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What’s it like?
Volkswagen’s Touareg was its first luxury SUV, launched originally in 2002, and sharing parts with the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7 sold elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group. But whereas the Porsche was sportier in outlook and the Q7 offered the option of seven seats, the Touareg was a play-it-simple large SUV, providing the security of four-wheel drive, a roomy configuration of five seats, as well as plenty of cabin and boot space to back it all up. Its aim has always been to deliver a comfortable, relaxed drive with a high seating position, so expect a luxurious and cosseting ownership experience.
This second-generation version, which arrived in 2010, smoothed off the looks of the original and upped the quality levels, aiming to keep the Volkswagen relevant in a high-end SUV marketplace including not just its talented Cayenne and Audi relations, but also the assorted likes of the BMW X5, the Mercedes GLE and the Volvo XC90, among more.
Which model to go for?
The first-generation Touareg had a wild and wonderful array of powertrains fitted to it during its lifetime – up to and including a 5.0-litre V10 turbodiesel and a 6.0-litre W12 petrol engine, the latter shared with a Bentley – but, thankfully, for this Mk2 things are much, much simpler to comprehend. While in other markets it was fitted with 3.0- and 3.6-litre V6 petrol engines, and even V8 diesel and petrol engines as well, here you’re only ever going to realistically encounter the 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel, badged as a TDI.
This came in several outputs, starting with a 204hp variant and moving up to a 245hp higher-power model. For the 2015 facelift, that latter unit was enhanced, to 262hp, but all these V6 diesels are much of a muchness, giving about the same performance (0-100km/h in 8.7-7.3 seconds) and similar fuel consumption (circa 6.6 litres/100km officially, but closer to 10 litres/100km in reality).
The Touareg’s strength is that it is a superb tow car, thanks to its weight, those muscular turbodiesel V6 engines, and the standard-fit additions of an eight-speed automatic gearbox with Volkswagen’s 4Motion all-wheel-drive system. And while its lack of seven seats inside might be perceived as a drawback if you need to cart a big family of kids about, the pay-off is that the passenger area in the VW is vast as a result, while the boot is capacious too – 580 litres with all seats in use, rising to a substantial 1,642 litres with the second row folded down.
One final thing: this model of Touareg was from the weird era when you could still register five-seat diesel SUVs like this as N1 commercials (a loophole that was eventually closed in 2018). To that end, you will see a lot of Touaregs being advertised as commercial vehicles, with attendant tax breaks thrown in. However, if you’re planning to use one of these as a passenger vehicle, you’ll need to declare it as such – because you will be fined if you’re carting passengers around in a commercial vehicle who are nothing to do directly with your work or business (e.g. children) – and then it will be subject to the pre-2008 motor tax laws which go on engine size. At 2,967cc, the V6 TDI Touareg will cost you €1,494 in tax every year.
Does anything go wrong?
It’s known for being a reliable vehicle in the main, this second-gen Touareg, but watch for clogged diesel particulate filters (DPF) on all diesel models, as well as the obvious signs of excessive wear-and-tear to its bodywork and cabin fittings. This is a physically large machine that, when it was newer, would have been used to transport families around in the main, so it might be showing scuffs on the bumpers and kerbing to the alloys, or evidence of a hard life with the upholstery and cabin fittings. Try and get the best example, condition-wise, that your budget will allow.
Volkswagen issued four recalls for this generation of Touareg: one for a screw connection between the steering shaft and steering box; another for safety systems that are not correctly modified for street use; another for wheel bolts not being fully torqued up; and a final one for the brake pedal pivot pin becoming dislodged.