"Buy American and save our jobs," says the bumper sticker on the rusty 1989 Ford pickup truck. When was the last time this guy contributed to America's GDP? I'll tell you when, in 1989. Autoworkers pensions are huge, their benefits are plentiful, and they cry when their pay gets cut by 50 cents. If you're tired of the American autoworkers and their cars with roast beef sandwiches between the door panels, you might want to try a foreign car. You'll even be helping out America more than that guy in the rust bucket truck. What foreign car do you want? You're downsizing from your gargantuan American SUV, but you don't want to go too small. Where does that leave you? Crossovers? Too "soccer mom-ish." Passenger cars? Too small. How about a CUV? Perfect. You can get a Honda CR-V, but the CR-V is boring and too reliable. Which gets boring. What about a Mazda CX-7? Ugly and who knows where a Mazda dealer is anyways? Volkswagen Tiguan it is. The Tiguan is the Touareg's little brother. VW says the Tiguan is the GTI of SUVs. I will have to agree. The Tiguan has sporty looks, European tuned suspension, and a turbocharged 4 cylinder engine that will propel the SUV from 0 to 60 in 7.7 seconds. As the Tiguan growls off the line there is a little bit of turbo lag, which only adds to the fun of driving this SUV. There is some torque steer in the FWD models but that too adds to the fun of driving. My test car was a FWD SE model, being so, the milage was better than a 4 motion AWD model. The milage was around 23 MPG city and rural (on premium gas). On the freeway the Tiguan can get on the good side of 27 MPG but the milage usually hung around 25 MPG. The handling is great. It feels sporty and planted on the curvy roads. If you're used to a big American SUV, the Tiguan will feel like a sports car. The cabin is quiet while driving down the road. The interior of the Tiguan is of high quality. There's soft-touch plastics through out, and all other materials are good quality too. The seats are comfortable and will hold you in place when going around corners. These seats don't feel as wide as American SUV seats. If you are of larger proportions, you might feel the seat bolsters a little more then in a Jeep. So what's wrong with the Tiguan? Well not too much. This VW is an upscale SUV so the starting price is a little higher then other rivals but you get more for your money then you might think. Besides the amazing ride, handling and build quality, you get many features standard. Such has traction control, all wheel disk breaks, and a bunch of airbags, an 8 speaker stereo, and even windshield wipers that move when you shut off the car so that the wiper is not sitting on the same edge as it started with. This makes the wiper blades last longer. If you opt for the SE model, which most will do, you get a lot more goodies. You get heated mirrors and washer nozzles, better stereo, leather wrapped steering wheel and shifter, fog lights, and the list goes on. The Tiguan is very safe too, it was a top safety pick by the IIHS. Another "problem" with the VW is that there is less cargo room then it's rivals. Although the rear bench slides back and forth to allow for more cargo room in the very back, which is a cool feature. The front seat folds down for your longer cargo.
So like the GTI the Volkswagen Tiguan is the best "all-a-rounder. "
The next car review will be a 2009 Jeep Commander.
Good review - very imformative!
ReplyDeleteJohnny