A massive boot but little personality
Allspace is actually all different to a regular Tiguan, Damien O’Carroll explains.
While it may be easy to gloss over the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace seven-seater as just being a Tiguan with a couple of extra seats jammed in the back, that is very much not the case.
In fact, while it sits on a longer version of the same MQB platform as the five-seat Tiguan, the two don’t actually share any external panels and the seven-seater could just have easily been a separate model.
However the German company wisely chose to leverage the popular and very successful Tiger/Iguana mash-up nameplate (that’s true, by the way), thus keeping the looks remarkably similar, in a handsomely inoffensive, but rather generic way.
And that pretty much sums up the Tiguan Allspace experience as a whole – an exceptionally good package that is comfortable, practical, extremely competent and not exciting in any way.
With a 110mm-longer wheelbase, the Tiguan Allspace is
215mm longer overall than the five-seater, meaning that 105mm extra hangs out behind the rear axle.
That means the Allspace has a thoroughly massive boot:
1775 litres with the two rear rows of seats down, and 700 litres with the second row up.
This doesn’t actually translate into a particularly roomy third row, however, which is still very much ‘‘occasional’’ (apparently VW’s research found that most customers valued the extra space over the third row anyway), but the second row benefits with an extra 54mm of knee room, which is noticeable and welcome.
Inside, the Tiguan Allspace is high quality and well laid out, with lots of clever little touches (like the spring-loaded cup holders), some brilliantly comfortable seats and, of course, loads of new tech.
The Highline model we tested here gets VW’s new fully digital instrument cluster display and an eight-inch touchscreen infotainment system, as well as a 360-degree camera, triple-zone climate control, keyless entry and start, a hands free electric tailgate, a tyre pressure monitoring system, driver fatigue monitoring, pedestrian monitoring, autonomous emergency city braking, lane assist and rear traffic alert and adaptive cruise control.
It deftly handles anything you throw at it without drama or, for that matter, excitement.
While the quality and technology is high inside the Allspace, it is all still a bit dull and generic in terms of looks, and both door trims rattled incessantly at open road speeds.
Which was somewhat annoying, and most unlike what we have come to expect from a VW product of late.
Under the bonnet the Allspace Highline gets the same 132kW/ 320Nm 2.0-litre turbo engine as the five-seater and the Skoda Kodiaq, which is nicely responsive and more than powerful enough.
The seven-speed DSG transmission is slick under power, while VW’s 4Motion AWD system is every bit as good here as it is in the five-seat Tiguan.
However, like most dual-clutch transmissions, the seven-speeder does have the occasional lapse in judgment around town and can sometimes be caught unawares.
Fortunately the Allspace has an excellent stop/start system, so the two never conspire to catch you out like some VW Group product can do.
On the road the Allspace is confident, benign and extremely well composed through corners, with nicely accurate steering. It deftly handles anything you throw at it without drama or, for that matter, excitement.
While this may be exactly what you would want from an SUV, it must be said that the Tiguan Allspace never feels as nimble or agile as a Skoda Kodiaq.
In terms of ride quality, the Tiguan Allspace is firm, but nicely composed on smooth main highway surfaces, but it does have a tendency to get ever so slightly brittle and jittery over rougher surfaces.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with the VW Tiguan Allspace, it is getting harder to shine particularly brightly in its particular segment, with some of its strongest competition being essentially inhouse in the form of the thoroughly excellent Skoda Kodiaq.
While the pricier and more powerful R Line cars that are due later this year (and are the most popular variants in the five-seat Tiguan lineup) get no direct competition from the Skoda range, the Allspaces with direct competitors in the Kodiaq family do struggle to make a truly convincing case for themselves.
The Allspace Highline we test here costs $64,990 and while it comes with a bit more standard equipment than equivalent Skoda Kodiaq Style seven-seater, it also costs $8000 more.
While the Tiguan Allspace does pretty much everything impressively well, there is little other than a particularly strong loyalty to the VW brand that would be a compelling argument for overlooking it in favour of a Skoda.