Our experts share their first impressions of the 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan. We break down Volkswagen’s latest improvements, explore how the Tiguan stacks up in the crowded compact SUV segment, and explain why its redesign gives it a more refined, “grown-up” feel. Plus, we answer your questions about airbag deployment and recommend the best vehicle for a tall, traveling hockey family.
Test results here:
Exclusive CR discount for Talking Cars viewers:
SHOW NOTES:
0:00: Intro
0:24: 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan Overview
2:15: First Impressions
9:28: Volkswagen reliability
12:12: Pricing and competing vehicles
14:51: Question #1: Do airbags deploy if a driver is pressing the horn?
19:51: Question #2: What’s the best vehicle for a growing family of six?
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Tired of SUVs in U.S. shitty oversized vehicles. Need more sedans EVs.
That way you can really destroy the world faster.. besides your full of crap – buy a Telsa .. or you just all mouth ???
I do think we could use more sedans, it is a shame to just see automakers calling off sedans.
You’ll probably see a lot less EV after the tax credit goes away this October.
I bought a 2025 Camry. It’s great, but would be perfect as a wagon!
Wait until you turn 50. You’ll find them so much easier to live with especially the ease of getting in and out plus having the flexibility of moving things from point a to point b is great.
More on the VW Tiguan here: https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/volkswagen/tiguan/2025/overview/?EXTKEY=YSOCIAL_YT
These are great vehicles, I just hope/wish VW would get their reliability better. VW’s do always drive really well. This vehicle with a TDi or even TDi hybrid would be awesome.
No it’s not. read my comments above.
Key word when talking VW: RELIABILITY (???).
Poor reliability, to be exact. Electrical gremlins, oil leaks, and expensive parts and repairs.
Exaggerated. Yes there are issues but so do so many other brands. What I have found in owning 5 VW/Audi products is they have been great well up to 100k miles and beyond. I’ve owned 23 cars in 40 years of driving and had more issues with the domestic brands and equal number of issues with my Toyota, Honda and Infiniti products.
But it seems hit or miss. Either the VW products are amazing or they are terrible. Some people have been absolutely burned with tons of issues.
Good reliability if you change oil before 5k miles and don’t put cheap gas.
They teach hands at 3 & 9 on the steering wheel now.
Wife’s ID4 is in service for a few recalls and updates, also to fix an issue with it’s GPS that now showing the correct location.
So dealer gave us a 2025 Tiguan SE as loaner. It looks fancy, but really troublesome as a new vehicle.
First of all, the interior designer need to be fired. It seems they only focusing on the whining from “car journalist”, so they put a Huge volume knob in the center console with a bright LED screen on it. It has a column mounted shifter, but engine start button is a small flat button next to the large volume knob, and on the other side it is the switch for parking brake. The issue is, to start it up, you need to go to center console, press the square button, come to column to put in gear, then come back to center console to release the parking brake. None of these were linked, unlike that’s on the ID4. And when you go to park, you have to reverse this stupid process. In all these process, that stupid huge volume knob just get in the way. And for my whole 3 weeks with it so far, I’ve touched that volume knob less than 3 times. yes, it is also a ambient light button, but how often do you have to change that in driving? I didn’t do it a single time since I got it. They could easily link the parking brake to the P button on shifter, or use the engine start when you press the brake like on ID4. Or, they can move the same function buttons closer, like move the start button to the dash or column. and move the volume knob to the corner of that panel with a smaller knob.
Second, the power at low rev sucks, and the transmission is a train wreck at low speed. I feel it several times that when I slowing down at lower speed, it hiccup hard like I hit something. And the engine is just a typical turbo engine that you don’t really see nowadays. What I meant is that it has absolutely no power when it’s under 2k RPM. There’s significant turbo lag, and even when turbo kicks in it wasn’t as strong as other 2.0T, like the ones in my other Maverick. It got all the “traditional” bad habits of turbo but nothing good. The 2.0T in ford maverick never lacks in power, although that transmission didn’t shift as smooth as this 8at in the tiguan (when it worked), it doesn’t have that clunk in the low speed.
Third, the new infotainment is still a disaster. This made me stop blaming our ID4 for bad infotainment. On week 2, this car throwed me a whole bunch of warnings from automatic headlight to the ACC, lane keeping, etc. And like the ID4, after I parked it for a while, it fixed itself when I came back. This is not the worst part. What’s even worse is that the Android Auto would fail to initiate every other day. It would show up, and say I need to confirm on the phone. But there’s nothing on the phone. Never had this in any of my other vehicles including the ID4. Every time it happened, I had to hard reboot the system, then it worked. The last time it reboot itself before I even do anything.
I would not get another VW after this ID4. Especially Tiguan. I too wished the Tiguan could come with a hybrid. But seeing how bad the Germans handle the electronics and even transmission, I have 0 confidence in the quality of their hybrid, of they ever make one.
Wonder if anyone at CR knows the work ‘Button’ has two T’s.
Six month wait for a Sienna in the Philadelphia area.
Didn’t VW decontent a lot of their cars after they lost a huge settlement for lying about diesel emissions?
Hey!….youre a big multi-duty knob! 😂
Love that Steve, the statistician and reliability guru, gave thumbs up to the VW Tiguan and Jeep Wagoneer L. For the most part, reliability has steadily improved over the years, so missing an O.A.R. concert due to a breakdown isn’t likely if the car is maintained. It’s best to buy a car you love, especially if you spend the day data dredging and making EXCEL pivot tables with quartiles. 🙂
My pick for Malik would’ve been a Chevy Traverse or GMC Acadia, and perhaps add a cargo carrier if needed. Suburban is the best if he can swing 70-80k.