2026 Volkswagen Tayron 195TSI R-Line review

Australia was late to the party for the previous-generation Tiguan Allspace, and there were tedious reasons for that, including a fairly well-known global event. But, in the end, we got it, and it was good, from 110TSI entry-level all the way through to the 162TSI.

It was spacious, incredibly refined and was ageing well, right up to its departure earlier this year. That whole generation of Tiguan was so good, Volkswagen took a long time to replace it, because why would it need to?

But time is marching on, the company is re-organising its platforms to make space for electrification, and other brands, both within and outside the Volkswagen Group, are chucking shiny new things at customers.

Something had to give, so after this year’s new Tiguan, the Allspace replacement has arrived in the form of the new nameplate, Tayron. Pronounced Tie-ron.

VW has launched the Tayron in four variants, starting with 110TSI Life (the number indicates the engine power in kilowatts) for $48,950, the 150TSI Life (the only five-seater in the range) at $54,790 and the 150TSI Elegance for $60,390, all prices before on-road costs.

The spreadsheet people at VW Australia then took a deep breath and shot for the stars with the current range-topper, the 195TSI R-Line, priced at $74,550 plus on-road costs. That’s a big jump in price, so one would hope there is a stack more stuff in it. And it’s already over $1200 more than it was when it arrived in September.

At over 80 grand on the road, this purple Tayron has 20-inch alloys, keyless entry and start, powered tailgate with gesture control, digital dashboard, 15-inch media screen, 10-speaker Harmon Kardon-branded stereo, satellite navigation, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charger, park assist, synthetic leather trim, powered/heated/ventilated/massaging front seats, auto wipers, auto matrix LED lights with high-beam assist and a space-saver spare.

This car had optional paint and alloys, the latter insisting you also add the Black Pack, which turns a $900 choice into a $1500 one – at least it did on the website.

If you’re already keen on the Tayron, you can look at the Volkswagen Australia website to build and configure, search for new stock (which showed a very good supply situation for almost all spec levels), book a test drive and even order a Tayron.

At the time of writing, VW was offering a three-year free servicing deal, which, as you’ll discover, is a worthwhile saving

And you can keep up with all the news information on the Tayron here.

Comparing the Tayron with the outgoing Tiguan Allspace, width is up by 14mm, but it is longer and – crucially – has a longer wheelbase for better occupant space. Following on the from Allspace’s success as a seven-seat Tiguan, the Tayron repeats the formula, although even VW says the final two seats are for occasional use.

One of the first things I noticed as I stepped into the driver's seat is that the physical buttons on the steering wheel mark a welcome ejection of those terrible haptic capacitive buttons. They used to be on higher-spec Tiguans like the R, so that’s a good start.

The front seats are very comfortable, clothed in synthetic leather and with heating, cooling and massaging. Well, they’re comfortable when you get them right. Try as I might during my week with it, every time I got in, the seat pranked me by re-inflating the lumbar support to 'marble slab' and reminding me of my seating nemesis, the last-generation Honda HR-V. The massage function, which I accidentally activated nearly every time I tried to de-marble the backrest (which I know will be great for some folks), is sometimes alarmingly firm but I didn’t mind that.

The new dash layout is pretty conventional, but VW’s excellent Digital Cockpit Pro is almost endlessly configurable and lovely to use. Combined with the head-up display, you’ll have everything you need to know. The steering wheel is a typically lovely VW item with a flat bottom and perforations and stitching in all the right places.

That massive new screen is a little bit silly. It absolutely dominates the space and, with the cheap-looking piano black bezel, doesn’t dominate it well. Photographer Matt and I argued about the size, and he pointed out that if everything is crammed into the screen, then it may as well be big. Touché.

Below the vents is a storage bin with a clever hinging lid covering the wireless phone charger, meaning you get both storage space and a phone safely out of the way, with another space next to it for a second phone. Again, very thoughtful.

Two cupholders take up a good chunk of the uncluttered console, which has a rotary controller for the stereo. It also has a little touchscreen so you can change its function, primarily to change driving modes. Clever and very useful. It also changes colour with the LED ambient lighting.

The centre armrest sits atop a useful but not massive bin, which has an open front and you can slide or lift the cupholders out to your taste.

For second-row passengers, they’re going to have a good time. Even taller folks will find themselves with tons of leg, knee, foot and shoulder room (if there isn’t a middle passenger), their own climate zone, heated outboard seats and two USB chargers in the base of the console under the air vents. One of my favourite VW features are the little device pockets at the top of the front seat backrest, which gets them out of the door pulls or, more importantly, off the floor or the seat where they will slide around.

