Blue Mountains - Tiguan off road action

[JGM21R]

Hi all.

Have taken the Tiguan a few times off the road, and as capable as the Tiguan is, I do feel sorry for the car. Feels more at home on the bitumen. Have tried mud and mild dirt tracks but no sand as yet. The only 3 factors that stop the car performing even better are the tyres, clearance and the driver. From the hole day (about 150km off road) I only mildly scraped of the air dam underneath the front bumper, which I didnt even feel but was told I hit. Thankfully there was no damage.

We arrived at a mild uphill, which on first inspection seemed too much for the Tiguan. We had a 550 Navara with us, which picked the hard way up and a D25 Navara which struggled a little bit, so I was very hesitant trying it out, but I gave it a go, trying to pick a clean and easy path. No problems at all, except for some unloaded tyre spin over some rocks which took a bit of throttle control to negotiate. Pics as always dont do the steepness any justice.





Descents are more difficult to negotiate, with less than optimal brake feel and no hill descent control available. The clearance on the downhills with the front low bumper will become more of an issue than the traction issues going uphill.
All in all very happy (but still sorry for the Tiguan - dont think I'll feel that way with an Amarok)

[Ideo]

Nice.

Is that Blackfellows Hand track? I've done that a few times in an Outback.

Nothing like doing tracks like that in a softroader and making it through

[Fred Nurk]

Nice, can't make it out from the photo, but Diesel or Petrol?

DSG?

[Wynnston]

Nice, can't make it out from the photo, but Diesel or Petrol?

DSG?

Looks like a 155 TSI to me so I'm guessing DSG.

JGM21R, I'm a little jealous of your HID's. Are they factory or fitted afterwards?

[Bambazonke]

Looks like a 155 TSI to me so I'm guessing DSG.

JGM21R, I'm a little jealous of your HID's. Are they factory or fitted afterwards?

Quite correct Chrome Roof Rails = 155TSi

[Wynnston]

I went to Lancellin WA the other week and drove on the soft sand.

Didn't let down the tires and stayed away from existing deep tire ruts. It seemed to do just fine. The sand wasn't too fine and wasn't super loose loose either. I've got Bridgestone H/P Sport 235/50/18's (Came on the car from new).

There was a Subaru Outback in front of me that was having a little bit of difficulty but he appeared to be turning his front wheels a lot which I know is a big no no.

The Tig is no all time off-roader but seems to be ok for the light stuff.

The DSG is ok in the sand as long as you manually control it, if you stuck it in auto I think you'd be stuffed pretty quickly.

[JGM21R]

Ideo - It was a side track from the road leading to MacMahons Lookout at Wentworth Falls. (off Tableland Rd)

Yes, the car is a 155TSi with DSG. The DSG is pretty adept for normal dirt roads but is a little bit tricky to negotiate with rocky climbs and crawling first gear work. Feel like the throttle calibration is not suited for offroad for first gear. Not sure how it would perform on hot day though after reading about DSG overheating problems. Had no issue on that particular day, with consistant clutch slip throughout.

Petrol does chew a bit of petrol in the city but is pretty economical in the country. Returned about 12-13l/100km in the dirt and 9l/100 on the way there and an all time best for me on this car 6.2l/100km on the way back (was double demerits). I would think the torquier down low diesel might have performed a bit better off road, but I had no complaints.

Wynnston - Factory fitted HIDs. Glad I got them. They do jar a bit on harder bumps on dirt but overall I think they give the Tiguan a nicer aggressive look. i also love the startup function where they do a sweep left-right and up-down to calibrate themselves. Gives me a feeling of . The fog lamps enhance side road views quite a bit and they are pretty handy as well, but the HID's could use a wider and brighter spread at high beams.

[Wynnston]

i also love the startup function where they do a sweep left-right and up-down to calibrate themselves. Gives me a feeling of .

Jealous

I've been looking into a retrofit and it's not cheap because I'm fussy and don't want to kill my warranty. I tried so hard to get mine with the HID's but the wait was going to be too long with the rest of the stuff I wanted/didn't want.

Every one with HID's at the time of me buying either had everything + HID's or dribs and drabs of other features (that I didn't neccesarily want) and no HID's.

[Arctra]

...Have taken the Tiguan a few times off the road, and as capable as the Tiguan is, I do feel sorry for the car. Feels more at home on the bitumen. Have tried mud and mild dirt tracks but no sand as yet. The only 3 factors that stop the car performing even better are the tyres, clearance and the driver. From the hole day (about 150km off road) I only mildly scraped of the air dam underneath the front bumper, which I didnt even feel but was told I hit. Thankfully there was no damage....

