationship between front & rear is not straightforward, I couldn't figure it out in the 2 test drives I had.

[srivatsahg]

What a superb compilation Adi and Jaggu!, Truly a commendable job.

What's wrong with VW these days? First came the pricing of Polo GTI and now with the Tiguan. The so called Marketing Team truly deserves a standing ovation for having failed to read the basic pulse of Indian market. A simple 10 minute search on TEAM-BHP would reveal more information than their year long research.

To be honest I just love this Car. I definitely like to own this beauty for its Simplistic yet Functional, Understated yet Classy looks. But the ridiculous price tag really makes me . A sub 20L price tag for a 2-3 year old pre-owned Tiguan would definitely be a value proposition.

Having said that, Adi and Jaggu your effort truly deserves full 5 stars.

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Chocolates given at the toll

Sorry for the one-liner MODS, but this line, this above line made me .

[rajamuneeb]

Thank you for giving us such a great review. The German engineering to its best but marketing to its worst. A great no nonsense feature loaded crossover with a potential to sell in good numbers, but all wasted due to its pricing. This car would have made a lot of sense had it been in the price range of Tucson or maybe a lac more than Tucson. But going in the league of 30L it just doesn't justify itself with the other competing brands. They have more powerful horses under the hood and the brand recall is much higher than VW. This car should have undercut the pricing of fortuner and likes by at least 2 lacs. I wonder why VW didn't attempt to make it a popular seller from their stable but rather rely on just few customers with premium pricing. This vehicle is a great VFM in used car market couple of years from now as rightly mentioned by GTO.

[Soumyajit9]

I recently picked up a BMW X1 xDrive 28i, here in the US.
And.....each and every feature, including some designs inside the cabin are a direct lift off from the X1 (not sure if it is the other way around)
I will highlight these in my review. But for now, German-German Bhai-Bhai

At this price point, this is a better proposition to the X1 for the features it provides (and not the engine).
I just hope that it doesn't die a Skoda Yeti death, due to the shoddy attitude of VW service.

[baskar]

5 star review. Tiguan looks classy like any other VW cars. If I compare to my passat, cooled seats, driver seat massager, dynamic headlamps, auto start stop are missing. Passat also comes with Nappa leather upholstery, premium interiors in the rear seats as well. IMHO, it has better road presence than Tiguan due to long size (as much as a fortuner without any attachments) , and a 4 slat chrome grill.

Most importantly , it has 30 PS more power than Tiguan.

Of course Tiguan has a lot more off roading ability compared to any sedan.

How I wish Mahindra launches an upgraded XUV500 AWD AT with these features at a slight premium over the current model? When XUV was launched a few years ago, it made new ground , may be it is time for Mahindra to look at Tiguan as benchmark and launch one. Adjustable rear seats is a must though.

[sawnilrules]

Kudos Aditya and Jaggu for a lovely detailed review of yet another lovely timeless car from VW. This car like any other VW car will age beautifully well. I somehow like VW designs, but at the same time somehow dislike VW Pricing strategies. This is where Skoda excels, they surprise me with their spot on pricing strategies, product after product. Probably, they take their tagline "Simply Clever" quite seriously.

With Kodiaq just a week away, and if they end up pricing it similar to Tiguan, they may end up cleverly killing the Tiguan even before the product reaches its peak.

I would have loved if VW would have paid attention to the audio quality. Heck, the Superb comes with inbuilt subwoofer and amplifier from Canton, and after spending 40 huge lacs on the car, if I am going to get the same quality of sound that I hear in Octavia, an audiophile in me might as well stretch a bit more and buy the X1, as the latter comes with brilliantly tuned Harman Kardon setup. Though it does not have sound acoustics feature as 5 or 3, however, it definitely sounds better than 8 speaker setup in Tiguan.

PS- staying and driving in Mumbai, with crazy traffic jams, my way of beating traffic blues off late has been good quality factory-fit audio setup as I really don't like to play around with wiring and secondly, don't like taking chances with warranties especially with European cars. So as a next upgrade, one definite feature that I have already kept ticked in my mind is this.

It is going to be a tough call choosing between a Burmester VS Harman next.

[vb-san]

Wonderful review there - managed to bring out even those minute details of the car; rated 5 stars!

The car has wonderful proportions in the true VW way, but I guess their designers worked a bit too much on the understated elegance aspect, probably the most plain jane looking car in VW's global portfolio (or maybe a tie with the Touran MPV). That said, I kind of feel the price is quite ok for what it offers, and is more aligned to the big German competition than a Tucson. Even in those, I personally think only the X1 is superior to the Tiguan - both on luxury and power aspect. It will be interesting to see how the Kodiaq will be placed.

Talking of the Kodiaq, I feel the designers of the lesser brands in VAG group are doing a better job than the big brother. Cars from Skoda and Seat have much more flair than VW branded ones - Kodiaq and Ateca v/s Tiguan is a good example.

[Santoshbhat]

Fantastic review. Rated 5 stars.

The Tiguan looks like a solidly engineered car. The size is ideal for our road conditions I feel. You don't really need big body on frame trucks unless you are into serious off roading or the road conditions in your home territory demand such vehicles. Crossovers like the Tiguan are ideal for touring. They have excellent highway manners, fantastic creature comforts and are capable of handling the bad patches when they present themselves. With decent ground clearance and 4WD you need not fret when Google maps becomes naughty and takes you on an off beat track.

I love understated VW designs, but I feel the Tiguan could have done with a bit of flair. Love the all black and classy cabin too. Black interiors age extremely well and are a lot easier to maintain.

I can't fathom why VW tuned it to 140 hp, when all it takes is a software tweak to get the power figures up to its main rivals - the German compact crossovers. Sometimes I feel the VAG group gets confused about where to position their products. "We have to detune the engine so that Audi's prices are justified. Don't price it too low otherwise Skoda will look premium".

Too pricey in my opinion. But I think this will do much better than what Skoda managed with the Yeti.

[SmartCat]

These are classic symptoms of over-inflation, rather than bad suspension tuning

Originally Posted by Aditya

The suspension feels too firm for Indian conditions. On the back seat, road imperfections come in easily at low speeds and on broken roads, it can get bone-jarring. You can also hear some suspension 'thuds' in the cabin. As the speedometer climbs, ride quality does get better, but it still cannot be termed plush. As long as the expressway is smooth, there are no issues. Big & sharp bumps easily make their presence felt inside the cabin though.

33 PSI, front and back, should greatly improve the ride quality.

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

I can't fathom why VW tuned it to 140 hp, when all it takes is a software tweak to get the power figures up to its main rivals - the German compact crossovers. Sometimes I feel the VAG group gets confused about where to position their products. "We have to detune the engine so that Audi's prices are justified. Don't price it too low otherwise Skoda will look premium".

Discussion on this topic - it might not be just a software tweak. Engine internals are likely to be different.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...s-how-why.html