When we had a long term Volkswagen bloody awful Tiguan on our dwindling test fleet, it was so bloody awful it very nearly caused us to quit this game. The problem is many motoring journalists will layer on the platitudes when reviewing a Volkswagen because they (VW) can giveth and taketh at will. A car review is free press which is in effect free advertising. Reviewing a car under the respectable guise of a motoring journalist is a double edge sword. Journalism is built on the foundations of freedom of expression and revealing an objective bias-free opinion. Journalism is often regarded as a noble profession, noble because many are underpaid.

This is where the world of motoring journalism gets murky, how do you balance critical analysis without (for want of a better phrase) kissing arse? The answer is simple… kiss arse and gaslight your audience. In our opinion, the Volkswagen Tiguan is simply bloody awful, it is the classic case of don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Sometimes good is good enough, but after ending our long term review we realised the Tiguan isn’t even good to be good enough.

We also realised that the many other reviews were just pandering to Volkswagen’s ego and PR machine. And a handful of sociopathic ego’s within the VW PR machine. But you know what? the Tiguan is VW’s best-selling SUV.

And so here is the updated 2020 bloody awful Tiguan, set of new headlights, updated ECU (engine tweaks) including cylinder deactivation, new steering wheel, technology, still bloody awful. It’s available in a range of petrol engines. Avoid the pathetic 1.5-litre TSI engines because they are weak and feckless. The Tiguan isn’t available with the 2.0-litre TSI, the only other choice of engine is the 2.0-litre TDI, it’s a very good engine and VW says it’s cleaner than ever before.

For over 20 years VW has been gaslighting anyone they could gaslight by claiming that their TDI powerplant was the cleanest diesel technology around. We all know how that ended. We sense another class-action lawsuit in the making.

Entry-level prices for the bloody awful Tiguan start from £24,195 with prices rising to £39,010 for the top-spec R-Line, DSG, 4Motion.