2022 Volkswagen Tiguan R (inc. 0-100) review: Why this SUV is in a class of its own!

CarExpert

I've been hanging out to drive this! It's the 2022 Volkswagen Tiguan R - the full-fat, performance version of the popular VW family SUV. It features the engine from the new Golf R and is ready to attack the race track...or simply take your kids to school.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Volkswagen content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen More Volkswagen Tiguan content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/volkswagen/tiguan  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 1:01 Interior 3:27 Infotainment 4:57 Safety tech 6:44 Practicality 7:21 On the road 11:33 0-100km/h 18:13 Verdict 19:18  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #vw #tiguan #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. I get a lot of messages from you guys on social media and recently a lot of you have been asking about this.

00:07 It is the Volkswagen Tiguan R.

00:10 It's kind of like a Golf R wagon, but built for, you know, SUV family type things.

00:17 Now this kind of doesn't really have any competitors. If anything, it just competes with the Golf R wagon.

00:23 All of its other Euro competitors are much more expensive. So stuff like an SQ5,

00:28 GLC 43, X3 M40i, they're all much more expensive. This kind of sits in an era of its own. Now this is priced at around

00:35 $70,000, so it is expensive, but it is loaded with all the bells and whistles. Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.

00:43 So if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review,

00:45 you can use the time codes on the screen or if you're on YouTube,

00:48 you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,

00:52 please subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon as well, so you can find out every single time

00:57 we review cars with the letter R in their name.

01:00 Now before we talk exterior, I've got to apologize for the rustliness of my jacket. It is bloody freezing out here,

01:07 so it's going to make a little bit of noise. You've got five exterior colors available. They're all free of charge, yay!

01:12 In terms of the design itself, it kind of looks like other Tiguans on the road,

01:16 but you will notice things like the R badge there.

01:18 It's got quite a pronounced body kit as well. Looks very similar to the R line, except this is the full fat version.

01:25 So like this body color, beautiful blue. You've got these chrome highlights along the front there,

01:30 some piano black down the bottom, big Volkswagen logo there. Over on the headlights,

01:35 you get standard matrix LED headlights with these LED daytime running lights. Quite a good headlight cluster and excellent projection and nighttime.

01:43 You've got a huge cooling duct through here, plus some aero on the side. Over on the side, you have these whopper

01:51 21-inch alloy wheels. They are huge. So I don't know what this is going to drive like.

01:57 That is a big wheel on a low profile tire, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

02:01 Have a look at these brakes as well. That is some serious business there. So 357 mil rotor, they're cross drilled. At the back,

02:07 they're over 300 mil in terms of the rotor size.

02:09 So it is a huge brake and it should mean that you can have some fun with this and even take it to a racetrack

02:14 if you want and know that you do have that stopping power available.

02:17 A little bit of wheel arch cladding there with that sort of black offsetting of the body colour.

02:22 R badge on the side here with a little bit of chrome and then piano black as well. Up the top here, you get this sort of

02:28 brushed aluminium looking mirror with an indicator built into there. This has a 360 camera,

02:34 so a little camera nestled into there. More of that chrome lashing around the side there. More brushed aluminium along the top there as well

02:40 for that roof rail. And then come around to the back. Around the back, you'll find full LED taillights.

02:46 I find this interesting. So the R badge is nestled there under the Volkswagen badge, but I don't know,

02:52 I don't really love the positioning of that. It kind of looks a bit weird being central.

02:56 Maybe it would have looked better off to the side there or something.

02:58 But anyway, that is where it is. You've got a shark fin aerial up the top there plus a brake light built into there as well.

03:05 Quad exhaust pipes look pretty meaty. Now, let me know what you reckon about the Tiguan R.

03:09 Obviously, there are not too many competitors in this segment for this car. So what would you buy instead of this?

03:16 We do have Cupra coming to Australia soon. It has been available in Europe for a while now,

03:20 but they will have a competitor available to this. But yeah,

03:23 let me know what you think about the design and what else would you buy instead down there in the comments below.

