Someone at Volkswagen Marketing and communications forgot to tell the online presenting team to stay on message. The revised, bloody awful Tiguan was revealed with a somewhat mooted online fanfare. At the beginning of the presentation, the keywords often repeated was “exciting new Tiguan”. Halfway through, the messaging was lost when a Volkswagen suit casually referred to the “face-lifted” Tiguan. Clearly for this VW executive, staying on message was not clearly communicated. But it was the most accurate statement of the presentation/reveal.

In the automotive industry updating products midway through a planned lifespan is standard. Facelifts/revisions/product update call it what you will, the process funnels the entire advertising, sales, and marketing channels. Which hopefully creates a vortex of sales. More sales often equal generous bouns schemes and whatever incentives VW executives are inclined to contractually receive. 

The production workers on the other hand are given a pint of beer and a stale sandwich for their hours of toil. Nevertheless, the revised Tiguan is here and the styling updates are focused around new headlight designs and a new front bumper featuring a new grille form factor. On the interior, the changes are relatively minor. The new VW steering wheel is introduced, the infotainment UI is revised, and analog heating controls are replaced with a touchscreen panel.

All in all the styling changes look good, but for us here at DCB HQ the Tiguan will always be bloody awful. Our long term review car certainly was. The engine line up will still consist of a mix of petrol and diesel engines, although a Plug-in Hybrid will join the range. VW has introduced a performance R variant, which essentially copy/pastes the Golf R’s powertrain.

The Tiguan PHEV utilises a 1.4-litre TSi gasoline engine combined with a 50kWh battery and electric motor. The combined system power is 242bhp. Volkswagen says the Tiguan PHEV will offer a pure electric range of 31-miles and a top speed of 81 mph. In this specific regard, and based on experiences of driving PHEVs, it’s best to half what VW is saying.

And they are still trying to convince you their diesel engines are efficient as hell. They will never learn. Anyway, the bloody awful updated, revised, facelifted, mid-cycle updated Tiguan will go on sale this autumn. Prices across the range are expected to rise. The entry-level model will retail in the UK from £24,555.