Unlike the Tiguan (and other VW Group cars), the middle seat is useable as long as the occupants backside fits between the seatbelt anchors. While there is a transmission tunnel, there’s a bit of knee room and the footwells aren’t quite so cramped. Still not amazing, but better than some.

The folding armrest has a pair of cupholders that pull out of the front when it’s down, so your elbow won’t end up in a cupholder in this car. Cheeringly, there isn’t a complex damped mechanism like the older car, you just pull it out. Little things like that save big bucks if the kids (or parents) lack mechanical sympathy.

Another thoughtful touch is the tablet holder in the cupholder mechanism, which is very clever. The windows also have lift-up sunshades.

As with previous cars in this family of SUVs, the middle row slides fore and aft so you can either get the kids closer – handy when they’re small – or push them away when they’re teenagers. It also means you can add a bit of leg room to the third row or eke out more cargo space in wagon mode.

To get to the third row, you can put the seatbelt in a thoughtful little clip, pull the lever on the base of the seat to flip and slide it forward. The path through to the back row is quite narrow, so if it’s an adult or teenager with anything over size-eight feet, you’ll find it a bit of a challenge. These are categorically occasional seats, with almost no leg room for either second or third-row passengers of any more than a metre in height, and you can’t get child seats back there as there are no ISOFIX or top-tether mounts.

The cargo area has various hooks and slots for putting smaller items or hanging bags, easy-to-reach releases for the powered folding second and third rows, and space under the folding floor to store the cargo blind when the third row is available.

Cargo volume starts at a very respectable 345 litres with all seats in place, rising to a minimum of 850L with just the second row in play, which is huge. With all the seats down, the wide, tall load bay is ready to swallow 1905L. Again, huge, and that final figure is 255L more than the current Tiguan if you’re keen to understand difference. If you’re benchmarking against the old Tiguan Allspace, it’s another 130L.

The 195TSI picks up the 15-inch touchscreen, up from 12.9-inch in the lower grades. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s absolutely massive.

As with other VW Group cars with this newer software system, the most-used climate controls (as well as seat heating and cooling) are always available (or 'pinned') to the bottom of the huge screen. It’s better than it was, but give me buttons any day.

VW’s software looks good and is slowly getting better. Some of the functions are a bit laggy (but not Peugeot slow), yet nothing that will break the deal. Big, easy to find menu buttons take full advantage of the space on the screen.

The base of the screen bezel features capacitive buttons for raising and lowering the temperature and a volume control. That latter one is less necessary now the physical buttons are back on the steering wheel.

Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are along for the ride, although you can also charge with the two USB ports in the dash. The wireless connectivity pairs well with the wireless charging. CarPlay looks fantastic on the huge screen, so that 75-inch-television-on-the-wall-in-a-small-flat effect has its uses. As with VW’s own software, the targets are lovely and big, which makes them easy to find and there’s also less swiping.

If you use phone navigation software, you’ll also see them in the dash and head-up display.

I feel like I have to mention the irritating habit of the media system, because within 30 seconds of me connecting my phone and driving away, wireless Apple CarPlay dropped out. Encouragingly, it reconnected quickly each time this happened. It wasn’t a daily occurrence, but it happened regularly and in different places each time, so I couldn’t pin down what the external factor might be. Some folks tell me it happens when passing through Sydney’s multitude of toll gantries, but that was one place it didn’t happen for me.

Volkswagen owners can access the brand's GoConnect app. It offers such features as remote vehicle monitoring, location tracking, diagnostics, and service-related tools. It's free for the first five years, and then you can continue to subscribe for a fee.

Not long after launch, the Tayron scored five ANCAP stars to match its Euro NCAP rating, the maximum available. This rating will run until December 2031 and applies to build dates from April 2025.

The Tayron maintained scores over 80 through all four major categories, with 87 per cent for adult and child occupant protection, 83 per cent for vulnerable road user protection and 85 per cent for safety assist.

It features nine airbags (including the front centre airbag mandatory for a five-star rating), but there is no airbag coverage in the third row, further enforcing the idea that it’s not really a good place for regular use.

The third row is also missing top tether or ISOFIX points, with three top tethers for the middle row and two ISOFIX anchors on the outboard seats.

VW’s safety systems are better calibrated than most, meaning little, if any, nanny-rage. All of the systems worked just about faultlessly, with just the occasional nip on the steering wheel if it thought I was straying from my lane.

Once or twice I got a bunch of error messages about certain systems failing, but they quickly cleared. Having said that, I’ve seen this on a few recent VW Group cars, and I understand from the grapevine there is a software update already.

Servicing is not particularly cheap. You can choose to pay as you go (PAYG), but you will pay more. Over five years PAYG is $4104 (average of $821 per year) and over three years $2102 (or $700.67). If you prepay with a care plan, you’ll save $554 over five years to bring your average down to $710 and over three years you’ll bring it down to $630.