03:27 So we are inside the Tiguan R. Let's start off with the key. Here it is. You've got lock, boot,

03:33 unlock. Then on the back you have the Volkswagen logo. Look at this. It has an old-school flip out key as well,

03:39 but it is a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket.

03:42 Then when you're inside the car, you've got a push-button start just here.

03:46 Okay, so design. Look, I think I said this before in our last

03:49 Tiguan review. I reckon it looks a little bit plain in here and it's starting to look a little bit dated.

03:55 You know, if you look at the rest of the cars in this segment,

03:58 this is kind of the older design that was in SUVs a while ago and it has carried over a little bit.

04:05 Yes, they have upgraded the infotainment system and stuff,

04:07 but it does look a little bit dated and I mean in the sense of materials.

04:12 So, scratchy plastics along the side here. All this stuff is soft to the touch, but it's sort of,

04:17 doesn't look too fancy and I think that $70,000 for this,

04:22 they could have probably gone to a little bit more effort inside the cabin.

04:25 But you are buying it for the performance features, so we'll get to those a little bit later on.

04:29 What about your touch points though? So that is firm in the center and firm on the door as well. How firm is it?

04:36 Well, we've got our durometer.

04:37 Tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before,

04:42 have a look at the link in the description. And build quality,

04:45 that all feels really nice and solid. Door slam, get ready for some beeps.

04:52 That sounds good.

04:57 Okay, let's talk about infotainment. So yes, I mentioned some of this looks old,

05:02 but the infotainment system is definitely not old.

05:04 They have supercharged this in terms of all of its features. So I mentioned smartphone mirroring first.

05:09 It comes both with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those are wireless.

05:14 This is what Android Auto looks like. So full screen integration,

05:17 really nice and snappy there as well and totally wireless, which I love. You've got to have this wireless technology.

05:24 It really just completes the entire package. And this is what Apple CarPlay looks like. So again, full screen integration.

05:31 You can see there that this is nice and snappy as well and wireless.

05:35 So yeah, this is just the ultimate perfect setup. The infotainment system itself is pretty easy to use.

05:41 It has a proximity sensor. So when you bring your finger closer to the screen, it brings up additional menus.

05:46 Then in addition to that you have AM, FM, DAB, digital radio.

05:50 And also optional with the R is a 10 speaker Harman Kardon branded sound system to pump the tunes.

05:56 All the standard sound system is just non-branded, which is also fine. It does the job without any dramas.

06:02 So yeah, look, this is all good. Pretty impressed with that. Only downside is there's no volume knob.

06:07 So you have to basically just use these controls off to the side here, which I don't know, not a big fan of.

06:12 I'd prefer to just have a volume knob that I can turn up and down as required.

06:15 There is also a screen ahead of the driver there so you can flick between different menus as required.

06:22 It's all pretty smart and very quick. Only thing I'm not a fan of is the steering controls.

06:28 So you can either swipe or push and sometimes they just don't really work that well.

06:33 And I found when we were testing the Golf GTI that I kept bumping some of these controls while we were driving.

06:39 So I'll be interested to see whether that happens again today.

06:41 So yeah, we'll keep tabs on that as well. Moving on to safety technology.

06:46 You've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.

06:49 You've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. You have blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror.

06:55 Rear cross-traffic alert, a lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant.

06:59 You've also got front and rear parking sensors plus a 360 camera. I'll show you what that looks like.

07:04 So look, the quality's not too bad. It's a tiny bit grainy there, but you can clearly see what it says on the suitcase.

07:11 That's your 360 view and then you have a number of different views available to you as well as required,

07:16 plus a semi-autonomous parking feature too. So yeah, not a bad setup.

07:21 Let's talk about practicality. We'll start off with your connectivity.

07:24 So you've got a 12-volt outlet down the bottom here, two USB-C ports.

07:28 In terms of phone storage, you can whack your phone down here.

07:31 Unfortunately, there's no wireless phone charging.

07:33 So you've got wireless smartphone mirroring, but no wireless phone charging, which is a little bit disappointing.

07:38 On the cup holder front, your coffee. You can lift down here and the good news is you've got these two little

07:44 doodads that'll deploy and allow you to insert your drink of whatever description

07:49 and then it's got these flexible arms that just hold it into position. So that's great news.