Good on you mate!
It's been ages since I was last offroad properly with my Tig, but it's good to know there's still someone out there challenging their Tig a bit. The Tig handles the sand surprisingly well, so don't be too scared.

I could not agree with you more on the 3 things you reckon limit the Tig being an even better offroad vehicle. To me the biggest problem is the clearance, but the tyres are also important. I have tried to address both at the same time by putting Pirelli Scorpion ATR 225/70R16 tyres on - give a few mm extra clearance (nothing drastic, but you're limited by how much larger you can legally go) and better offroad traction (again, nothing drastic, but better than the stock Bridgestones I had).

With scraping your air dam, the only way of improving your angle of attack is to get the Track & Field front end. I was interesting in doing this for a while, but it was prohibitively expensive and there was some conjecture as to whether it was even possible.

...We arrived at a mild uphill... No problems at all, except for some unloaded tyre spin over some rocks which took a bit of throttle control to negotiate...

I'm assuming you didn't get the Offroad Pack then? With Offroad engaged you shouldn't really have struggled with this. On the one drive I did we got a first hand look at the difference the offroad pack makes when playing in a gravel pit near Olney State forest (South Watagans). You can see perfectly how a Tig without Offroad Pack struggles at about the 2:30 mark in this vid:


To a degree you can compensate for a spinning wheel by tapping the brake (sounds counter-intuitive I know) to make the ABS register the spinning when so it applies some braking to that wheel and forcing the other wheels to turn.

...Descents are more difficult to negotiate, with less than optimal brake feel and no hill descent control available...

OK, so you clearly don't have offroad because you get hill descent control with the pack. It's pretty disconcerting when it first kicks in on you as the ABS rattles away, but it's pretty effective.

With your clearance issues you may want to seriously consider getting yourself a bash plate made up. It's something I don't regret getting at all, even for town driving. I have no concerns driving over rubbish in the road as I know my sump isn't as badly exposed as it is without the bash plate.

I went to Lancellin WA the other week and drove on the soft sand.

Didn't let down the tires and stayed away from existing deep tire ruts. It seemed to do just fine. The sand wasn't too fine and wasn't super loose loose either. I've got Bridgestone H/P Sport 235/50/18's (Came on the car from new).
...
The Tig is no all time off-roader but seems to be ok for the light stuff.

You're brave not letting your tyres down. It's not just about getting stuck, it's also about how hard you make the drivetrain work. With the tyres highway hard on sand you're making your engine, gearbox, and Haldex work harder than they need to. I know the Nissan XTrails had problems with overheating gearboxes on sand that would force the electronics to switch from all-wheel drive to 2-wheel drive in an attempt to allow the gearbox to cool. Of course, this just resulted in them bogging down getting stuck. Although the Tig may be able to get away with leaving the tyres at full pressure, if you plan on driving any decent distance on sand you would be well advised to drop your pressures. Just my 10c of advice though.

...The DSG is ok in the sand as long as you manually control it, if you stuck it in auto I think you'd be stuffed pretty quickly.

Make no error, I am a big fan of the concept of the DSG gearbox ans when I got my Tig I wished I had the option of DSG rather than the Tiptronic auto box. Having driven a couple of DSG vehicles now, and with the experiences I have had with my Tiptronic, I am VERY glad I did not get the DSG. In low traction situations where you just want to slowly ease the power on the Tiptronic is FAR superior to the DSG on the Tig in my opinion. With the gear ratios on the on-road biased Tig's, a DSG box you would be slipping the clutch and risking some serious overheating and clutch wear in some situations where the Tiptronic just eases its way along and compensates for the lack of lower ratio gears.

As for your assertion that you would have to have the DSG in "manual" rather than "auto" I have to agree with you. Even with the auto box I found it better to have it in Tiptronic mode and manually changing the gears up and down in order to maintain momentum and not risk sinking into the sand.

Well played with taking your baby off the black-top though! Hope you keep having fun. I might try organise another off-road drive sometime, but I find myself rather taking the dirtbike out whenever I get a chance. If there's enough interest from members though it'd good to have another drive day.

Check out the last drive I did: First Sydney/NSW Tiguan get together (21 Feb)

[Nervous31]

OK - in the deep end looking at a 2008 Diesel Tiguan with manual gearbox and doing a project to "outback" it.
Looking at suspension kit (for lift and ride), rear wheel carrier for second spare, bash plate, bull bar, HID and LED bar on the bull bar, CB Radio and antenna... any ideas suggestions. Looking for help in Melbourne for gear (tailor made or off the rack).