2024 Volkswagen Tiguan Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The new Volkswagen Tiguan looks good. From the outside, it’s easy to understand why many would consider this German crossover more premium than its non-European rivals, even if apples-to-apples feature comparisons don’t in fact bear this out. The VW Tiguan just appears to be more designed than similarly priced Japanese options in the “compact SUV” class.

LED headlights and taillights are standard, and an illuminated grille light line embellishes the front end on the range-topping SEL R-Line, which is what we tested. That meant our car also had the silver roof rails; they are black at the S and SE R-Line trim levels. The rear end centers the model name in fashionable all-caps style, though it also features the classic Volkswagen badge.

The base trim is only available in grayscale colors: You cannot even choose to pay for an alternative on the Tiguan S. Try for a particular combination of interior and exterior color, wheel size, and materials, and the configurator on Volkswagen’s website quickly becomes a syllogistic quagmire. Atlantic Blue paint, for example, becomes available on the SE trim, but only if you also accept a Storm Gray interior. Blue can only be paired with a Titan Black interior color scheme on the top trim, and it’s not an option at all for the SE R-Line Black. Kings Red Metallic also becomes available with SE, and it does continue all the way up the trim ladder, but it carries an extra cost of $395 and precludes the possibility of the gray interior.

The base Tiguan S comes with heated front seats and cloth seating surfaces. Moving up to the Tiguan SE adds eight-way power driver’s seat adjustability and leatherette upholstery, in addition to dual-zone climate control and a power tailgate. SE R-Line gets a panoramic sunroof (available as a $1,200 upgrade on the SE trim). Finally, the SEL R-Line upgrades to real leather and adds front-seat ventilation, a heated steering wheel, and three-position driver’s seat memory. It also adds eight-way power adjustability to the front passenger’s seat.

The 2024 Tiguan comes standard with a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that produces 184 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque. This is paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission–not one of the near-ubiquitous continuously variable transmissions (CVTs). The 2024 Tiguan comes equipped with front-wheel drive (FWD) as standard, but Volkswagen’s 4Motion all-wheel drive (AWD) is available for an extra cost of $1,500 on the three lower trims and standard on the top one. Opting for an AWD Tiguan also gets you a slightly larger 15.9-gallon fuel tank; the .6-gallon increase is presumably a concession to the AWD system’s impact on fuel economy. AWD takes the base Tiguan S down from 27 to 25 mpg combined. Trims with both the sporty R-Line designation and AWD are rated for 24 mpg combined.

Our experience behind the wheel of the Tiguan SEL R-Line was a bit of a mixed bag. Power delivery felt inconsistent, with both the turbo and the transmission lagging behind the driver’s inputs in some acceleration scenarios. The gas pedal felt touchy even in Eco mode, which in many vehicles smooths out throttle mapping. The brake pedal, meanwhile, has a lot of travel, making it poorly matched with the accelerator. We found the steering to be light and a tad rubbery: It provides increased resistance as the wheel turns, just as you would hope, but it also feels over-eager to spring back to center. However, visibility and handling were both good, which helped to make the vehicle feel smaller and more maneuverable than we might expect for its size. Road noise was not excessive, and the ride was comfortable enough that only the seating surfaces themselves, and not the suspension, drew complaints from our passengers.

The seats in both rows of our top-trim test car were very firm, but why, you might ask, is it “both rows," given that the Tiguan can seat seven? Well, while FWD Tiguans seat seven, AWD models only seat five. The third row is therefore not available for the top-of-the-line, AWD-only Tiguan SEL R-Line. The tradeoff is that the range-topping Tiguan and its lower-trim AWD counterparts do get more interior space that can be dedicated to luggage or gear. The two-row Tiguan allows 37.6 cubic feet of cargo space with all seats in place, or 73.4 with the rear seats folded down. In the three-row Tiguan, this drops to 12 cubic feet behind the third row, 33 with it folded, and 65.3 with only the front seats in position.

Though cargo space suffers in the three-row configuration, passenger space is hardly affected. Every 2024 Tiguan provides its driver and front passenger with up to 39.6 inches of head room and 40.2 inches of legroom. The second row cedes just over 2 inches of legroom to the third if equipped, dropping from 38.7 to 36.6 inches. The minimal impact on space for passengers further up-vehicle shows in the third-row dimensions: With just 33.8 inches of headroom and 27.9 of leg room, it’s significantly tighter. Significantly tighter, in fact, than the back seat of a Mazda3 hatchback.

