Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace Highline 2019 Review

If there’s one thing families appreciate, it’s space. Ample room in a vehicle ensures a certain harmony in the tribe, accommodating all manner of things including weekend sport wardrobe changes to road-side nappy stops. Or just personal space.

The modern SUV also needs to be versatile. Like a new-age parent, expectations centre on something fleet-footed, hard-wearing and selfless – without taking itself too seriously.

Happily, the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162 TSI Highline manages the balancing act better than most.

On sale in Australia since late 2018, the seven-seat Allspace is an extension of the regular five-seat Volkswagen Tiguan, riding on a lengthened wheelbase to stretch its body 215mm and liberate an additional 120 litres of boot space and an extension in second-row room.

The Tiguan Allspace lobbed in Australia addressing a pointed shortage of SUV options from Volkswagen Australia, which has just added a new large SUV flagship in the latest Touareg and will soon launch the small T-Roc and T-Cross at the other end of its expanding SUV range.

At present, the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace range starts at $40,150 (plus on-road costs) for the entry-level front-drive 110TSI and moves up the grades into the all-wheel drive 132TSI Comfortline ($44,650) and tops out with the flagship 162TSI Highline driven here ($51,650).

That kind of pricing positions the Volkswagen squarely among similarly-minded ‘5+2’ seat mid-size competitors; namely the Skoda Kodiaq, Peugeot 5008, Honda CR-V, Nissan X-TRAIL and Mitsubishi Outlander.

Standard equipment on the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace range is strong, comprising 18-inch alloy wheels, sat-nav, a powered tailgate, reversing camera, keyless entry/start, front/rear parking sensors, lane assist with adaptive lane guidance, an 8.0-inch touch-screen with Bluetooth connectivity, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, semi-auto-parking and automatic headlights and wipers.

The flagship Tiguan Allspace 162TSI ups the ante with 19-inch wheels, LED headlights with dynamic light assist, electric and hands-free tailgate, three-zone climate control and a 9.2-inch colour touch-screen with gesture control.

Our test car’s price tag balloons to nearly $60,000 before on-roads by ticking a couple of optional boxes. The sound and vision package ($3000) adds the high-tech active info display (aka digital dashboard), Dynaudio Excite premium sound, ambient interior lighting and 360-degree parking camera, while an R-Line package ($3000) brings sporty cosmetic enhancements inside and out.

Standard safety features include autonomous emergency braking (AEB) that operates at speeds up to 250km/h, lane-keeping assist, pedestrian detection and airbags for all three rows – reinforcing a five-star ANCAP rating. The Highline also offers adaptive cruise control, rear cross-traffic alert, blind-spot monitoring and reverse AEB.

The underlying hardware is appropriately high-spec in 162TSI form as well: a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder lifted from the venerable Golf GTI hot hatch that makes 162kW and 350Nm. Drive is shuffled to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual clutch automatic, delivering a 0-100km/h time of 6.8 seconds.

Volkswagen’s extension to a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty and one-year roadside assist helps it compete with mainstream marques while offering quasi-luxury pretensions. It’s nice to see real progress on this front.

Servicing isn’t quite as competitive as the regular set: the first three years will set buyers back $1758 according to Volkswagen Australia on set 12-month/15,000 intervals. Additionally, owners can purchase a Volkswagen Care Plan ahead of their first service, reducing servicing costs to $1350 over three years or $2250 over five years.

The Tiguan Allspace is equipped with a space-saver spare tyre and a 2.4-tonne braked towing capacity – besting many of the mainstream set.

We’ve tested the newcomer in various guises but never as a true family car. On paper it has the makings of something decent.

The Volkswagen Tiguan is remarkably effective – at least for a family of three.

It covers all multitude of driving duties proficiently, from long weekend trips to nipping down to the shops, trading cumbersome, fuel-guzzling traits of regular seven-seaters for a decidedly refined, athletic signature.

First, the interior. Noted, our particular Tiguan Allspace might be wading well and truly into full-size SUV territory (you can get a high-spec Mazda CX-9 for the same money), but there is significantly more tech present, especially when ticking the option boxes.

Vienna leather seats offering excellent support and long-journey amenity team with soft-touch materials at the contact points, a sporty square-bottom steering wheel and dark cabin features to lend the R-Line a sporty, sophisticated vibe.

Handy seat warmers are fitted to the front and outboard second row pews, while second row occupants have access to their own climate control temperature setting.

For the driver, our tester’s optional digital cockpit display is virtually the same as what you’ll find in any new Audi, and displays sat-nav maps, driving data or infotainment, among other features.

It teams with a centre touch-screen that is devoid of traditional hard-wired buttons but still offers ample usability on the run, thanks in part to steering-wheel mounted switchgear.

Apple CarPlay streamlines the infotainment process and the Volkswagen operating system is easy to use and operates benignly in the background, which is probably the best kind of compliment.

Two USB points up front combine with a third in the second row, along with three 12-volt outlets including one in the boot.

Storage and practicality are strong throughout, with bottle-friendly door pockets, a handy open cubby for pocket items at the bottom of the centre fascia, and central cup-holders facilitate everything from a small latte through to jumbo supersized slurpees.

The real boon here is second-row space, which has been extended enough to ferry full-size adults or forward/rearward facing child seats, matched by stretched door openings which facilitate easy ingress and egress.

