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-   -   Volkswagen Tiguan : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/190607-volkswagen-tiguan-official-review-28.html)

Can you please confirm the date of manufacturing/VIN of your vehicle. Even after checking with multiple dealers several times, they are saying that there is no reverse camera in comfortline. This might become a deal-maker or breaker for me. On top of that, everyone is saying that it can't be fitted later as it will void warranty.

The Tiguan was never in consideration with my budget of 25 lakhs but with the recent discounts, it seems within reach. So, instead of narrowing down the choices, it seems I have increased my options and created more confusion lol:

I understand your frustration on not having a reverse camera on a car that costs 30 Lacs. I too wasn't happy with the situation when I took my Comfortline last year and was more agitated when they said the can't fix it afterwards too.

However, after driving the car I kind of overlooked at the discomfort and the parking sensors work really well. Also, other safety feature which I noticed by chance (couldn't see anywhere in the spec) was that car applying the brake by itself when it senses obstacles. I had seen it once and was confused on seeing the car stopping itself while reversing even though I knew what I was doing. When it happened again while reversing I checked the MID which said something in the lines of driver assist emergency braking. I didn't have the guts to try checking if it happens in forward motion too :)

All in all the car has somewhat dulled my frustration of lack of reverse camera by it's excellent performance on all other fronts along with the sense of safety and security it gives you when you are in the mood to push the limits of the car.

So, I checked with a colleague who bought Tiguan comfortline last month. His car DOES NOT have a rear camera. In fact, I did not know that he bought a Tiguan. I just met him accidentally in the parking lot and then I shamelessly jumped inside his car to check out the car and camera in particular. lol:

So, the puzzle remains unresolved.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have been using reverse camera for the last 5 years and I think it is extremely beneficial. However, it might be possible to live without one as you say but it definitely is not an easy decision to make considering the money spent.

I used to have reverse camera in my Innova and I have one in my Jazz. Believe me sensors in My Octavia works much better than these two cars. Only issue is that even after spending close to 30 lakhs one is not getting such a basic feature like camera in Tiguan. I am in the same boat as you and trying to overlook absence of camera and start stop button in comfortline trim for making up my mind for tiguan!

It seems that our journey is parallel as I remember conversing with you about jazz 10 years ago!

Going to pop that question to the service guys when i go for first free service. Have already 500 km and by next weekend it will cross 1K. The mirrors are supposed to dip when in reverse. That is disabled in mine. If they don't do it, I am ordering OBDeleven. Saw some videos on Youtube about Carista and OBDeleven. Hope the service guys will enable stuff that the car has.

One week with Tiguan, I am quite happy with it. All reviews said it's eager to upshift but I find that it does the downshift equally efficiently. Push the pedal and it drops a gear sensing that you need more power.

Coming from an 8-speaker & active subwoofer Bose system of my last car, this infotainment system sounds fine for the car of this size. Decent amount of bass from the mid speakers. Plus all the car stuff integration into the main infotainment system is cool.

All in all, hard-earned money well spent.

I believe the reason VW has excluded camera is the cost. You may wonder what big deal with just a reverse camera. Interestingly, the revere camera in Tiguan is pretty much the entire system of parking assist minus the actual parking assist feature. Camera has 4 different angles and display features multiple guiding options including steering direction etc , couple of them purely for the purpose of auto parking. Instead of giving a mere reverse camera, they used their expensive system for no good reason.
Unless they make a localized version of Tiguan, I do not think they will include reverse camera in Comfortline.

I had a 1+ hour test drive of the Tiguan over terrible and excellent roads. Sharing my thoughts -

Looks - I am not looking for street presence and I knew that Tiguan won't have much of that. So, that's not an issue. The front of the Tiguan is sharp and smart, the sides are simple and clean but the rear is plan bad - it looks very disjointed, narrow and tall like a MUV from the rear. Wife and kids were so-so with the design. Though nobody really hated it, we all agreed that the car is not a looker and does not look good enough considering the price.

Build quality - top notch, solid, heavy. I think it is the best I have seen so far in this price range. Probably, Jeep Compass is similar but the fit, finish, quality of the Tiguan is way way better.

