2025 Volkswagen Tiguan First Drive: Goldilocks’ Choice

10/3/25 UPDATE: This review has been updated with instrumented test results for an all-wheel-drive Tiguan SEL R-Line model.

The Volkswagen Tiguan is having its Goldilocks moment—or at least that’s the plan. Over two longish generations, the Tiguan was first a bit too compact for a compact crossover, then a little on the ungainly side, at least proportion-wise. The third-gen Tiguan is aimed at what Volkswagen believes to be the segment’s sweet spot.

It’s not as though Volkswagen had trouble selling the last one, however. The Tiguan isn’t just the bestselling VW nameplate in North America, but it takes that title globally. (Minor caveat: If you add U.S. Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport sales together, they surpass the Tiguan’s total. But the fact remains that VW sells a lot of compact SUVs here and elsewhere.)

Made for the U.S.

As with the last iteration, this new Tiguan has been tailored to American tastes. The last time, that meant the SUV had an optional third row, but it wasn’t so useful, and folks who want that extra seating were more likely to gravitate to the larger Atlas. VW seems fine with that, and so the 2025 model reverts to a two-row affair.

Dropping the rearmost seat and the complex second-row fold-and-slide mechanism needed to allow access to it, along with weight-saving material choices, allowed Volkswagen to pull a claimed 170 pounds out of the latest Tiguan. However, additional content certainly added some back, as our SEL R-Line test car clocked in at 3975 pounds, a mere 28 pounds lighter than a 2024 Tiguan and 161 pounds less than a 2019 model we tested with a third row of seats. The wheelbase measurement is the same as before, but tighter front and rear overhangs reduce overall length by a couple of inches, giving the Tiguan a tidier appearance. It also loses its son-of-Atlas design in favor of more organic sheetmetal that’s said to improve aerodynamics.

A Bit More Power Now, with More Arriving Later

Concerning power, the Tiguan actually ends up back where it started, at least at launch. The original, tall-Golf version used a 201-hp four-cylinder, and then the second-gen utility’s output dropped to 184 horses. For 2025, the total is back to 201 horsepower thanks to a revised version of the corporate EA888 engine dubbed evo5, with a little less torque on front-drive models (207 pound-feet) and a carryover spec with optional 4Motion all-wheel drive (221 pound-feet). Our all-wheel-drive SEL R-Line test car accelerated to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds, slightly slower than a 2024 Tiguan, but tied that model with a 16.3-second quarter-mile pass. These acceleration figures fall toward the back of the class.

This revised engine provides generally good drivability with one exception, something that was also a sore spot on the last version. When accelerating from a stop, the engine takes a beat to deliver useful torque. This shows up in our test results with a sluggish, 9.3-second 5-to-60-mph time, and the gap between its 60- and 5-to-60-mph times (0.8 second) is slightly longer than the 2024 Tiguan (0.6 second). But the engine sounds nice, the eight-speed automatic transmission is cooperative, and there are multiple drive modes you can fiddle with and fine-tune to your liking.

We’d still appreciate a tad more spice, and VW has a solution coming for 2026. The top-of-the-line SEL R-Line will become the Tiguan Turbo SEL R-Line and use a version of the turbo 2.0-liter making 268 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. (Yes, the base engine is also a turbo. This is the Tiguan doing its best Porsche 911 impression and eschewing logic for the purposes of naming differentiation.) Whether that additional output mitigates the step-off issue remains to be seen.

In usual VW fashion, the new Tiguan’s ride is on the stiff side without being uncomfortable—no wallowing over bumps and a comfortable amount of lean through corners. The steering seems to have a little more heft to it than before, which is a welcome change, as the previous setup felt overboosted at times. The brake pedal takes some getting used to, requiring a lot of travel before taking a meaningful bite. It was a nonissue after some seat time, and our test Tiguan stopped from 70 mph in a class-competitive 172 feet.

We drove an SEL R-Line, which is the only trim to come standard with all-wheel drive, and the system did its torque shuffling imperceptibly as we traveled slick Montana side roads. As before, the rear axle decouples when not needed in order to save fuel. Speaking of, fuel economy sees a slight improvement for 2025 thanks to weight reduction and aero improvements; front-drive models hit 28 or 29 mpg combined, while choosing 4Motion, an option on the lower trims, drops that number substantially to 25 mpg.

One Screen Too Many

The Tiguan’s interior got a glow up in the vein of other recent VWs. There’s stitching all around the cabin, and organic shapes replace blockiness here as well. The materials feel nice and are more varied than in the last Tiguan, and the black-and-tan interior on our test car struck us as a cut nicer than the compact-SUV norm. A larger and more useful center console was made possible in part by relocating the shift mechanism to the steering column; it’s now a stubby stalk like the one in the ID.Buzz. Second-row legroom grows slightly to match the front-seat measurement, at 40.2 inches, which makes for a very accommodating back seat even for taller adults.

The driver faces a 10.3-inch Digital Cockpit Pro gauge display that can be reconfigured on the fly via steering-wheel buttons (and, yes, they are real buttons). Next to that sits a generous 12.9-inch center touchscreen that comes standard on most trims, while the top-of-range SEL R-Line gets a truly enormous 15.0-incher. Without breeding for longer arms, we may soon reach (ahem) a limit on ever-expanding screen size.

This infotainment system is nice to look at but suffers from issues we’ve outlined in other VWs. It can be tough to find where the various settings are hidden—for instance, controls for the head-up display included on the top two trims are found under Vehicle rather than Settings. And even with all of that screen real estate in the SEL R-Line, some icons are on the small side and therefore tough to stab accurately while driving. There are fussy touch sliders to control temperature and volume, and they face up toward the headliner instead of at the user, making them difficult to see due to reflections. Thankfully, there are screen-based adjusters for temperature and a volume rocker on the steering wheel, so those touch controls can be ignored.

But then there’s the third screen. It’s down on the center console as part of a rotary dial. This puck defaults to volume control, showing the loudspeaker icon with a ring indicating the level that appears when you turn it. Press down on the dial and its function and display changes to the drive mode; then, with a swipe, you can control the Atmospheres function (included on all but the base trim), which tailors things such as sound and ambient lighting to set a mood. While it’s not necessary to look down at the dial to see this visual feedback—you get more information and can make adjustments through the center screen—having anything to look at down there invites you to take your eyes off the road, which can only be distracting.

We thought Volkswagen learned its lesson about gimmicky interface controls. Critics collectively derided the touch-sensitive “buttons” and sliders that debuted with the latest GTI, after which the automaker restored conventional hardware and brought back volume knobs. But here we are again with a distracting interface that no one asked for.

That step back aside, the new Tiguan is an improvement in most major and minor measures. Trim offerings carry over from the 2024 model—S, SE, SE R-Line Black, and SEL R-Line—but with additional standard content. Ten airbags are now standard, including one between the two front occupants, and even the base model gets dual-zone climate control, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, and parking sensors. A black roof is available on the two R-Line trims for $395. Pricing starts a few hundred dollars higher at $30,920 for a front-drive S, while all-wheel drive adds $1500 to the bill. The new Tiguan arrived at dealers earlier this year. We recommend bringing a piece of tape to cover the dial screen during your test drive.

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