[outofspeckyle]

Hi all

I was among the lucky few to attend one of the first drive events for the Taos. While we are still working on our full review for our normal media outlet, Out of Spec Reviews, I strapped on my POV setup, admittedly with camera stabilization turned off, and shared some thoughts on the car on my personal channel.

Taos POV First Drive

Let me know if you have any questions!
Kyle

 

[TaosTime]

Welcome to the forum @outofspeckyle! Very thorough drive and it was awesome that you were able to drive both models. I know you talked about the Atlas but how does the overall driving experience compare to a Tiguan?

 

[CorradoG60]

As an owner of the Alltrack with DSG, not really sold on the DSG. There are things it’s good for, but it rolls backward when on a hill unless you actively think about it, like a manual, which is very disconcerting if someone has pulled up to close behind.

I’ve had to do the emergency brake hill hold move to keep from rolling backward into someone while switching from brake to gas. The alternative is using two feet, which is dangerous in traffic. If only VW hadn’t removed the brake hold feature on their AWD cars. My 2009 Tiguan AWD had a switch you could toggle, and my Touareg TDI had it enabled by default.

The Tiguan’s 8 speed is better overall than my DSG, but on our 2018 Tiguan, the transmission had similar issues to those described here about the Taos DSG. In 2019+ models, they tweaked it, but it took over 2 years for VW to come up with an emissions compliant recall to fix the 2018 TCU programming. Seems like the Taos has the 8-speed all worked out, but now the 7-speed DSG is the issue.

Sadly it seems like the best car is the one not built: AWD 8-speed. Or maybe the 2023 Taos AWD when they remap the DSG.