Are you one of the many drivers like me who loves driving but hates having to do the weekend shopping, you know the scenario off by heart “how long dad are we nearly there yet”? And here you are stuck in a city centre traffic jam going nowhere fast, and other moans from the rear row of seats “mum I’m hungry” like you’re supposed to a magician and suddenly be in your local Pizza Hut, and more comments like “he’s annoying me tell him to stop it,” How many times have you heard these typical moans from the little blighters and yet here you are sat in your pride and joy and simply not enjoying the drive that you’ve waited all week for. Maybe it the fault of the garage where you bought the car after all there was no mention about this from the salesman you know “huh huh,” as the salesman clears his throat “I’m afraid that although we will attempt to sell you one of our best cars we have, we cannot guarantee that you’ll get peace and quiet from the little brats on the back seat.” No not a peep from him, where was this statement when he eagerly made you sign your life away
So what are you going to do about this situation when every single weekend of the year you’re going to be harassed silly driving the family everywhere and let’s not forget that you like me probably when you first bought the car you wanted some powerful engine and fancy alloy wheels and a nice sound system and yet you still haven’t really had that chance to use any of them to your satisfaction other than to keep up with the Jones’s next door.
Over the years I have spent fortunes on car insurance and have had various cars of all different shapes and sizes from my first car a Ford Capri that I bought at auction it was a great car until I went on my first long drive up to the North of England and that was more or less the beginning of the end, another Ford that I bought a few years later was a Ford Cougar, plenty of fun with plenty of engine torque and 170bhp to boot but terrible if you’re a rear seat passenger as there was only space for 2 people in the back and of course they were bucket seats too which we all know that you cannot fit a child safety seat in to a bucket seat, it just won’t work, no matter how hard you try 4 doesn’t go in to 2, so in those days every time we went out as a family we had to go in my partners slow but perfectly designed Nissan Micra with its 1.0L engine but hey ! no bucket seats in the back to worry about.
Anyway last year I was looking for a car that was going to be a little bigger with more space and still have plenty of grunt, something a bit more special, I also knew that it had to be good for the rest of the family too. I looked at various cars including saloon cars, MPV’s and several different 4x4’s when suddenly one day I had an accident, someone had ran in to the back of me while I was parked up and as a result the other driver was at fault and their insurance company offered me something bigger to drive as a courtesy car. Well I always say “never look a gift horse in the mouth” there I was with my seven year old Volvo that I was struggling to sell and get a good price for when next thing I know it’s been written off and I received more money from my own insurance company than I was trying to sell it for in the first place. My courtesy car turned out to be a Volkswagen Touareg 3.0L V6 TDI Altitude of which I instantly fell in love with. I had the courtesy car for about 2 weeks then extended the use of it at my own cost for about another 2 week’s, I just did not want to part with it. All my neighbours thought that I had won the lottery or something and I foolishly told all my friends and colleagues at the office that it was my new car, so one thing led to another and I paid Volkswagen a visit and shortly after I was the proud owner of my very own Volkswagen Touareg 3.0L V6 TDI Altitude.
The Volkswagen Touareg is definitely the most luxurious of all cars that I have ever driven and my advice is that if you are in the market to buy such a vehicle then you should definitely take a trip down to your local Volkswagen Dealer and book a test drive. It is probably one of the best drives you will ever experience. The Touareg has 225bhp and can sprint from 0 – 62mph in less than 8.5 seconds which is pretty dammed good considering that this car is about 2 tonnes in weight, the wheels are 19 inch spoke alloys which look really cool, and because it’s an Altitude then you get all the extra spoilers and twin chrome exhausts and a whole host of other goodies that you don’t get in the standard models. This car is definitely a head turner as the amount of people who look at you while you are sitting at the traffic lights probably wishing that they had one is unbelievable, everyone tells you “nice car mate”! Or “nice wheels” and boy racers don’t stand a chance in their heavily modified cars and their big fat exhausts blaring out sounds of thunder, one guy in a sported up car came up beside me at the traffic lights and he shouted to me “nice car mate” I told him that at least my car came with fat exhausts that were standard fit.