07:53 In terms of the actual bottles themselves, fit into there without any dramas and then also fit into the door.

07:58 The door pockets are carpet lined, which is pretty fancy.

08:02 On the big bottle front, actually the big bottle will fit in here if you get rid of one of those.

08:07 Look at that. So it's a pretty convenient setup and fits inside the door without any problems at all either, which is good.

08:13 Additional storage, you've got this big slot just next to the driver's knee for keys and other valuables.

08:18 This center console moves forwards and backwards and it gives you a little bit of storage in there.

08:23 You have a net down here as well. Also got a glove box over here with plenty of space.

08:29 Now check this out. You've got not only this sunglasses holder up the front, which can store like two sets of sunglasses.

08:36 You've then got this whopper space behind it, which can then store another set of sunglasses.

08:40 So you can literally have sunglasses storage for the entire family, which I reckon is pretty cool.

08:46 What about your comfort features? Well, you've got dual zone automatic climate control, heated seats for the front row.

08:53 In addition to that, you've also got 12-way power adjustment on the seats with memory.

08:59 So you can go forwards, backwards, you can lift the seat up and go back down.

09:04 You can move the backrest. You can also adjust your lumbar support as well.

09:08 In terms of the seats, they've got this R branding up the top there with blue stitching as well.

09:13 And then this sort of faux carbon look in the center there.

09:17 They're also Nappa leather, so very fancy setup there.

09:20 Steering adjustment. It offers both tilt and reach adjustment.

09:24 And the steering wheel itself is pretty cool. It's got these cutouts, so it sits nicely in your hand with these big extended paddles.

09:31 And then on our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.

09:35 So, second row of the Tiguan. Look, in terms of room, I've got stacks of knee room.

09:40 Toe room is excellent. Headroom is fantastic as well.

09:44 It's one of the things with these older platforms that, I don't know, they just really wanted to focus on space.

09:49 And I think they've done an excellent job with that here.

09:52 In terms of your other creature comforts, you've got air vents here. You have a third zone of climate control.

09:56 USB-C, a 12-volt outlet, two map pockets, then phone storage up the top here.

10:02 Similar design to the front there with that sort of faux carbon and the blue stitching.

10:07 You've got a center armrest here with two cup holders.

10:11 Fits our bottle in nicely. Bottle fits in the door as well with some of that lined carpet there.

10:17 Now, window test. Let's give this a shot.

10:21 Boom, goes all the way down and it is auto up and down in the second row too.

10:26 So, pretty impressed with that.

10:27 ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats and three top tether points as well.

10:32 The other cool thing here with the seats is flexibility.

10:34 You can bring it forward a bit if you want to bring it forward or you can go back.

10:38 You can also slide the seat forward as well if you want to give yourself a little bit of extra boot room.

10:43 Now, what about your cargo space? Let's open this up.

10:47 So, you have a little over 600 litres available here just in the standard form.

10:52 You've got storage off to the sides and then beneath the cargo floor, it is a big old subwoofer.

10:59 Now, the reason there is no spare tyre here is because there is no spare tyre.

11:03 Instead, you get a tyre repair kit.

11:05 You've also got a 12-volt outlet just there, some hooks and then an LED light off to the side.

11:11 So, what it looks like with our bags in there.

11:12 So, laptop bag in, suitcase in.

11:17 It all fits pretty nicely.

11:20 Then what you can also do if you do want to expand the space a little bit,

11:23 drop that second row by pulling these levers and they drop out of the way to provide you with a little over 1,600 litres of cargo space.

11:33 So, we have just hit the road in the Tiguan.

11:40 Yeah, before I go into the engine, this driving position is interesting and very much feels like a Golf.

11:45 I don't feel all that high.

11:47 It's weird. I literally just jumped out of the X3 M40i, so maybe that sits a bit higher,

11:51 but this feels quite low to the ground.

11:54 I think that's definitely a good thing.

11:56 Now, powering the Tiguan R, it's going to sound familiar.

11:59 It is a 2-litre turbocharged, 4-cylinder petrol engine.

