Generally this class of car isn't for me, so I'm innately biased. However, that said, I drove a Tiguan last year and found it to be just about the nastiest vehicle I'd ever tried. Unlike a GTI, which feels more expensive than its sticker price, the Tiguan manages to feel fundamentally cheap. Could have been the cloth seats and manual a/c in the base 4motion version I drove, but I doubt that leather and climate control would really have changed my perspective.
The drive is deadly dull. The 2.0T engine is a fantastic piece of engineering, but it doesn't seem suited to the pairing with the auto 'box that comes standard on 4motion models, and the added weight of the awd kit makes it even more sluggish. All this talk of the sharp handling bewilders me, too. It was a bouncy, understeering mess.
I paid under $50k for my Touareg TDI, which can actually go off road, has a low-range transmission and locking centre diff, has twice as much torque, gets better mileage and looks tough and rugged as an SUV should (yea, yea, I'm shallow like that...). Admittedly you can play that "base model vs. loaded model" game with countless cars, but in this case I couldn't imagine picking the Highline Tiguan over the Comfortline Touareg.
