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December 20, 2007 Test Drive: VW Touareg This vdoublya is a sweet ride Lane Lindstrom Yea, we know it sounds a little crazy, but when we were first approached about test driving the new VW Touareg we resisted. It wasn’t as if we don’t like driving fancy new vehicles, it’s just we don’t normally do vehicle reviews—sleds yes, trucks/SUVs no. Much of the reason we don’t do truck/SUV reviews is it seems we’re never asked to test the vehicles in the winter—our preferred season. Our brief history of test drives have been in the summer and fall. So, after going for years without test driving a single vehicle with wheels, here is our second review in less than a year. You might remember we ran a story last February detailing our test drive of the new Toyota Tundra. Now comes the VW Touareg, classified as a light truck in the luxury class. But it took some persistence on VW’s part to convince to give the Touareg a spin. We told VW we would be willing to test drive the Touareg but we weren’t going to stick to the paved highway (although we admit there’s something unsettling about taking a $70,000 vehicle off road.) Fine, go ahead and take it off road, we were told by VW officials. Okay, we’re planning to tow a trailer with it. Have at it, we were told. If VW was willing to really let us test drive the vehicle, then why should we pass up the opportunity? Despite what we consider to be a disadvantage of testing in
the summer months, we finally relented and test drove the Touareg for nearly
two weeks, covering 2,361 miles in And we towed a 4-place enclosed snowmobile trailer with two sleds in it—up a hill. And we went off road for hundreds of miles over some roads that could easily be classified as 4-wheel drive trails. The Touareg handled it all. Admittedly, nearly every time during our near two-week jaunt in the Touareg, when something impressed us, we couldn’t help ourselves from thinking, “Yea, it should do that for 70,000 bucks.” For the record, the model we drove has a sticker price of $69,470. While we never totally could rid our minds of the price tag, we did enjoy driving and testing a vehicle that had few quirks but was long on features. One of the features that most impressed us is what’s under the hood. The version of the Touareg we drove had the V10 TDI, a 5.0 liter direct injected diesel that has an awesome 310 hp and 553 lbs. ft of torque. Giddy up and go this Touareg did. If you opened the hood and looked at the engine you would never guess the Touareg was capable of those kinds of numbers—it’s shoehorned into the engine compartment and just doesn’t look that big. Climbing hills (minus a trailer) wasn’t even an issue for the Touareg and we hit some pretty big ones, both paved and non-paved. Even pulling a snowmobile trailer, the vehicle did okay, but we’ll get to that later. Need to pass? Press the gas pedal and the twin turbos help get the job done quickly and smoothly. The Touareg responds so well in those kinds of situations you’ll find yourself looking for vehicles to pass or hills to climb. The power becomes addictive. If you have a lead foot, which can happen with a vehicle
like the Touareg, that can affect the fuel efficiency. VW claims 17 mpg in the
city and 22 on the highway. Basing our figures on the what the vehicle read
while scrolling through the vast amounts of information available to you while
driving the Touareg, we averaged 21 mpg on the freeway at speeds averaging 78
mph. That was while carrying four passengers and the driver. On a separate trip
from eastern As mentioned, there is tons of information available to the driver from the vehicle’s onboard computers. Just in the fuel consumption/mpg category alone there are three different settings that allow you to determine four different categories of information. The four categories are the same in each setting: average consumption, average speed, distance and drive time. The settings are: Since Start (each time you start the vehicle), Long Term and Since Refuel. That’s all nice and fine but how does it tow and do off-road? Those are two areas we most wanted to know about. Towing The towing weight of the Touareg is listed at 7,716 lbs. We used a four-place snowmobile trailer with a listed weight of 6520 lbs. Then we put two snowmobiles, a 2007 Arctic Cat M8 and M6, each about 500 lbs., in the trailer, putting the weight at 7520 lbs. We went to the Conant Hill in Here are the results: 2005 Chevy Silverado
6.6L Duramax Run No. 1 – Began with a rolling start at 65 mph. Ending (at the top of the hill) 72.6 mph, 1 minute, 6 seconds from bottom to top Run No. 2 - Began with a rolling start at 55 mph. Ending (at the top of the hill) 72.3 mph 1 minute, 8.5 seconds from bottom to top 2006 VW Touareg V10