A flip-down middle armrest accommodates a couple more cup-holders, there are airline-style tray tables are three child tether anchor points, the outboard seats with ISOFIX attachments.

The third row is accessed via flip-down and sliding functions for the second-row seats. There’s no tumbling function ala a full-size seven-seater, but passage through to the rear is adequate for the occasional journey.

Once there, you’ll find hooks, hard plastic bins and a torch. It’s almost Skoda-like.

The Mexican-built Tiguan feels well put together, too; our test car remained devoid of squeaks and rattles through the entirety of the two-month loan. There are elements of the cabin, mostly in out-of-sight areas, where the quality of materials isn’t as nice, but nothing deal-breaking.

Complaints? There were tell-tale gripes more than anything else: the Tiguan’s rear doors miss out on keyless entry, which adds an extra step loading a child into the car with your hands already full, and the 60:40 split for the second-row seats is retained to European standards (the shorter split is positioned roadside instead of kerbside).

In earnest, the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace is ideally suited to a family of three or four. It’s not the sort of SUV that is going to accommodate three child seats abreast (they simply don’t fit) and, equally, you wouldn’t want to be using all seven pews daily.

The third row is devoid of child anchorage tether points as well, which puts paid to thoughts of squeezing the smallest occupants into the bleachers.

A third row of airbags does ensure safe passage for whoever draws the, err, short straw, however. There are also cup-holders back there, and utilising the second row’s 100mm sliding function does eke slightly more legroom for those in the rear.

The boot area is otherwise long and accommodating. In fact, for those with a pram, the boot is longer than slightly larger vehicles including Volvo’s XC60, at 700 litres. The boot floor is likewise flat and the second-row seats can be handily stowed from the tailgate via a pair of levers.

We could easily go ahead and criticise the relative lack of space in the third row, or the fact the boot space is largely compromised with the rear seats in place, paring back room to 230 litres. But that would be missing the point.

The Allspace is an occasional seven-seater. And when used in that capacity – a child’s friend stays for the weekend, or you’ve been nominated with family airport pick-up duties – it works incredibly well. Especially if you’re partial to the odd game of Tetris.

Unlike any other seven-seat SUV we’ve sampled. The Tiguan Allspace feels decidedly light and nimble, and certainly much more lithe than its 1769kg kerb suggests.

There’s a nice balance to chassis, the steering feels well weighted and the car’s heft is well controlled, allowing Volkswagen to once again inject a heightened sense of sophistication and dynamism into a mass-market SUV.

The Adaptive Chassis Control system underpinning the Tiguan Allspace is a key conduit here, using electronically controlled dampers to monitor driving conditions and apply subtle adjustments to each shock absorber to optimise comfort and handling.

The extended footprint has also helped the Tiguan Allspace tackle rough B-roads with more confidence, shaking off larger washouts quickly and effectively and ironing out pitter-patter bumps irrespective of 19-inch wheels. This trait reinforces hushed cabin acoustics.

The Tiguan hides its longer body well from the driver’s seat. You don’t feel as though you’re peering perilously over the dashboard as in larger SUVs, and the car’s 1839mm width is easy to place in underground carparks and tight traffic.

Our test car’s overhead 360-degree camera, which uses cameras under the wing mirrors to project the car’s immediate surroundings, reinforces these traits in tight spaces. The tech helps ensure you’re exactly in the middle of a parking spot and navigate awkward spaces with confidence.

Vision is likewise well sorted, with both front and rear vistas unobscured, the relatively generous glasshouse ensuring the first two rows of occupants are afforded strong outward views.

The small footprint also bodes well for fuel consumption and in the space of 5000km we managed 8.9L/100km using 95-octane premium unleaded fuel -- slightly above the 8.3L/100km claim.

Making use of the car’s Eco mode, which essentially decouples the engine from the gearbox during coasting scenarios, regularly helps net a highway fuel economy rating in the mid-sixes – a factor also owed to a circa 1800rpm idle during open road cruising.

The Tiguan makes no glaring errors on the road, though it does have some idiosyncrasies. Our test car’s gearbox and engine is prone to the occasional clunk at low speeds, a feeling that is particularly pronounced in Eco mode.

The DSG transmission is also blighted by the occasional hesitation from a standstill or when reversing; though those familiar with any recent Volkswagen will know this sensation too well.

From that point onwards, the engine feels willing and free-revving, underlined by slightly elastic but linear rev band. Middling speeds are built up to effortlessly, the seven-speed seguing through the ratios with well-timed, precise shifts.

The car’s safety systems tie neatly into the driving experience, making small but effective interventions and springing few unexpected surprises. Descending out of steep driveways occasionally causes the AEB function to misfire, but otherwise, everything works as it should.

The Touareg is the luxury SUV flagship and the smaller T-Cross will soon occupy a strong entry point for Volkswagen Australia. But in many respects, the Tiguan Allspace is Volkswagen’s smart SUV.

While many will head directly for a larger seven-seater promising more interior room, the Tiguan Allspace makes a compelling argument as a family chariot and may just be the most rounded model that Volkswagen has on sale.

How much does 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace 162TSI Highline cost?
Price: $51,650 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 162kW/350Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic manual
Fuel: 8.3L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 191g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP