The Volkswagen Tiguan was neatly aligned with the new Golf with the recent facelift. At first glance, the changes to achieve that are subtle, but if we include the pre-facelift, it is striking that quite a lot has happened.
Although the Volkswagen Tiguan can of course be seen as the ‘Golf SUV’, the car is not completely in line with the Golf. After all, the current Tiguan was unveiled in 2015 and came on the market in 2016. The Golf 7 had already been on it for almost four years. With the disappearance of the Golf 7 and the arrival of the Golf 8, the highly Golf-inspired Tiguan was somewhat an heirloom from another era in terms of lines. However, that could be rectified with a facelift and so Volkswagen picked up the new Golf and scraped the Tiguan on the basis of that example.
The frontside
If we put the pre-facelift and the facelift next to each other (see the slider below), it is easy to see that the refresh was still quite radical. The most eye-catching are of course the headlights. They are very similar to those of the new Golf, with the two L-shaped LED bars in it and the ‘eyelash’ that flares out on the side screen in the top corner. A lot more idiosyncratic is the grille. That has grown compared to that of the pre-facelift Tiguan, while the new Golf has barely a grille left. According to Volkswagen, the SUV clearly still has large air intakes. From now on, the lower edge of the grille slopes downwards from the underside of the headlights and then continues horizontally lower in the bumper than before. The air intakes in the front bumper itself have also been slightly more curved. All in all, the front looks a bit busier than before and that is actually a little bit against the current trend.
The backside
At the rear, Volkswagen has proceeded more slowly. In that respect, one goes for the same approach as with the Golf, which also only subtly changed at the rear compared to its predecessor. Most eye-catching are the new rear lights. Although they still have the same shape, a different layout provides a fresh look. The three ‘corners’ are especially striking. Especially in the dark, the facelifted Tiguan clearly distinguishes itself from the pre-facelift. For real detail spotters, there is a small novelty both at the front and at the rear: from now on the new Volkswagen logo will be on the Tiguan. Of course you will also see it on the handlebars and wheels.
The fact that we now put the Tiguan facelift in the limelight does not come out of the blue. At the beginning of this week it became known what Volkswagen charges for the sharpened Tiguan. You can get in from € 36,390. You can find an extensive price overview here. Now the only question remains: do you think the Tiguan looks better than before?