TDI Run No. 1 - Began with a rolling start at 65 mph. Ending (at the top of the hill) 71.9 mph, 1 minute, .44 seconds from bottom to top Run No. 2 - Began with a rolling start at 55 mph. Ending (at the top of the hill) 67.5 mph, 1 minute 9.62 seconds from bottom to top On both vehicles, we had them floored from the bottom of the hill to the top. Of course, the uphill challenge could have been much different were there snow on the road, but we tested in the conditions we had and those are the results. We carefully reviewed the owner’s manual on the Touareg to make sure we were able to get the maximum towing capability we could from the vehicle. Here are a couple of suggestions we came across in the owner’s manual that could change someone’s perception of the Touareg’s towing capabilities. Here’s the first one. Under the heading of Maximum trailer weight, it states, “You can only tow typical class 1 or class 2 trailers with your vehicle. The maximum gross trailer weight and the tongue load must never exceed the specifications listed in booklet 2.5 “Technical Data.” So you flip over to the booklet and it reads the “maximum permissible trailer weights” for the diesel Touareg as 7,716 lbs. Common accepted standards for a class 1 trailer is 2,000 lbs. gross trailer weight and class 2 3,500 lbs. gross trailer weight. Obviously there’s a discrepancy. Maybe it’s just lawyers trying to cover VW’s butt. The second “red flag” that went up after reading the owner’s
manual states this, “In altitudes above 3,000 feet, reduction of 10 percent of
combined towing weight (vehicle plus trailer) for the beginning of every 3,000
feet should be observed.” It’s a known fact that you lose horsepower as you gain elevation. However, a turbo diesel should offer up the same horsepower at any elevation—that’s one of the benefits of a turbo. Using our simple shootout in However, if we were headed to Or use a two-place trailer, which we think is better suited to the Touareg anyway. For example, a Wells Cargo aluminum two-place trailer has a
GVWR of 3,850 lbs., well within the towing capacity of the Touareg. You might
be screwed if you’re towing in some of We noticed a couple of things during our uphill tests. When we took the trailer off road (turning around in a field to run the hill again), there were some wrenching noises, which we assume was the vehicle’s frame twisting under the weight of the trailer. However, the vehicle has a very nice tight turning radius, which would come in handy in tight parking lot or plowed road. Off-Road Driving As impressive as the Touareg is on the highway, it’s equally
as impressive off-road. We took the VW on two big off-road trips. One was along
Fall Creek and The other was up along the Continental Divide between Here are some observations after the 300 miler: · For the bumps we went over, there weren’t many rattles or shakes coming from anywhere in the vehicle. · After both drives on the dirt roads, there was lots of dust in the door jambs. A cloud of dust appeared when you opened the door. It was worse on the passenger side but we should point out dust never got inside the vehicle. · Because of the short wheel base in the back, the rear door and window got plastered with dust, which you can assume would happen in snow, too. There is a rear wiper, but it’s pretty small and doesn’t clear off much of the window. · Even on the most bumpy parts of the road, the ride of the Touareg was smooth, almost like you were on a paved highway. · The full-time four-wheel drive meant we didn’t have to push any buttons at anytime to assist in certain driving conditions. Dubbed 4XMotion, the all-wheel drive system is fully automatic. It’s while driving off-road where one of the Touareg’s coolest features comes into play—the 4-Corner Air Suspension. This really cool feature keeps the vehicle’s ride height constant on both axles, automatically adjusting for weight loads in different parts of the vehicle. Say you’re carrying something heavy in the back of the Touareg, which would make the front end tip up. The air suspension compensates for that. There are four ride height level settings: load level (the lowest level, allowing you load and unload the vehicle); street level (height when driving on normal roads); off-road level (a higher vehicle height for driving off road); and X-tra level (for special off-road situations). Ground clearance at load level is 6.29 inches while street level is 7.28 inches. The off-road level is 9.44 inches and the X’tra level is 11.81 inches. The off-road level was handy when we crossed the stream on our big off-road adventure. Here’s the other very cool feature. Part of the six-speed automatic Tiptronic transmission, which allows you to shift manually, is the hill descent control and hill-start assistant. The hill descent control automatically activates whenever you drive down a slope that is steeper than 20 degrees. We tested the hill descent coming down from the top of Here are some more general observations: ·