Either way, this is pricey servicing. The Kluger’s servicing is just $280 per year for the first five years (with a big jump in the following years, but you know what you’re up for right out to 150,000km), way less than half the Tayron. A Santa Fe’s service plan will run $1499 over three years and $2425 over five years (although it has a yearly limit of 10,000km).

An insurance quote yielded an annual figure of $2517 based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

VW Australia says the Tayron should down 95-octane at the rate of 8.6 litres per 100 kilometres, at least according to official testing. My week with the car got me a puzzlingly high 11L/100km where I was expecting a mid-9 result.

Speaking to other reviewers, my figure certainly stood out, so perhaps mostly suburban running was the culprit and I didn’t get to take it on the usual run up to the Blue Mountains and back, so that could explain its high-ish figure.

My result isn’t exactly a tragedy, just higher than I expected. With that figure I’d just about cover 520km from full to empty, while the official number would suggest 674km from the 58-litre tank.

I’ll be honest off the bat and tell you I was a fan of the Allspace, particularly the 110TSI entry-level front-wheel drive. I can’t honestly tell you if that was just motoring journalist contrarianism or whether I felt it was the better car. Either way, the Tayron has a lot to live up to.

The EA888 is a cracker of an engine and here, as in the Cupra Terramar VZ, it makes 195kW and 400Nm, easily enough to shift its 1835kg (tare) frame with enthusiasm. It never feels anything like that heavy, so this is a good start.

The other reason it never feels this heavy is because this nearly five-metre machine has a terrific chassis. Rolling on 20-inch alloys with big 255/40 Continental rubber, adaptive damping and progressive steering, it feels a lot smaller.

Progressive steering is only good when it doesn’t make itself obvious, and here in the Tayron, it’s good. The gearing never feels artificial, and that’s a job well done. It means low-speed manoeuvring isn’t a whirl of hands and arms, and high-speed running is relaxed. When you are approaching corners, turn-in is really nice, although there is a little bit of initial movement from the body.

Along with throttle response and various other parameters, the adaptive damping can be configured to your liking. But after all the fiddling, I found I really like the way the car felt in comfort mode. Except for one thing – this thing does not like bumps or potholes of a certain size, with the wheels hitting them pretty hard and sending a shock through the body. A small subset of these bumps generate a mechanical clack I haven’t heard since my 2007 Mazda 3 (although every bump did that in the Mazda 3).

In fact, there is a fair bit of suspension noise, which suggests either less sound-deadening, noisy (new) dual-valve dampers or stiffer bushing. It’s not, again, 20-year-old Mazda 3 territory, far from it, but it was a mild surprise from a car that in its previous guise was very quiet.

In every other way, however, the Tayron is a step forward. The engine is willing and energetic, pushing the Tayron along on the motorway with ease (I did get some motorway running), and in traffic the updated transmission is much happier.

I never resorted to the paddles, didn’t think it needed Sport mode except when deliberately chasing fun, and I found it to be a very well-balanced all-round machine.

The 150SI and 195TSI Tayrons can both lug 2500kg of braked trailer and 750kg unbraked, which is par for the course in this segment.

One thing to watch for is that the maximum towball download does not increase with the more powerful engine and is still limited to 200kg. The upside is that it doesn’t eat so much into the payload, but means you really need to pay a bit more attention to the towing vehicle’s balance.

With the full 200kg on the towball, your 675kg legal payload is reduced to 475kg ,which isn’t bad but you can’t fill it up with front-rowers and tow. We’d suggest that the Tayron isn’t a super-strong tower, but there is capacity for trailers, caravans and boats should the need arise.

Minor quibbles aside, the Tayron is a very good car. I don’t think it’s as good (yet) as the Allspace it replaces, but addresses things previous customers wanted. The gap isn’t very big, but I think it’s there. As the Tayron, it looks like its own thing rather than a stretched Tiguan, it’s boxy-practical (one assumes this was a US customer demand), and there isn’t an on-paper dud in the lot.

I’m not convinced of the big jump between the 150TSI Elegance and 195TSI, which is new. The old 162TSI Tiguan Allspace was a ripper of a car and worth the money, but then again, I thought the 110TSI was a belter as well.

If you’re never going to leave the city, the 110TSI Life is good value and a good start. If, like me, you were fond of the 'cop-spec' five-seater Allspace, the 150TSI Life is here for you with a giant boot. And if you want more of what the R-Line has, then, well, the Elegance is probably the sweet spot of the range.

The 195TSI R-Line looks great with its fancy lighting, big wheels and go-faster bits, including the excellent engine.