Should you buy one?

You’re unlikely to see Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace drivers waving to one another out on the road in the way that MX-5 and Tesla drivers do. There’s zero cult appeal about the car, nothing eccentric, nothing to fall in love with, but equally nothing to hate. It’s built to perform a function, and it does so very well. If you’re after dynamic excitement or surprise-and-delight details, you’re in the wrong place.

If you want to be negative, you can see the Allspace as entirely generic, a VW-badged version of 2022-shaped family transport. But you can easily view the same product in a much more positive light: it’s the sum of everything the car industry knows about creating safe, reliable, efficient ways for you and your loved ones to get where they need to be.

But however positive you try to be, you may well struggle to find reasons to buy this particular car, when very similar packages are available from Skoda and SEAT (and Hyundai, and Peugeot, and Kia…). Then again, for many people the VW badge counts for a lot, and for good reason.

What we like

It’s a sensible, practical package that looks smart inside and out, avoiding the frumpiness of MPVs while offering seven seats and a decent driving experience. It’s easy to get on with, simple to switch between two-, five- and seven-seat modes, and feels built to last.

What we don’t like

The third row of seats is only modestly roomy, while some of the plastics in the cabin don’t feel very classy, and the infotainment can be fiddly.