The Touareg is smooth even at 110 mph (got 20
mpg) across the desert in eastern ·
While the GPS is a cool feature, it’s not
exactly accurate. One time it said we were not on a digitized road when we
never changed course or left the road. And it’s not up to date. It didn’t
recognize the new south · The CD changer is in the back of the vehicle, like in the storage compartment. It holds six CDs but if you want to change them, you have to stop, get out, got to the back and do it. · The vehicle is very quiet for a diesel. The VW Touareg has all the features you’d expect in a $70,000 vehicle. Just one of the decisions a buyer would have to make is are you willing to tow your snowmobiles with such an expensive vehicle. 2007 Engine Type 5.0L 10 Cylinder, 2V, 90°, V, diesel Bore 3.19 in 81.0 mm Stroke 3.76 in 95.5 mm Displacement 300.2 in³ 4,920 cm³ Compression Ratio 18.0:1 Horsepower (SAE) @rpm 310 @ 3,750 (230 kW @ 3,750) Maximum torque, lbs. – ft @ rpm 553 @ 2,000 (750 Nm @ 2,000) Fuel Requirement Diesel fuel (Ultra Low Sulfor Diesel – ULSD recommended) Firing Order 1-6-5-10-2-7-3-8-4-9 Engine Management Bosch PDE P1.5 Engine Design Arrangement Front mounted, longitudinal Cylinder Block Cast iron Crank Shaft Forged steel, five main bearings Cylinder Head Aluminum alloy, cross flow Valve Train Single overhead camshaft, spur belt driven, two valves per cylinder, maintenance free hydraulic lifters Cooling System Water cooled, water pump, cross flow radiator, thermostatically controlled electric radiator fan Lubrication Chain-driven duocentric oil pump Fuel/Air Supply Direct injection, two turbo chargers/intercooler Emissions Interim Non-Tier 2 BIN 10 (LDT4) 45 state emissions concept OBD II (Federal Only/45 State) Electrical System Alternator-A/Ah 190/95 Battery-A/Ah 480/85 520/110 Ignition Digital electronic, with knock sensor Drivetrain Drivetrain 4XMOTION permanent four-wheel drive system with low range gear and adaptive torque distribution Transmission Gear Ratios 1st 4.15 2nd 2.37 3rd 1.56 4th 1.15 5th 0.86 6th 0.69 Reverse 3.39 Final 3.27 Low range transfer case reduction 2.66 Capacities Engine Oil (with filter) 14.3 qt 13.5 L Fuel Tank 26.4 gal 22.0 gal (IMP) 100 L Cooling System 10.0 qt 17 L Wiper Fluid 6.3 qt 6.0L Steering Type Servotronic power steering Turns (lock to lock) 2.9 Turning circle (curb to curb) 38.1 ft 11.6 m Ratio 14.7:1 Interior Volume-SAE EPA Class Light Truck Seating Capacity Five Passenger Volume 99 ft³ 2.8 m³ Cargo Volume 31 ft³ 0.9 m³ Cargo Volume with rear seat folded (floor to ceiling) 71 ft³ 2.0 m³ Front Rear Volume 55.1 ft³ 1.6 m³ 44.4 ft³ 1.3 m³ Head Room 38.7 in 983 mm 38.3 in 974 mm Shoulder Room 57.7 in 1,465 mm 57.4 in 1,457 mm Leg Room 41.3 in 1,049 mm 35.6 in 904 mm Body, Chassis and Suspension Type Unibody construction Front Suspension Double wishbone front independent suspension with 4-Corner adjustable air suspension with six adjustable ride heights and Continuous Damping Control-three adjustable damping settings Rear Suspension Four link rear independent suspension with 4-Corner adjustable air suspension with six adjustable ride heights and Continuous Damping Control –three adjustable damping settings Service Brakes Power assisted front vented disc brakes (350 mm X 34 mm), rear vented disc brakes (330 mm X 28 mm) Anti Lock Braking System All four wheels Parking Brake Mechanical, effective on rear wheels Wheels/Tires 8J X 18” alloy wheel 255/55 R18 H, all season tires (snow chain compatible) Anti-theft wheel locks 195.75 R18, inflatable spare tire Drag Coefficient .38 Dimensions Wheelbase 112.4 in 2,855 mm Front Track 65.2 in 1,655 mm Rear Track 65.7 in 1,670 mm Length 187.2 in 4,754 mm Width 75.9 in 1,928 mm Height 68.0 in 1,726 mm Ground Clearance-4-corner air suspension Load level (0-3 mph) 6.3 in (0-5 km/h) 160 mm Standard level 8.7 in 220 mm High speed level I (from 87 mph) 7.7 in (from 140 km/h) 195 mm High speed level II (from 118 mph) 7.3 in (from 190 km/h) 185 mm Off-road level (0-43 mph) 9.6 in (0-70 km/h) 245 mm X’tra level (0-12 mph) 11.8 in (0-20 km/h) 300 mm Weights Curb Weight 5,924 lbs. 2,687 kg Payload 1,131 lbs. 513 kg Towing Capacity (max braked trailer) 7,716 lbs. 3,500 kg Maximum Roof Cargo Weight
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