Winning the Space Race

VOLKSWAGEN TIGUAN 2.0 TSI 4MOTION HIGHLINE

As our term review of the Tiguan Allspace draws to a close, Bernie Hellberg Jr shares the lessons that he has learnt from daily living with this sought-after SUV.

Back in the day, when seven-seater minivans were all the rage, hands-up who then believed that the people mover would forever be relegated to the parts bin of history by the rise of the mighty SUV.

Yes, automotive tastes may have changed, but the needs of (transporting) the many, still outweigh the (comfort) needs of the few. Or does it?

With the Tiguan Allspace, Volkswagen believes that we should all be equal before the laws of physics, and even if you need to transport half a rugby team, this should, and can, be done in style and comfort.

In an ongoing test of this theorem, the Driven team has been passing the keys to our long-term test Tiguan Allspace 2.0 TSI between ourselves for the better part of 12 months. In that time, we have grown to love the Allspace that has, for all intent and purposes, become an unmissable part of our daily lives.

WHAT I LEARNT

In the last month, I had spent the better part of 2,000 kilometres traversing Gauteng’s highways and byways. No special long-distance road trip to some exotic location, just going about everyday things – the work-home commute, grocery shopping, and the like.

I have, however, for the first time in many months also had to transport more than just myself and maybe one or two additional passengers on a cross-town journey. Finally, I too could join the ‘third-row club’.

Now, conventional wisdom dictates that with an additional 215 mm of body length, and 60 mm more rear legroom for the second row of seats, there should be reasonable space for a smallish adult to sit all the way in the back, right? In theory, yes, but even with the second row of seats adjusted forward, sitting in the back if you’re on the taller side, is lesson one: transporting adults in the third row is a short-distance exercise only.

Very few seven-seater SUV’s have cracked the code on this conundrum, and the Tiguan Allspace does it better than most, with ingress and egress

improved over its rivals thanks to the car’s 110 mmlonger wheelbase.

The stretched Tiguan also manages to be quite elegant in the process. To distinguish it from the standard Tiguan, the Allspace has a slightly revised front end that includes an altered bonnet and radiator grille design. Chrome accents stretch across the width of the grille, adding a flash of brightwork to an otherwise quite conservative package.

The roof has also been re-sculpted by adding structural lines that stretch along the length of the roof, instead of a conventional smooth surface. This reinforces the structure while adding differentiation to the design.

Lesson two: the Allspace elegantly stands out from the crowd.

Besides serving as an occasional people mover, there are several practical upsides to the extended Tiguan, as it offers an additional 115 litres of stowage volume to the standard car. Even with the third row of seats in use, there are 230 litres of luggage space. Flip the rear-most seats down, and the luggage space triples to 700 litres. That grows to a whopping 1,775 litres of luggage space, trumping the standard Tiguan by a significant 120 litres.

Lesson three: when it comes to luggage space, bigger is always better.

Lesson four of living with the Tiguan Allspace is both the car’s best and its worst attribute.

With 162 kW of power, the Allspace is almost allpowerful too. Some might even call it a sleeper. All I know is, this ‘mom’s taxi’ is anything but a slouch, and can propel you and the family from zero to 100 km/h in a mind-bending 6.8 seconds. That is a mere 0.4 seconds slower than a Golf GTI. Aided by the always-on 4Motion all-wheel-drive system, power delivery is smooth and consistent, rewarding you with a feeling of power that you never thought you’d experience in a seven-seater SUV.

There is a downside to that as well, though. Being a practical-minded, frugal buyer (let’s face it, you wouldn’t be considering an SUV if that weren’t the case), chances are that you would expect the same from your choice of vehicle. Practical the Allspace is, in spades, but frugal, not as much as the equivalent 2.0 TDI version. Volkswagen claims average consumption of 8.1 l/100 km, but doing mostly urban driving, 10 l/100 km is a more realistic number.

Finally, lesson five takes us back inside the Allspace cabin, this time to the driver seat. The Allspace not only offers a great deal of space, it also has cutting-edge connectivity. Although our Allspace tester did not come specified with headup display (it is an option), the Active Info Display (full digital instrumentation), Apple CarPlay, and Active Cruise Control put it at a technological level above many peers.

LAST WORD

Only one minor failure popped up during my month of testing the Allspace – the batteries for the key fob ran out after just a year’s worth of use. While annoying (especially so when you’re stuck in a Gautrain parking lot and need to Youtube “how to manually unlock a VW Tiguan”), it could happen to any manufacturer, and a quick trip to the local Volkswagen dealer will sort the issue out in no time.

Compared to the regular Tiguan, the Allspace not only has substantial gains in the space department, it also checks the boxes for standard features and versatility. This may come at a price premium, but who can fault the logic that dictates that we get what we pay for? It’s a lesson I learned a long time ago, and it has never been truer than with the Allspace.