► £40k-£50k family friendly SUV
► Total of six engines to choose from
► Vast amount of cabin space; not much excitement
At last, here is a Volkswagen that is happy to be boring. The Tayron (pronounced tie-ron) replaces the old Tiguan Allspace and fills the gap between the five-seat only Tiguan and Toaureg, ticking that family car box in a remarkably unremarkable way. Gone are the annoyances and niggling foibles of recent VWs, replaced by a car that shirks any particular USP but meets its brief entirely.
At a glance
Pros: Family friendly with a decent amount of space in the middle row, excellent ride quality, refined cabin, build quality, large range of engines
Cons: Inert steering and dull chassis, middling performance, soft brake pedal in PHEV
What’s new?
Riding on the same MQB Evo platform as both the Tiguan and Passat, the Tayron gets a bespoke body and additional 112mm in the wheelbase compared to the Tiguan. Available in both seven- and five-seat configuration (seven on most engines, five on the PHEVs because the batteries eat into where the rearmost seats go), the Tayron gets all the latest VW design signatures on the outside, including the full-width LED crossbar at the rear and illuminated logos front and rear.
Pub quiz fans take note – it’s the first ICE VW in Europe to get illuminated logos both fore and aft (the Golf 8.5 can have one on the front, while the Touareg has a backlit rear one).
What are the specs?
How long have you got – with six engines to choose from, the numbers run to quite a list. The engine range starts with a £39,850 mild hybrid 1.5-litre, includes a 2.0-litre diesel (diesel!) and rounds off with two PHEVs, both of which claim to do more than 70miles on electric only thanks to the 19.7kWh battery (more range than the Kia Sorento, similar to the Skoda Kodiaq). There are also two 2.0-litre non-electrified petrols – if nothing else, there should be a Tayron powerplant to suit your needs. No EV-only Tayron is available.
Power figures go from 148bhp in the 1.5 eTSI to 268 in the more powerful of the plug-in hybrids; all come with a DSG twin-clutch gearbox as standard that is seven-speed in the mild hybrid, diesel and petrols and six-speed in the PHEVs.
I would give you the fuel efficiency range of them all but the claimed numbers for the plug-ins are as meaningless as ever. Better to know the emissions, which run from 198g/km to a very respectable 10g/km. That latter one drops into the two per cent tax band.
There are also five trim levels – Life, Match, Elegance, R-Line and R-Line Edition – that range in price from just under £40,000 to just over £50,000.
What’s it like to drive?
Entirely predictable.
We tried the diesel (148bhp and 266lb ft, 50.9mpg) and the higher-powered PHEV (268bhp and 295lb ft, 625mpg) and the pace of both was adequate rather than amazing. The quickest Tayron, the 2.0 TSI 265, does 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds.
My overriding impression of the car was its sense of ease; even the touchscreen, while still not perfect, is vastly easier to use with larger icons and a shortcut button to turn off the infernal lane assist.
All variants come with double glazing as standard and VW claims it’s worked hard on the car’s refinement, to the point that it’s 5db quieter inside. It’s a believable stat – even in the diesel, you’re rarely bothered by intrusive engine noise.
Comfort levels are high thanks to the twin-valve, adaptive dampers fitted to the car. These were developed for the likes of the Porsche Cayenne and on the Tayron, they give superb control over rebound and compression. We hit a mid-corner expansion joint at one point but the wheel control was such that it barely registered in the cabin. The car is on standard springs rather than air but you’d never notice; it feels extremely well tied down.
One odd thing is how many different settings there are for the dampers – 15! It gives a wide choice but I can’t see anyone going all Sebastian Loeb and scrolling through them on the move. As ever, the middle one is best.
There are also four different drive modes in the two-wheel drive models – Eco, Comfort, Sport and Individual – that tweak various elements like the steering and throttle response, but again, just stick it in comfort. The Tayron is not a car that needs to be over-thought.
What’s it like inside?
Brilliantly practical and not without the odd design flourish, like the open-pore wood trim.
Room in the middle row is impressive – the seats slide fore and aft, the back tilts, all fold flat – and the kids should be happy thanks to a couple of USB ports and an armrest that doubles as an iPad stand. Hat tip to the Renault Scenic for coming up with that idea first.
The rearmost seats also fold flat into the floor but are strictly for the little ones. I clambered in there and am still nursing the pain in my knees. Boot space runs to 805 litres in five-seat mode, which is similar to the Kia (you lose 100 litres in the Tayron PHEV).
There’s a vast touchscreen dominating the dash – 12.9 inches or 15.1 inches, depending on the depth of your pockets – but this time round it largely works OK. There are handy and configurable shortcut buttons along the top and the icons are now larger so easier to stab. It’s still a touchscreen so doesn’t avoid the fundamental flaws of these things, but it’s at least less disastrous than recent VW attempts.
The Tayron also comes with an actual button to control the volume, one that doubles up as a drive mode controller when you press it.
ChatGPT is included as standard on every Tayron and now has additional functionality in that you don’t need to say ‘Hey Ida’ each time you want to ask a follow-up question.
Before you buy
This middle-ground seven seat SUV category isn’t as big as you’d think, as lots of manufacturers shirk the extra row. But rivals there are, from the Land Rover Discovery Sport, Skoda Kodiaq from the VW Group’s own stable and Kia Sorento (one of few plug-in hybrids available with seven seats) to the Peugeot 5008 (the only one that’s also available as a pure EV).
Verdict
This is not a car with which you can readily engage: the steering is inert, the chassis benign and the engine performance isn’t sparkling. But the Tayron’s very anonymity is why it appeals – here at last is a VW that feels well developed and crafted to be exactly what it needs to be and nothing more. It’s a car that honours all those Volkswagen’s that have gone before, channelling its inner Mk V Golf.
It reminds me of the old strapline about ‘if only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen’. The Tayron doesn’t entertain but it does function, and when you’re after a family car, that’s what you need.