Volkswagen Tayron Review & Prices

Much like Alan Partridge’s beloved extender dining table, the Volkswagen has hit its venerable Tiguan with the practicality stick, bestowing it with a bit more length to create the Tayron.

The Tayron’s size puts it directly on par with the mechanically similar Skoda Kodiaq for practicality, but its posh interior and fancier design - especially on top-spec R-Line models - makes it a viable alternative to more premium cars such as the BMW X1 and Volvo XC40.

While the Volkswagen badge might not be quite as posh as brands such as Audi or Mercedes, at a first glance at least, the Tayron can certainly hold its own in terms of exterior design. The flat bonnet, tall roofline, boxy wheel arches and butch front end give the big Volkswagen buckets of road presence.

There’s a similar story inside, where some minor changes compared to the Tiguan give the Tayron a much more upmarket feel. The dashboard is broken up by a big trim piece which swoops up around the vents at either end, and there are some snazzy ambient lights set into the dashboard and door trims.

A 12.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system is standard with a 15.0-inch unit available on higher-spec models, but they’re both crisp and easy to read, as is the 10.3-inch driver display. The rotary knob in the middle of the centre console is rather less so, and it can be fiddly trying to select its individual menus.

What isn’t fiddly, however, is finding the right driving position or somewhere to store your tat. The Tayron has comfortable seating all round, even in the third row, with lots of storage space in the front and loads of legroom in the middle row. The sliding bench helps when getting passengers in the rearmost seats.

An enormous 885-litre boot (850-litres in seven-seater models) allows the Tayron to swallow up pretty much all the luggage you can throw at it. Naturally, boot space is limited with the rear seats up, but even then you’ve got as much load capacity as in a small hatchback.

And the piece de resistance is that the Tayron is a bona fide seven-seater. Even with six-foot tall passengers in the second row there’s enough space for a similarly sized adult in the back, if only for short trips, and the wide cabin means you can fit three across the middle in relative comfort.

You can have a Tayron with a multitude of engine choices, from a 1.5-litre mild-hybrid petrol engine to a 2.0-litre diesel, with a range of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and petrol engines in between. The entry level 1.5-litre engine is plenty to haul the Tayron about with little fuss, though it can sound a little strained getting up to motorway speeds. One of the 2.0-litre options will feel more effortless if you regularly carry a full car of passengers.

Despite its heft and enormous footprint, the Tayron is surprisingly easy to drive around town. The steering is light without feeling vague, while big mirrors, a flat bonnet and a high seating position mean the big Volkswagen is easy to place on the road. R-line models do feel a bit stiff over broken road surfaces, though big bumps are well absorbed.

Motorways are comfortable too, with a well-insulated engine keeping vibrations at bay and little in the way of wind noise, and while it’s not all that fun to drive the Tayron feels mostly grippy and planted on a country lane.

As a big, practical, posh SUV the big Volkswagen makes an excellent choice of family car, and you can check out the latest Tayron deals here on Carwow, or Tayron lease deals instead. Alternatively, have a look at used Tayron deals through our network of trusted dealers, or other used Volkswagens if you don’t need all that junk in your car’s trunk. Carwow can even help you sell your car when the time comes.

The Tayron range kicks off with the entry-level Tayron Life, which comes in at slightly more than the seven-seater Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008, but it’s far less expensive than the equally upmarket Hyundai Santa Fe. Life models come as standard with 18-inch wheels, LED headlights and taillights, a 12.9-inch infotainment screen and customisable interior lighting.

R-Line Edition spec is the most expensive trim level as standard, though it’s only available with a choice of 1.5-litre petrol engines. The real range topper is the R-Line trim with the 2.0-litre TSI petrol engine, offering the most performance, four-wheel drive, 20-inch wheels and a sporty body kit - though it is rather dear.

Refined and easy to drive, though high-spec models could be more comfortable

In town

The Tayron is much easier to drive around town than you might expect from a big seven-seater SUV, thanks in part to its light steering, great all-round visibility and large mirrors. Even entry-level cars come fitted with all-round parking sensors and a rear-view camera, which combined with the large mirrors make it easy to fit into tight spaces.

Big dips, bumps and potholes don’t faze the big SUV at all, but bigger-wheeled models don’t absorb broken, cracked road imperfections all that well, and you hear it through the cabin, but that’s the price to pay for a set of posh 20-inch alloys.

On the motorway

Tayrons equipped with the 1.5-litre engine are surprisingly peppy, and while progress can hardly be described as rapid, they come to a motorway cruise without much fuss. There’s a little bit of engine noise that makes its way into the cabin when accelerating, but it pretty much disappears once you settle into a cruise.

The stiffer edge to the Tayron’s suspension presents itself again at speed, because while it’s perfectly comfortable and adept on a smooth run, cats-eyes and ruts across the road do make themselves known with an audible ‘thump’ in R-Line models.

Volkswagen’s active cruise control and lane-keep assist is one of the best in the business, taking the strain out of long drives without that lingering paranoia that you’ll have to jump in at any time or that you’re too close to the lorry next lane over.

On a twisty road

It may not be much fun, but the Tayron does a good job of making country lanes easy to drive through. It’s grippy, with little in the way of body lean for such a big car, and the steering manages to give you half a sense of what the front wheels are doing.

It’s still a big beast at the end of the day, and the weight is most noticeable when you hit a bump mid-corner, as there’s a slight shimmy from the rear end which can feel slightly unnerving if you’re not expecting it. That being said, the Tayron makes no false promises about being sporty, so it’s a forgivable offence.

