FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2020 VW Touareg

How big is the boot of the VW Touareg?

Boot space is generous in the VW Touareg is a generous size, holding 15 shopping bags when empty when compared to its competitors. The boot of the Range Rover Velar holds 14 bags, the BMW X5 holds 16 and both the Lexus RX350L and Range Rover Discovery both hold 18 shopping bags when used as five-seaters.

The twin stroller fits into the Touareg's boot with five shopping bags.

The tandem stroller fits into the Touareg's boot with eight shopping bags.

The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.

Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.

I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.

The single stroller fits into the Touareg's boot with seven shopping bags beside it.

The compact stroller fits into the Touareg's boot with ten shopping bags beside it.

You can easily fit a large dog in the boot of the VW Touareg.

The boot floor is lovely and flat, making it comfortable for dogs as well as emergency nappy changes!

How good is storage inside the VW Touareg?

The storage inside the VW Touareg is pretty good in both rows.

In the front, there are two cup holders in the central console, they will hold a reusable or a disposable coffee cup and there is even a little one behind for a babycino! In front of the cup holders is a phone charging well with 12V and USB sockets.

The central console box is quite a good size and it's felt-lined to preventing things from rolling around noisily while you are driving.

The glove box would hold my wallet but not the iPad but on the side of the central console is a large storage net too.

There is no sunglasses case in the ceiling but there are double visors, enabling you to shield the front and side of your face from the sun.

There is a felt-lined drawer by the driver's right knee, good for storing change and I found it useful for holding my sunglasses.

The door bins in the front are a good size and will hold a large refillable water bottle.

In the back, the door bins are the right size for a large refillable water bottle too.

There are net map pockets on the back of both front seats that will hold but not conceal an iPad.

In a fold down in the central seat back there are two cup holders, which are well-sized to hold a reusable and a disposable coffee cup.

How noisy is the VW Touareg?

The VW Touareg is not a very noisy car.

The media system is modern and easy to navigate and has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto which is great.

You can swipe your hand in front of the media screen for it to move through the menu however I did find this wasn't always predictable and a bit hit and miss.

Within the media system, you can adjust the cabin lighting which is a great feature.

The depth of the front seats is adjustable through the media screen also.

On the downside, the aircon fan speed is only adjustable through the media screen which I found inconvenient and tricky to use when driving.

The reversing camera image quality is good and fills the whole screen, you can change the view angles and turn the parking sensor sound on and off on the bottom left of the screen.

The cruise control in the VW Touareg is quite accurate and easy to use. The controls are situated on the steering wheel.

The VW Touareg feels quite smooth to drive around town and on motorway driving and road and engine noise are very good.

Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!

That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.

If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?

It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?

A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.

Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!

I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.

The indicator volume wasn't baby-waking in the VW Touareg.

The Sat-Nav guidance volume can be easily muted on the bottom right of the map screen, which is excellent for not disturbing other passengers.

I find on most journeys when I use sat nav I only need directions for the last part of the journey. I know how to get to the area I am going and then it’s just the exact address I need help with. Because I need to input the address before I head off I found myself on most occasions when you can’t mute the sat nav voice having to listen to all the directions, which disturbs your concentration, any conversation in the car at the time or more importantly my sleeping baby! So being able to mute the sat nav voice until you reach the part where you actually need it is gold!

The windows of the VW Touareg close quietly, so they are not baby waking. However, I found the doors rarely shut the first time and I had to keep re-shutting them, which was a pain!

With baby asleep you want to be able to get in and out without worrying the doors will be too noisy and wake Bub up! 

There are individual door locks on both front doors.

There are individual child lock buttons in the driver's door control panel. These are excellent for locking just the rear door where the child is sitting if you only have one, saving adults being stuck in the back unable to get out, we've all been there!!

How many child seats fit in the VW Touareg?

It fits three child seats easily! Which is fantastic! I found forward or rear-facing child seats fitted well.

I could sit in the central seat between two child seats and I am 162cm.

There are ISOFix points in the two outer rear seats within plastic guides and easy to connect to.

