The 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan Gives The People More Power, Less Weight, And Some Freaking Physical Controls

Care to guess what the best-selling Volkswagen is in America? That’s right, it’s the Tiguan crossover. There’s even one in the greater Autopian fleet, that’s how popular it is. Dealers managed to sell 21,231 of these compact crossovers in the third quarter of 2024, despite the current model having been on sale since 2018. In this ruthlessly competitive segment, that’s an eternity, but putting those sort of numbers on the board means that Volkswagen needs the next one to work. Well, here it is, the American-market 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan, and it looks to be a pleasingly safe play with plenty of promise.

First, a bit of background. It’s no secret that Volkswagen’s been having a trying few years, and some of the brand’s more recent mistakes have shown up literally inside their new cars. The elimination of physical controls on the ID.4 in favor of volume and temperature sliders, the cost-cutting of trying to use two window switches to do the job of four, the fussy operation of the outgoing MIB3 infotainment system, it all turned off people looking for nice, easy-to-use cars. Well, it seems like Volkswagen’s learning from its mistakes, because while the new Tiguan isn’t a full return to buttons, it ought to give the people what they want.

From the front, the new American Tiguan looks similar to its rest-of-world siblings. You have to look hard to notice the differences because they are quite subtle. The big one is that the new Tiguan doesn’t look as long as the Tayron, with a shorter quarter window and shorter rear overhang, yet it features a Tayron-inspired floating D-pillar rather than the more conventional design seen on the European Tiguan. At the same time, the rear bumper on the new U.S.-spec Tiguan doesn’t seem to be shared with anything else, and the end result is something both familiar and unique that won’t rock the boat.

Familiar to all current Tiguan drivers will be the two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine under the hood of this new crossover. However, whereas the old Tiguan made 184 horsepower and 221 lb.-ft. of torque, the new one boosts peak horsepower to 201. Nice. Better still, the new Tiguan weighs 170 pounds less than the old one thanks to more high-strength steel in the structure and aluminum suspension components, which should do its part to boost, well, everything. Acceleration, braking performance, cornering grip, fuel economy, you name it. Lightweighting is the way to go.

Step inside the Tiguan, and not only will you find a rather attractively layered dashboard with textiles, wood veneer, and silver trim to lighten things up a bit, you’ll also find heaps of tech. Even the base model gets a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster and a 12.9-inch infotainment touchscreen. That’s a whole lot of real estate, but it only goes up from there. You can spec a 15-inch touchscreen infotainment system which is essentially like having a laptop mounted to your dashboard. Wild. Oh, and the toys only go up from there. You can get 10-color or 30-color ambient lighting, heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, massaging front seats, a 12-speaker Harman/Kardon sound system, and three-zone climate control with a proper separate climate zone for the rear passengers. That’s a lot of toys, but what about the user experience?

Well, all your climate controls are accessed through touch-based functions, and while this isn’t the biggest deal in an era of automatic climate control, it’s still not ideal. However, Volkswagen has learned from prior models, because the new Tiguan features a giant volume knob in the center console that doubles as a drive mode selection switch. Sure, steering wheel controls exist, but nothing feels as good as just cranking it, and how are you going to crank it without a knob? [Ed note: Phrasing!]

Speaking of steering wheel controls, the capacitive touch steering wheel controls on the old Tiguan have been banished in favor of actual buttons, like on an even older Tiguan. Remember kids, if it ain’t broke, don’t break it. Reverting back to actual buttons just makes sense, because that’s what works well with human brains. End of discussion.

The 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan looks like a nice, conventional compact crossover, and that’s a good thing. With more physical controls, more power, and more luxuries than the old one, it seems that Volkswagen is beginning to realize that some people just want cars. Not supercomputers on wheels, just well-appointed, pragmatic vehicles to get to work and back. Don’t get me wrong, the new Tiguan is still high-tech, it’s just more user-friendly than it may have otherwise been. Expect to learn more in the next few months as the latest iteration of Volkswagen’s U.S.-market bread and butter inches closer to launch.

(Photo credits: Volkswagen)

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