Lest we sound overly critical, we must note that the Tiguan is a compact crossover, and one of only two new vehicles in its class to offer a third row at all. The other, the Mitsubishi Outlander, affords its third-row passengers just 18.7 inches of legroom, a spec which makes the Tiguan look downright roomy by comparison.

Let’s start with the hot topic. We did not hate the much-maligned haptic touch slider buttons for climate control. They still count as hard controls in our book, and we found them responsive and easy to operate. What we did hate was the physical volume knob, because of the way the on/off button is integrated into it. As you twist to manipulate the volume, the power symbol rotates right along with the rest of the knob–and it’s sensitive. A stickler for right angles could waste ages trying to return it to a perfectly vertical position.

We were surprised to find that the infotainment system relies on nearly monochromatic graphics. In an otherwise stylish vehicle, the relatively austere digital interface felt out of place. It’s accessed through an 8-inch center touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The base Tiguan S has a 6.5-inch infotainment touchscreen. It also gets just two USB-C ports, while other Tiguan trim levels get four plus wireless charging. All but the top trim forgo navigation.

Volkswagen’s Digital Cockpit System is standard on the 2024 Tiguan, meaning every trim gets a digital instrument display. Only the SEL R-Line, however, gets the fully configurable 10.25-inch Digital Cockpit Pro screen with up to four views. Others make do with an 8-inch version and two views, which, though we only experienced the more advanced alternative, is likely plenty for most drivers.

If we wouldn’t go all the way up the trim ladder just for Digital Cockpit Pro, we would for the nine-speaker Fender Premium Audio System. The professionally credentialed audiophile among our passengers volunteered a positive assessment with no prompting required.

The Volkswagen Tiguan earned a 2022 Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which is that organization’s highest honor. Because it is, at its core, a carryover model for 2024, this should be promising. The Tiguan has not earned the same 2024 distinction as of this writing, but if anything, its safety offering has improved: For 2024, Volkswagen’s IQ.DRIVE suite of driver-assistance features becomes standard. This means that every 2024 Tiguan gets adaptive cruise control with stop and go capabilities and active blind-spot monitoring with steering intervention. Lane Assist, Travel Assist, and Emergency Assist are also now standard, meaning every Tiguan can now provide semi-autonomous highway driving, can detect an unresponsive driver and act accordingly, and can steer into parallel or perpendicular parking spaces.

These newly standard advanced driver-assistance technologies are added to an already-robust package including standard rain-sensing wipers, rear cross-traffic alert, an automatic post-collision braking system, and forward collision warning with pedestrian detection and automatic emergency braking.

One feature offered independently of IQ.DRIVE is Park Distance Control, which becomes standard at the SE R-Line Black trim level. We found its judgment a bit lacking and the Maneuver Braking feature intrusive, but we do have to give VW kudos for making it possible to permanently deactivate the most irritating elements.

Although they're not sold as optional extras, the additional standard safety features do not really come free of charge, either. The 2024 Tiguan sees a price increase of roughly $2,000 over the 2023 model, bringing its new base MSRP to $29,855 after destination fees. The 2024 Volkswagen Tiguan SE R-Line Black we tested came to $40,700. In a class that includes the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4, this range is pretty reasonable. However, it’s important to note that the top-of-the-line CR-V and RAV4 both offer hybrid powertrains, bringing added value in terms of running costs for a very comparable new-car price. The EPA rates the range-topping Tiguan’s fuel economy at 24 mpg combined (22 city and 29 highway). A similarly priced Honda CR-V Hybrid, also equipped with AWD, is EPA-rated at 37 mpg combined. And an AWD Toyota RAV4 Hybrid? That’s supposed to get 39 mpg combined.

Fuel-efficiency, then, is not on the Tiguan’s side, but it does offer ownership value elsewhere. Volkswagen backs the 2024 Tiguan with a four-year/50,000-mile bumper-to-bumper limited warranty. The automaker’s Carefree Coverage is standard; it includes two years or 20,000 miles of scheduled maintenance and three years of 24/7 roadside assistance. Every new Tiguan also comes with a complimentary five-year subscription to VW Car-Net. This suite of connected vehicle services not only allows for conveniences like remote access, but also includes safety and security features such as automatic crash notifications and stolen vehicle location assistance.

Though they’re certainly not all the Tiguan has to offer, we think the model stands out first and foremost for its premium looks. Consumers on the hunt for a compact crossover have plenty of options to choose from, from the bland styling of the Ford Escape to the bold lines of the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson. Some won’t care about the looks at all, but for those who believe your choice of vehicle says something about you, the Tiguan is one that no one will be embarrassed to be seen driving.