Volkswagen Tayron (2025 - ) review

Given the ongoing tax costs of the ‘expensive car supplement’ for cars costing over £40,000 it feels like VW has missed a trick not offering a Tayron variant under this threshold. The more so for the fact Skoda does with the Kodiaq, meaning if you can swallow your brand snobbery you’ll immediately save over £400 a year in tax for basically the same car. True, it’s a symbolic victory for Skoda given, like the VW, the rest of the range is over £40,000. But for the sake of little over £100 on the list price VW seems to have shot itself in the foot there. Beyond that the plug-in hybrid is an attractive option for Benefit In Kind conscious company drivers, while private buyers motivated (and able) to actually plug it in might claw back some of the additional purchase price by using that 75-mile electric only range to cruise past the petrol pumps. Unfashionable or not, family buyers may meanwhile be better served by the diesels or regular petrols, which are cheaper and - unlike the plug-in - available in seven-seat form.

VW traditionally has a middling reputation for reliability but, while it’s a new car, the Tayron’s mechanical and electrical bits are all shared across the group’s wider family of brands and well-proven. The glitchy infotainment seen in earlier models built on this shared tech has also been updated, which is a good sign.

Safety will be an important consideration for the Tayron’s target audience so VW has put in all the tech and assistance features you would expect of a modern SUV of this type, including the all-important sensors for detecting unseen vehicles alongside you when you go to change lane. A shame, though, you can’t put three ISOFIX seats across the second row as you used to be able to with MPVs like the old-school VW Sharan, but such is the practical cost of the current fashion for SUVs and crossovers. If you do need to carry three kids in child seats there is, at least, an additional mount on the front passenger seat in addition to the two on the middle row.

The first important thing to note is you can’t have your plug-in hybrid cake and eat it in terms of seating, the space for the third row of seats taken up by the bigger battery. So, if you need a seven-seater it’s petrol or diesel only. The good news on that front is the Tayron is so big inside that even with all seven seats in place there’s still a usable amount of boot space, which isn’t always a given. To prove the point about practicality your six-foot tester was even able to squeeze into the third row seats. Just. It’s probably better for smaller folk, though. In five-seat form the boot is massive, if a bit shallow. Driver and front seat passenger are similarly well catered for, fancier trim levels getting supportive ‘ergoActive’ branded seats with massage to calm nerves if it’s all getting a bit rowdy in the rows behind. On the road the Tayron rides smoothly in its standard form, though if you want the really cushy experience you want a version with the adjustable suspension controlled via a handy slider on the touch-screen. From wafty wallowing to firmer body control to stave off car sickness on twisty backroads it’s a neat feature.

Credit VW for listening to outcry at its previous policy of replacing physical switches with fiddly touch-operated controls and join us in celebrating the return of a big, twiddly volume knob and proper buttons on the steering wheel! The operating system powering the big central screen and digital driver display is also much slicker, meaning interactions with the car’s many and various systems are much easier than on previous VWs. Where other manufacturers have been simplifying their line-ups the Tayron meanwhile goes the other way with (at the time of writing) five trim levels of increasing poshness, though even the base one gets stuff like configurable ambient lighting, wireless phone charging, keyless start, powered lumbar support on the front seats and built-in nav on the central screen. Wireless pairing to your phone apps is also included, if you prefer. Things feel progressively more premium as you spend more, the ArtVelours upholstery lifting the ambience somewhat while the R-Line version gets its own sportier look with different bumpers, wheels and seats.

The Tayron’s engine range can look a little confusing, given the 1.5-litre petrol motor appears on the mild-hybrid which can’t power itself on the electric motor alone… and the plug-in hybrid which can. On that basis good luck in the configurator where you’ll need to know the difference between a 1.5 eTSI and a 1.5 TSI eHybrid, there being further confusion given there are two versions of the latter and availability varies from trim to trim. Yay. We tried the mild and plug-in versions, and in each case the petrol engine gets a bit rowdy when you demand full acceleration for a hill, overtake or joining a busy road. And this was with just a single occupant – expect even more wailing and gnashing of teeth from under the bonnet if you’re fully loaded with seven people and/or luggage. It’s less of an issue around town but if you’re going to be using your Tayron as intended, travelling with the family or going longer distances you may be better off with the bigger 2.0-litre petrol or even the diesel. We’re basing that on previous experience in related cars though, having not yet driven them in the Tayron.