By far one of the nicest things in the car for me is the interior, the finish is definitely one of the best, it is utterly peerless. It has four zone climate control which means that your partner can have warm air if they want while you can have cool air at the same time, and where my kids used to complain that they were too hot in the past now at the press of a button can also have the same cool air circling around them too while they watch their favourite films on the DVD screen that unfolds from the ceiling and which now keeps them happily entertained on long journeys or in the heavy city centre traffic, as for me up front I’m more than happy sitting high above all the other traffic in what can only be described as sitting in the most comfortable leather seats I’ve ever sat on and which are heated too with 5 different settings from look warm to very warm. I particularly like it when it is dark outside as the dashboard lights up like the cockpit from the latest RAF fighter jet with interior lights colours of purple and red and I also have a state of the art satellite navigation which not only covers the UK but most of Europe too and will tell me everything from where to find the nearest hotels in a 30 mile radius to finding a bank or a restaurant anywhere in any city and in any country in Europe. My partner also seems to be very happy as she likes the warm tone of the wood effect trim along the dash board and feels like she is being treated like a lady in the luxury of this fine marque.
On the exterior is also what you would expect with high quality car like this with its metallic paint work and privacy glass windows and chrome finish around the windows and bumpers, grill, twin exhausts and wheels too. Not also forgetting that the Touareg has both front and rear sensor parking which makes parking problems a thing of the past.
The Touareg also has sleek dynamic looks, and although the engine is a diesel it’s very quiet too, at speed you can hardly hear any noise other than the wind rushing past. The automatic gearbox is very good too with 6 gears and it also is tiptronic which means that I can change into manual at any time although I don’t see the point in this as the engine is so incredibly responsive, I see little or no point in changing in to manual at any stage, what’s more there is even a sports gear which makes the transmission of the gears longer in automatically changing and gives you a more sportier drive. The fuel tank holds 100 litres of Diesel meaning fewer stops on a long journey and cheap insurance can be found online through the following online insurance website.
With two children in the back there is still loads of room and after the shopping has been done, now we never have to put the shopping in the back seats with the 2 children like we used to have to do, the boot is incredibly large with 555 Litres of space with the seats in their normal position this means you will easily get 3 large suitcases in or 2 sets of golf clubs in, and if you want to carry any abnormal loads other than the mother in law then with the seats folded flat you suddenly have a massive 1570 Litres of space.
The Volkswagen Touareg definitely isn’t cheap to buy but you will get heaps of fun and total satisfaction out of driving one, the basic car retails at about £39K without any extras and I think it’s safe to say that you should consider spending a few thousand more getting it specked out properly. You should at least get leather trim, satellite navigation, dual climate control and front and rear sensor parking otherwise you may not retain the good residual values that the Touareg enjoys. It is possible to pick up a good used 3 year old Altitude from around £25K with low mileage, and a normal Touareg but of a lower speck that the Altitude for around £23K with low mileage as well from a main dealer. One very good point to make out here is that servicing of this car is either every 2 years or every 20,000 miles whichever comes first.
Buying Insurance for the Touareg is a group 16 which means for myself is £440.00 per year fully comp which is pretty damned good and I found the insurance online through a company called 1st Insurance Finder http://www.1stinsurancefinder.co.uk/ this online insurance website was easy to use and I've now used them a few times and I'll definately use them again.
Finally on a recent trip away without the children, we took an overnight ferry from Newcastle upon Tyne to Ijmuiden near Amsterdam and then drove all the way to the Polish border to visit an elderly relative in just 7 hours and only stopping twice to refill the fuel tank in the whole journey (one way) this meant driving at high speed where the law permitted in Germany, the engine just keeps going and going and will accelerate all the way up to 125mph without stopping, once I reached about 100mph I then simply selected the sports gear on the auto box and she just cruised without any hesitation at all. The only noise you could hear was the noise of the wind rushing past the car, I drove at an average speed of about 120mph most of the way, although it wasn’t all plain sailing as Germany too has its own unfair amount of road works and parts of the Autobahn that is regulated.
Now that we are back in the UK it's back to sensible driving and being stuck in the usual city centre traffic but who cares when you are stuck in such a beautiful car as the Volkswagen Touareg
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