There are top tether anchorages on the back of all three seatbacks, clearly labelled and easy to connect to and reach through the boot.

Legroom is good in the VW Touareg and with a rear-facing child seat installed in the second-row, we could sit a 180cm driver in front.

The doors of the VW Touareg open nice and widely making posting bub into their car seat easy from the outside of the car as well as it being easy from the inside too.

Australia being a country of weather extremes; blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!

There is plenty of room to feed bub in the back if you only have one child seat installed.

How comfortable is the VW Touareg? And How good is the VW Touareg to drive?

The front seats of the VW Touareg are lovely and comfortable and easily adjustable using the electronic controls on the side of the seat bases.

Their BEST feature is the adjustable headrests! I could easily wear a ponytail!

I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!

The second best feature is the seat depth adjustment through the media screen, great for our family as I am 162cm and my husband is 182cm, so we each need our seats different depths!

For a mum travelling in the back with bub, the seats are extremely comfortable too. Legroom is good too in the back and I had plenty of legroom behind a 182cm driver and I'm 162cm.

For the first year of Tulsi’s life when we would go out as a family, if I wasn’t driving, I would travel in the back with Tulsi so it’s important to check the back seat comfort as you may be spending a lot of time in them! They were never something I gave any thought to before but I definitely notice a good or bad back seat now!

The steering wheel is fully adjustable in/out and up/down.

Across the front dashboard, there are three air conditioning vents, the ones in front of the front passenger look like one long thin vent but are actually two regular vents spaced out with mock vent panel which is the fashion with new cars at the moment.

There are some controls for the aircon on the central dash, below the media screen however the fan speed controls are within the media screen and I found them difficult to use quickly while driving and would have prefered them to be on the dash.

In the second row, there are air-conditioning vents in the back of the central console box, which the driver can reach whilst driving.

Visibility is good in the VW Touareg when maneuvering or parking, the big windows and good camera image really helped.

One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread parking new cars as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, but the VW Touareg, was pretty easy to park.

How safe is the VW Touareg?

The VW Touareg scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating and has six airbags as standard. There are frontal airbags for driver and front passenger and side chest and head curtain airbags for the first and second-row outboard passengers.

In testing it scored 88% for child occupancy protection (43.4 points out of 49), 89% for adult occupancy protection (34 out of 38), 78% for safety assist technology (10.2 out of 13) and 72% for vulnerable road user protection (34.6 out of 48).

In adult occupancy testing, the VW Touareg scored 6.72 out of 8 for the frontal offset test and 7.08 out of 8 for the full-width frontal, 8/8 for the side impact test and 6.93 out of 8 for the pole test.

For child occupant testing ANCAP said:

In the frontal offset test, dummy readings indicated GOOD protection for all critical body areas of both child dummies, apart from the neck of the 10 year dummy where protection was rated as ADEQUATE.

In the side impact test, protection of both dummies was GOOD and the Touareg scored maximum points.

The Touareg is fitted with lower ISOFix anchorages on the rear outboard seats and top tether anchorages for all rear seating positions. Installation of typical child restraints available in Australia and New Zealand showed that all of the selected child restraints could be accommodated in all rear seating positions and full points were scored for this assessment.

Both front and outboard second-row seats have pretensioner seatbelts and there are seatbelt removal alerts for all seats.

As standard, the VW Touareg comes with adaptive cruise control (ACC), adaptive headlights, anti-lock braking system (ABS), autonomous emergency braking (AEB) – city/interurban and VRU, automatic headlights, automatic high beam, blind-spot monitoring, daytime running lights (DRL), electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD), electronic data recording (EDR), electronic stability control (ESC), emergency brake assist (EBA), emergency stop signal (ESS), fatigue reminder and detection, forward collision warning (FCW), hill launch assist, lane departure warning (LDW), lane keep assist (LKA), pre-crash systems, rear cross-traffic alert (RCTA), reversing collision avoidance camera and auto brake, roll stability system, secondary multi-collision brake,  trailer stability control and tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS).

Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound. I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!