Interiors - Really nice. It is all black but still feels spacious thanks to the large windows. Overall material quality is very good, excellent fit and finish. Lots of cubby holes, storage space, charging points. Driving position is super comfortable and even the passenger seat has all adjustments (though manual) The rear seats are also great, excellent legroom and headroom, has reclining function, great view of the outside, thigh support is good and there are AC/temperature controls for the rear passengers as well. Overall, among all the cars I have seen so far, this is right at the top along with the Octavia. I feel the Tiguan seats are different from Octavia though - Tiguan seats are firmer and the material is also harder than the Octavia (not sure if it is leather or leatherette)

Ride and handling - I was worried about the ride quality reading the official review and the comments from some of the owners in this thread. But I was pleasantly surprised. The ride is on the firmer side but not at all uncomfortable. It is very matured and the suspension is not noisy. My test drive included terrible roads (almost off road condition) and the Tiguan handled it very well. Even the Ground clearance is very good as I took it to some non-existent roads where normal cars don't venture (only trucks). One advantage of the taut suspension is the excellent handling as it is very easy to chuck it across corners or switch lanes etc. I thought Compass has the best ride-handling combo in this class of cars but I think Tiguan is better, particularly on the handling part.

Performance - The car is good enough for every day driving and there is adequate power to overtake slower vehicles. Even the turbo lag etc is very less. But, this car won't put a smile on your face with it's performance. Considering the 30+ Lakh price, it is just adequate. For example, I think it performs at par with a Vento TDI DSG which costs half the price of a Tiguan. I don't have the numbers but I enjoyed the performance of a Polo 1.2 TSI more than this (comparing apples and watermelons, but still). The Hyundai Tucson was clearly more refined and faster than the Tiguan.
The Honda CRV gets lot of flak in this forum for under-powered engine which is absolutely correct. The Tiguan is better than the CRV but it is under-powered for the segment/price and not much faster than a CRV. I must say that I felt a bit disappointed.

NVH - Awesome. Almost no road noise or wind noise (I could drive up to 130 kmph). Even the diesel engine is pretty refined and noise/vibration is well contained.

Conclusion: For me, the Tiguan was not in consideration as it was way above my 25 lakhs budget. However, it came into consideration due to the huge discounts. I had a few rounds of negotiation with the dealer here and was ready to stretch my budget further for the Tiguan, if it really impressed me and appealed to my heart. I was thinking of overlooking missing features in Comfortline (rear camera, push button start provided everything else is super impressive. Unfortunately that did not happen - the bland looks (particularly rear) and the not-so-great performance were the main reasons. . Unfortunately, that's not the case. So, Tiguan is out of consideration for me.

I do remember our conversation about Jazz 10 years ago. I feel for normal parking, the sensors are good enough but I have found the camera to be super useful in some situations like when you are reversing in a busy street etc.As you said, I was mentally prepared to overlook the missing rear camera or push button start if the Tiguan bowled me over. But, it did not. Everyone's requirement is different. If your heart is set on Tiguan, this is probably the best time to buy it. I am sure you can find some after-market jugaad for the reverse camera and the push button start is just a gimmick for me.

Thanks, makes sense to me. The Tiguan feature set has not been customized for India. For example, who needs heated seats in India? Ventilated seats would have made much more sense. I am not sure if 3-zone climate control or reactive hood or self-healing tyres are super important either (I would like a proper spare)

The ORVM will lower in reverse if you keep the knob which is used to adjust the mirror on the left and not in the center position. I keep it left so that I can see the kerbs while reversing.

May be you can fit in an after market reverse camera in the mirror or on the dash. Not very elegant but works. That is how I used to live in my XUV all these while.

Hey all, any discount provided by the manufacturer yields reduction in road tax also or it’s always fixed per original ex-show room price? I have told that it’s not the case. Sorry it might be dumb question.

Can anyone help me here as I need to finalise my decision soon please:

In most cases it a collective discount and not on ex showroom. Even when I got my car recently, had asked to give discount on the ex showroom so that the road tax also reduces. But as per them this is not possible since RTO has fixed prices as per the vehicle and city of registration.

Not sure if that is true because I have read a post of blackwasp who has got a discount on ex showroom on purchase of his Abarth.

RTO is fixed for model and city. Discounts will show as ex-showroom discount so that it reduces TCS (1%). But imagine it as an on-road discount when calculating road tax.

Yes, the RTO charges are fixed. The discount offered will be the total discount on the on road price of the car. The dealer had included all the discount in the ex showroom price in the invoice when I got my Tiguan last year.

Interesting - I should check this out. Is there a button to activate / deactivate this?

Another point I noticed about the Tiguan are the ORVMs that fold automatically when they sense they're too close to an object - happened a couple of times at parking speeds (even slower maybe), and after clearing the object they open out again.

I too experienced this few times, but not consistently. I guess this has something to do with the half baked parking assist implementation.