- Hugely practical and comfortable
- Broad choice for buyers
- Ideal for large families
The Volkswagen Tayron, which replaced the Tiguan Allspace, offers precisely the superb comfort, space and practicality that’s demanded by drivers with large families.
Overview
For decades Volkswagen has been providing cars that suit large families, just think of the immensely popular Passat estate of the 1990s, then the Touareg, the cavernous Caravelle, and recently the Tiguan Allspace.
The Tayron is Volkswagen’s latest car in this well-reputed heritage, and is a direct replacement for the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace, which ended production in 2024.
While the Tayron is available as a five-seater plug-in hybrid, it is the seven seat SUV that is a standout part of Volkswagen’s range and takes a strong fight to rivals such as the Hyundai Santa Fe, Vauxhall Frontera, Mazda CX-80 and Kia Sorento in both the company car sector and the private buyer market, tempting several thousands of customers annually to choose its keys.
Buyers have five trim levels to choose from, plus powertrain choices of either a 1.5-litre turbo or 2.0-litre petrol engine or a 2.0 litre diesel, the latter being one of very few diesel new cars remaining in the UK’s market. There’s a plug-in hybrid too, but that sacrifices the third row of seats for battery space so loses appeal for those large families.
Starting from just over £40,000, to above £50,000 for some models, Tayron offers good choice across the Life, Match, R-Line and Style trims, whether a customer prioritises affordability, ultimate equipment levels or an ability to confidently traverse rough lanes with all-wheel drive.
Tayron delivers precisely what familes need, and at good value.
Pricing and Spec
The entry-point trim for the Volkswagen Tayron is known as Life, available only with the 1.5-litre petrol engine, and it comes with impressive levels of equipment, including keyless locking, reversing camera, park assist plus, a 12.9in infotainment display, 4 USB-C sockets, tri-zone climate control, inductive smartphone charging and wireless connections for Apple Carplay and Android Auto.
More nice touches are the ilumination of the front and rear VW badges, 10 colour ambient lighting and sunblinds installed as standard in the rear doors.
Tayron Life offers enough to please most families, but buyers who want a bit more can choose from the keenly priced Match or the Style trims.
In Match guise, the Tayron gets extra attractive kit including an area view camera, electric powered tailgate, heated front seats and a leather multi-function steering wheel, whereas the Style gets larger alloys, massaging heated front seats, 30 colour ambient lighting and the powered tailgate.
Above them all sits the Tayron R-Line, which really stands out above the Style trim thanks to different sports-style bumpers, 20in alloys, brushed stainless steel pedals, velour interior trim and front sports seats. It should appeal to the driver who wants the best, even those who might be coming out of a prestige brand rival and looking for something pretty special that doesn’t shatter the budget.
Technology
The cabin appears truly premium, and in an understated, high quality way that befits Volkswagen’s tradition and fights back against the flashy Chinese new entrants.
It’s far from minimalist in terms of the kit and technology on offer, nevertheless. Up front, it is dominated by the large touchscreen, which is easy to use and has configurable shortcut icons that sit at the top of the screen.
Pleasingly, it also sits above a wheel controller in the centre console for easy volume adjustments to the stereo while on the move, and there are multifunction buttons on the steering wheel plus a voice control function that is helpful.
The Tayron we drove had the £2,335 optional Technology Pack, which bundles a larger 15in infotainment touchscreen, area view for manoeuvring, head-up display; intelligent voice assistance with ChatGPT; and a few other bits such as memory park assist.
The head-up display was really useful and informative, as were the heated massaging seats in the front, which are standard on R-Line cars.
Safety
A five-star EuroNCAP rating for the Volkswagen Tayron recognises the raft of safety technology on board. A total of nine airbags are integrated in the Tayron, including a centre airbag between the two front seats and side airbags in the rear, for occupant safety should the worst happen.
And to avoid or mitigate the worst from happening, Tayron has a spectrum of standard active assistance systems, spanning adaptive cruise control and a side assist lane change system, an emergency braking system including pedestrian and cyclist monitoring, an exit warning system which warns of potentially endangered cyclists when an inside door handle is pulled, and the semi-automatic parking system Park Assist Plus.
High spec models, including the R-Line, come with LED Plus headlights which have dynamic headlight range control and dynamic cornering light, to give the driver an optimised view of the road ahead, even when there is approaching traffic.
Driving Experience
A journey in the Volkswagen Tayron leaves you with a sense of ease. This is an SUV designed to glide along effortlessly, and it does so indeed.
Even over the rutted roads of rural Cambridgeshire the car keeps you feeling secure and comfortable, and parents shouldn’t be surprised if young children nod off on long trips.
The Tayron we drove was the entry-level 1.5 turbo, in R-line specification, and it is a an appealing all-rounder at a keen price point, but it does feel like it needs working it hard to make headway.
By today’s standards, it does not feel swift. Even switching from Comfort into Sport mode made little discernable difference, but it’s forgivable given its typical customer base.
And ultimately, buyers who feel the need for more speed have the options to choose the more powerful 2.0 TSI 4Motion variant and still keep the seven seats, albeit at a price – it’s around £6,000 more expensive.
Practicality
At 4.8 metres long, and 2.8 metres between the axles, the Volkswagen Tayron has plenty of legroom for occupants. The extra 11cm in the wheelbase compared to the Tiguan is particularly beneficial to the middle row passengers, who also have sliding and reclining seats so there’s plenty of opportunity to get comfortable.
Volkswagen is frank that the third row of seats suits children and teenagers best, and not tall adults, but that is hardly surprising. I don’t think Volkswagen dealerships should expect minicab firms to be placing orders for this SUV.
Where this car is perfectly positioned is for drivers who have three or four youngsters to shuttle around regularly, and maybe even a large dog or two given the huge capacity of its boot with the 3rd row seats folded flat. Its luggage capacity is vast, at 850 litres; on our family ‘big shop’ we managed to get seven full bags-for-life in there with more space to spare.
Overall, I’ve been impressed by the Tayron, and as a family that has been loyal for years to Volvo, I can see how it could tempt people out of their now expensive premium-brand SUVs.