12:03 It makes 235 kilowatts of power and 400 newton metres of torque

12:08 and that's all mated to a 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission.

12:13 Now, wet better than dry when it comes to dual-clutch transmissions.

12:16 Let's have a look at what this feels like at low speed

12:19 because sometimes these can be super jerky and not that friendly.

12:23 So, there's the stop/start system.

12:26 That's not too bad.

12:29 Yeah, it looked a tiny bit jerky. I'm not a massive fan of dual-clutch transmissions,

12:32 but this one is probably one of the better ones, so to speak.

12:37 One of the good things about this engine is just how, I don't know,

12:41 it just has such a big breadth of ability.

12:43 So, while you're just puttering along and just taking it easy, it's fine.

12:46 You can lean on the throttle, it sort of pushes onto its torque band,

12:50 but then when you kick the throttle down,

12:54 it just starts delivering that surge right into your back

12:57 and it just feels so, I don't know, heartwarming.

13:00 It really just has a lot of urge and it wants to just get up and go.

13:03 Here in the comfort mode, it goes into like an eco mode of some description,

13:08 which I'm not a huge fan of, but you do have a number of drive modes here

13:11 that allow you to configure different aspects of that

13:13 and then at all times, you can always flick the gear lever down to go into sport mode

13:16 if you want to get away from eco mode, which no one really likes.

13:20 Now, speaking of drive modes, you can change them very quickly here on the steering wheel

13:23 just by hitting the R button once and then that will flick between the drive modes,

13:27 or if you do a long hold of the R button, it will take you straight into race mode.

13:31 You then also have the ability to configure all of your settings through individual,

13:35 like literally everything, including the engine sound.

13:38 You can go from having lots of noise in the cabin, which I'm not a fan of

13:42 because it just doesn't sound real, to just having none at all,

13:45 which is what they call the pure mode, which I'm more a fan of.

13:48 Now, what's the ride like? I mentioned in the intro, 21-inch alloy wheels.

13:51 They're kind of concerning when it comes to ride quality, but surprisingly, it's not terrible.

13:57 It is firm. You will notice that it is firm even in comfort mode with the adaptive damping setup,

14:02 but ultimately, it's not that bad. I thought it'd be much firmer than it is.

14:06 So, it's a really good trade-off between the sportiness that comes with this tyre and wheel package

14:11 and then the comfort you want in and around town.

14:13 And then what's it like if we dial it up to the maximum highway speed here in Australia,

14:17 130 kph over our sine waves.

14:22 Let's see how this feels. Here we go here, 130, here come the sine waves.

14:29 Yeah, that feels really good. So, you can tell that they've softened up that comfort mode

14:33 to give it that compliance and the body control, and I think it's all the better for it.

14:37 It just feels nice and comfortable over the sine waves.

14:40 Let's talk about road noise. So, you may have noticed I'm yelling a little bit.

14:43 That's because when the speed does pick up to highway speeds, we're on these coarse sections of country road,

14:50 there is a fair bit of tyre noise that comes into the cabin, and I'm noticing a bit of wind noise too.

14:53 It is very windy outside, but the tyre noise is quite predominant,

14:57 and it is something you're going to notice if you do a lot of highway driving.

15:00 Volkswagen claims they combine fuel economy of 8.8 litres per 100 k's.

15:05 We're sitting around that 10 litre per 100 k mark.

15:07 We have been doing a lot of fun driving this morning, so I'm actually pretty impressed with that figure.

15:12 Okay, let's pop it straight into the hairy chest mode, race mode.

15:17 Give it a punch through our course here.

15:19 Wow!

15:26 Holy crap, this has a lot of traction.

15:29 I was not expecting that.

15:33 Wow, this genuinely just feels like a Golf R on stilts.

15:38 It is absolutely hammering.

15:40 Wow, that is impressive.

15:45 So, I mentioned earlier we had an X3 M40i here this morning.

15:49 This actually feels like it is holding on a whole lot more tighter than the BMW.

15:55 Wow.

16:01 I'm lost for words here. This is seriously, seriously impressive.

