any VW Tiguan owners around??

A mechanical engineer friend in the car design business says the worst car made is a Jag followed closely by anything VW. He says the best car is anything made in Japan, preferably a Honda.

ok, so I'll put down a "no" for Brooks! I agree about the Jag. My sister had one and if it wasn't a Lemon, I don't know what is. she finally gave up on it and got a Volvo.

A lot of the new vw diesel engines are twin turbos and kick in very early to give a smoother delivery of power.

I am replacing my 2.5 tdi t5 crew bus with the same but a 2.0 twin turbo tdi... They have the same power output and torque output , but just delivery it differently .

I will miss that surge of power the 2.5 tdi had when you drop a gear to overtake someone, the twin turbo just doesn't have it.

I wanr me one of them VW Pissants. I hear there pretty reliable.

> VW claims the car will "learn" how you like to drive and adjust itself within the first 600-1000 miles.

My Tundra reportedly does the same thing on a continuous basis, sort of like a rolling average, I guess.

I have a cousin who was a diehard VW performance fan for years, but he finally got tired of things -- many of them little things, like knobs and handles -- breaking. He finally gave up on the marque.

The Tiguan is made in Wolfsberg Germany. I think we' ll give it a more through test drive.

I don't know a lot about the Tiguan. I had a Touareg as my daily driver until March 2012...I guess it was alright, it had that solid "thud" when the door shut, but certainly had its share of bugs. "Simple" things weren't so simple on that beast. All and all, I probably won't buy another VW.

Not that you asked...but...
You might want to consider buying American. After driving the imports for years, I came back to domestic. The newer Fords in particular seem to be much better than they were.

we tested the Jeep Patriot. We've owned a few Wranglers, but there is no way in heck I'd buy that hunk of junk Patriot. wow, so many things wrong and the price at 23K??

so we are in no hurry and might take another round of test drives too. Any American made suggestions in the small SUV/crossover category??

A Subaru Forester would be perfect for getting to the ski hills on Sanibel.

haha!! I know, got to love the heater side mirrors and windshield spray nozzles.

I actually liked the Forrester, the only thing that seemed cheap on it was the door handles. some kind of weird hinged plastic deal. You'd think that they wouldn't skimp one of the few parts of the car you have to actually touch every time you use it.

The 2013 Ford Escape has a new design with better gas mileage. To save money you could buy a 2012.
I have a 2008 Mazda Tribute (same as Escape with different name) and love it. I previously owned a Subaru Forester and will NEVER own another Subaru again. Constant problems with the vehicle and build quality was poor.
Another option could be a Honda CRV.

> we tested the Jeep Patriot. We've owned a few Wranglers, but there is no way in heck I'd buy that hunk of junk Patriot. wow, so many things wrong and the price at 23K??
>
> so we are in no hurry and might take another round of test drives too. Any American made suggestions in the small SUV/crossover category??

My wife bought a GMC Acadia in 2008. She took it from Oklahoma to Disney World with a baggage carrier on top and another on a hitch rack with 3 adults and 3 teenagers and it got her 25 MPG running 70 with the A/C running on Max (It was in August).

It is also AWD. I took it out in a snow storm (near blizzard) a couple of years ago and I didn't have any trouble handling the snow until it got over a foot deep (about 16" - 18" was the trouble point). Not quite enough ground clearance to handle that much depth.

B-)

I just own boring Fords.

They give me very little trouble. We take them to a local Ford dealer for their regular service intervals; our dealer DOES NOT use flat rate mechanics. The Windstar van finally needed some significant work after we had it for 9 years. That was two years ago and I would've paid 5 times more in new car payments by now easily if I had replaced it.

If you want an interesting car, buy a Volvo. My Gawd, me and the mechanic became best friends. There is always something wrong with the car.

I have had good luck with the Fords but I have heard they make lemons too.

I have purchased 4 since 1998 and every one has been cheap to own and run and close to trouble free.

I would have the first one except that it got crushed by a horse. So help me, I should've cut the roof off of that car and driven it like Sheriff Buford T. Justice.

in that crosssover range that you are looking at..
there is the Tiquan, Ford Escape, Honda CRV, Nissan Rogue, Kia Sorento.

Honda CRV is made in Ohio. II would look at that one first because I have become a honda/acura person through the years mostly through product integrity and honda's sense of space in design and they are built on good platforms.

Then I would look at the Tiquan, then the Ford and then the Kia. I think it was Nissan who came out first with the 'crossoveror whatever' concept with the Murano a few years back.

I would go with a $ number in my head to not back down from. If you can assemble some unruly kids to go with you, it is a baragining plus;-) and go at the end of the month because some may have to make sales quotas.

In the small SUV/crossover category, I give a big "thumbs-up" to my Ford Escape. It's not a beast, but it does the job. Mine's a 2001 2/4WD with 4cly and a 5 speed... I think it's they only year they made the stick.

Word of warning... NEVER buy a first model year vehicle... you'll get to know the name of all the dealer's mechanics, parts guys, people browsing the showroom, etc.

BTW: I'd never personally owned a jeep of any sort, but, I've seen tooooo many problems. And, like they say... "It's a Jeep thing... (which I equate to spending lots of money on repeated repairs)". I've heard good things about most VW products, so there is that.

Good luck, Andy!!

Norm

Got to second Carl here.

Whenever we rent a car for out of town trips, if I can't rent what I regularly drive at home, I get an Escape. It serves us well on our Maine vacation too.

They'd better be reliable, because I've heard friends owning VW's say the repair costs are unreasonable compared to similar work on other brands.

Even if it did "learn how you drive", and I would assume this is going to be your wife's daily driver, it is going to get confused when you go to drive it.
We may be moving some vehicles around in the near future and on our list to look at are, Suburu, Honda, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, VW and then on, at least for my wife's daily driver.