Lots of room and usable third-row seating, but there are one or two annoyances

There’s loads of room in the front of the Tayron, with miles of headroom - even for tall drivers - and plenty of adjustment in the seats and steering wheel to find a comfortable driving position. The seats are highly supportive, especially the semi-bucket items in R-Line models, and the suede trim is nice to the touch. There are ISOFIX mounting points in the passenger seat, too.

A decently-sized centre console cubby, large glovebox and felt-lined door bins mean there’s plenty of space to keep your odds and sods in. The two-tiered wireless phone holder and cubby ‘shelf’ combo is handy too, as it means you don’t have to put your phone in the cup holder or lose centre console space for small items.

That being said, the fact that it hides your phone out of sight makes it easy to forget it in the car if you’re rushing.

Space in the back seats

The back of the Tayron is capacious, with loads of leg room - adjustable thanks to the sliding bench - and even more headroom than you’ll find in the already generous Tiguan thanks to a taller roofline. You can even fit three adults in the back in relative comfort, though the middle seat is slightly narrower than the outer pair.

The middle row of seats can be reclined and even heated in the right spec; back seat passengers will have just as pleasant a time on a long drive as those in the front, especially given the Tayron’s large windows. Naturally, the middle row folds forwards for access to the third row on seven-seater models, and access is fairly good, even for adults over six feet tall.

Third row passengers get a single cupholder and a small amount of storage, so it’s rock-paper-scissors for who gets to use it, and there aren’t any chargers or air vents back there either. PHEV Tayrons lose the third row of seats altogether to make space for the battery packs.

You can even get four six-footers across both rear rows of a Tayron, though that’s really pushing it on particularly long journeys.

Boot space

Five-seater PHEV models have a 705-litre boot, and while that’s still a large load space it’s massively down on the seven-seater Tayrons with their enormous 850-litre capacity once the rear seats are stowed away. That’s five litres bigger than the Skoda Kodiaq (845 litres), though not quite as big as the Peugeot 5008 (916-litres).

With the third row up, the Tayron has 345 litres of storage capacity in the back, putting it roughly on par with the 5008’s 348 litres and the Kodiaq’s 340 litres. A Volkswagen Polo has a 351-litre boot, to give you some idea of how big that is. Plenty of room for a few small suitcases.

There are some useful touches such as fairly deep under-floor storage with a built-in slot for the rolled-up parcel shelf, but the floor itself is a bit annoying to slot in and the parcel shelf is finicky to remove. There are a useful pair of handles at the back to fold the middle-row seats down, but they feel awfully flimsy and you can see the trim panels either side of the boot flex before the seats drop down.

A surprisingly upmarket interior with slick infotainment, but the trim options aren’t very interesting

While its Tiguan roots are clear, the changes that Volkswagen has made to create the Tayron’s cabin have genuinely elevated it to another level of poshness. The upright, gloss black dashboard is underlined by a contrasting trim piece which kinks up at the edges around the set-back air vents.

It’s a simple piece of design, as is the contrasting strip below it which wraps around onto the door cards, but it’s hugely effective at giving the Tayron’s cabin a luxurious vibe. You can even get it in a snazzy wood finish.

The gloss black dashboard and door card surfaces are home to LED ambient light patterns, with customisable colour options and some preset ‘moods’ to choose from. They seem a little gimmicky at a first glance, but they do look pretty when you’re driving at night.

Volkswagen's infotainment system is the slickest it’s ever been, whether in 12.9-inch or 15.0-inch guise in the Tayron, and while the touchscreen climate control menu can be annoying to use on the move - as are the temperature sliders - you get used to them fairly quickly. The rotary volume knob on the centre console is a good addition, but the integrated touch-screen menu inside it is unintuitive to use and it’s set a little far back.

You’ll find an impressively wide variety of engine options available on the Tayron, with multiple 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre options including pure petrol, mild hybrids and even a diesel. A refreshing change given the trend of super-slimmed down engine ranges these days.

Both 1.5-litre plug-in hybrid options have a claimed electric range of 72-73 miles and just 10g/km of CO2 emissions. You’ll be hard pressed to see more than 60 miles of electric range though, given our experience with the hybrid system in other cars.

The mild hybrid version has a claimed average fuel efficiency of 45.2mpg and emits 142g/km of CO2. Our mild hybrid test car saw an average of 42mpg over mixed motorway and city mileage, not miles behind Volkswagen’s claim.

The 2.0-litre petrol comes with four-wheel drive and can be had with 204hp or 265hp. Fuel economy suffers as a result, down to the 33-36mpg range, but you do get a noticeable performance boost over the smaller engine models. The diesel is the choice for motorway mile munching enthusiasts, with the best fuel economy at 49.5mpg.

All Tayrons are subject to the Expensive Car Supplement on years two to six, with a range of first-year tax prices from £110 to £3,300 depending on the engine you choose. Company car drivers will only have to pay the third lowest band of Benefit in Kind tax on a plug-in model though.

The Tayron was awarded a five-star rating by Euro NCAP in 2025, with an impressive 87% adult occupant score and an 85% child occupant score. Its sister car, the Tiguan, also scored five stars.

All Tayrons come as standard with a suite of driver assistance technologies including adaptive cruise control, driver attention monitoring, emergency autonomous braking, lane assist and even a system that will notice an oncoming car around a corner and help you swerve to avoid it.

There are a trio of ISOFIX anchor points, two in the middle row and one in the front, though it’s a shame there aren’t any in the third row.

The Tayron is too new for any mechanical issues to have come to light yet, as is its Tiguan stablemate.

Volkswagen came a poor 29th out of 32 manufacturers in the 2024 Driver Power Reliability survey, which isn’t a confidence inspiring result.

The Tayron’s warranty is nothing special, with a standard three-year/60,000 mile warranty as is standard with most European cars - and there’s no option to extend.