16:05 It's just staying dead flat through the corners.

16:07 The ride has become much firmer in race mode,

16:13 but that's what you need if you really want to attack the racetrack and give this a proper crack.

16:17 He comes out back straight, roll onto the throttle here.

16:21 Oh, it is absolutely moving.

16:26 Wow, okay, so we are going way quicker than the X3 there.

16:31 Jeez, that is ridiculous. I was not expecting that from a Tiguan.

16:36 Far out. That is seriously impressive.

16:41 This thing has got some balls.

16:43 Just through the corners, it stays dead flat and it has so much traction.

16:48 Like, you could just lean on it, bury the throttle, and it just hooks up.

16:52 Wow, I was not expecting that.

16:54 And the brakes are incredible.

16:56 You just breathe on the brake pedal and it just bites hard.

16:58 It really just gives you the confidence that you need behind the wheel here.

17:02 Jeez, that is seriously cool. Very impressive that.

17:05 Now, one of the reasons this hangs on so tight through corners is it actually has real mechanical torque vectoring on the rear axle,

17:14 and that means that not only can it control the amount of torque it sends to the front and rear axle,

17:19 it can then control the torque that it sends between the two rear wheels.

17:23 That means when you apply throttle out of a corner, it's able to send torque to the wheel that needs that torque the most,

17:29 and that is going to optimise traction.

17:31 You don't find real mechanical torque vectoring systems in many cars on the market today,

17:36 so Volkswagen has clearly gone to a lot of effort here to make sure this car handles it.

17:42 And yeah, from behind the wheel here, it is damn impressive.

17:45 And then in addition to that torque vectoring system, you have an electronic diff lock too.

17:48 So this is a proper setup under the skin here.

17:51 This is absolutely not just a standard Diguan.

17:54 Now, the only downside to all of that is 98-ron premium unleaded.

18:01 That's what you're going to need to fuel this bad boy, and that is expensive at the moment, unfortunately,

18:06 but it is what it is if you want to be able to go to the racetrack in your family SUV.

18:12 Volkswagen claims a 0-100 time of 5.1 seconds.

18:18 This is how it went up against our stopwatch.

18:21 [engine revving]

18:23 Okay, let's put this back into comfort mode.

18:37 Let's talk about your basic things. Visibility.

18:38 So it's excellent down the front there. I can see clearly the front edges of the car.

18:42 Wing mirrors are big enough. I can see down the side of the car.

18:44 We've got our blind spot monitor built into there.

18:46 Excellent visibility out the rear as well.

18:48 And with that 360 camera and the self-parking feature,

18:51 it is pretty straightforward to park this car even in tight spaces in the city.

18:54 And then when it comes to low-speed stuff, the steering has plenty of communication

18:58 when you really get up it and have a proper crack,

19:01 but at low speed, it's got just the lightness that you expect from a family SUV.

19:06 You're not going to be doing any off-roading, and that is commensurate with the Grand Cler.

19:10 It's 170-ish millimetres, and then in addition to that, a towing capacity of around 2 tonnes with a brake trailer.

19:16 [engine revving]

19:20 So the Volkswagen Tiguan R. This is genuinely a smile-making machine.

19:26 It's literally like a Golf R that is built to transport your family.

19:30 Just the way that it accelerates, the way that it sticks through corners is seriously unreal,

19:35 and it's something that you don't expect in this price bracket.

19:38 You need to spend way more money to get an equivalent German vehicle

19:41 that is going to do what this does in this price bracket.

19:44 So, big thumbs up from me.

19:46 But, downsides. I think the interior is very much underdone.

19:50 It doesn't feel like a $70,000 car.

19:52 The ride is a little bit firm in and around the city,

19:55 but look, if you put those things to one side, it really is just a fun car to own.

20:00 So let me know in the comments section below, have you ordered one?

20:02 There are stacks of people on the waiting list,

20:04 and if you're one of them, let me know which colour you went for and all that sort of stuff

20:07 down there in the comments section below.

20:09 Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it.

20:11 Please make sure you share it with your mates,

20:12 and if you haven't done so, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.

20:16 But until next time, drive safely.

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