Volkswagen Touran review

Going by its list price alone, the Touran looks expensive alongside its rivals. A Citroën Grand C4 Picasso is a few thousand pounds cheaper and you can get a more powerful S-Max for the price of an equivalent Touran. However, don’t let that sway you, because the Touran is available with large discounts and, more importantly, its finance deals are keen enough that monthly costs are on a par with those rivals. Still, it will be more expensive for private buyers planning to buy outright, but low insurance costs and good resale values promise to go a long way towards making up for that.

All the engines provide decent economy – even the petrols. That said, the 1.2-litre petrol’s real-world economy will potentially take a tumble on faster roads or when loaded up due to a lack of power.

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Entry-level S trim is the one to avoid because it’s very basic and doesn’t even have alloy wheels. SE is much better equipped. It has front and rear parking sensors, auto lights and wipers, a multi-function steering wheel, 16in alloy wheels, all-round electric windows and adaptive cruise control. There are also a number of very reasonably priced options.

SE Family has a panoramic sunroof, blinds on the rear windows, remotely activated rear-door child locks, pre-crash preventive protection and a voice amplification function for the driver – it uses the microphone system in the front to project the driver’s voice through the rear speakers, so the driver doesn’t have to shout to be heard. It’s a good trim level if you want lots of kit and it isn’t that much more than an SE with optional sat-nav.

SEL is even more lavishly equipped and comes with chrome exterior highlights and bigger alloys. However, it’s too expensive to be genuinely recommendable. It’s a similar story with R-line; you pay a lot of money over the SEL for sportier looks alone.

This generation of Touran is too new for us to have any solid reliability data, but it’s based on the same mechanicals as the Golf, which performed rather poorly in our recent reliability survey, coming 15th out of 20 cars tested. VW also struggled, coming 22nd out of 32 brands.

Thankfully, a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty is standard and can be extended to four or five years, albeit at a fairly high price. A fixed-price service plan is also available for two or three years and can be paid monthly, while one-year UK and European roadside assistance is standard.

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Euro NCAP gave the Touran its maximum five-star rating in crash tests, bettering even the excellent S-Max. It gets seven standard airbags, including a driver’s knee airbag, and you can add rear side airbags at a reasonable cost. If you specify entry-level S trim, it's also a no-brainer to add the adaptive cruise control and emergency city braking, which will keep a specified distance from the car in front when on cruise and will automatically brake if it senses an imminent collision at low speeds (although these come as standard from SE and above).

Child locks are standard across the range, but remotely controlled window and door locks for the rear doors are standard on SE Family and up, and a reasonably priced option on SE.

Hill hold assist is standard, as is a tyre pressure loss indicator. Lane assist is also an option on all models, apart from S trim.

An immobiliser is standard on all models and an alarm is standard on all but S trim, on which it costs extra.

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