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"Touareg Unlimited" day - a review


Prhim
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Well, I spent a good few hours hooning around in a V6 Sport Touareg yesterday, on one of VW's 'Unlimited' days, and thought I'd post a report for all to see.

The event I attended took place in Kemble in Gloucestershire. First, in the morning session, we drove to nearby (ex-RAF) Kemble airfield. Here they had set out a number of tarmac courses to demonstrate the Treg's on-road handling abilities.

Course #1 was a short slalom of about 5 cones, no more than 6 or so metres apart. At the end was a two-cone gate you had to drive thru, reverse out of and repeat the slalom in reverse. I was honestly quite astonished at how well a two-ton car was able to do this - the steering wasn't particularly quick, but once you got used to it weighting up against you, you found that the chassis responded very well to sudden changes of direction. I managed to do both legs of the course in a total of 22.3 secs (which was I think the fastest of the day!).

Course #2 was the brake test. Basically you floored it from a standing start, up to around 70-72mph and then just stood on the brake pedal with both feet (hey, that's what they told us to do!). This car stops amazingly quickly, despite a damp surface and semi-offroad tyres, I'd reckon we stopped in just over half the 315 feet stated in the Highway Code. And the steering control while the ABS was active was great. Very impressive.

Course #3 was a longer slalom of cones, with a big 180 hairpin at the end. The point of this track, apparently, was to show the ESP at work. And work it does - most noticeably on the hairpin, where you can literally feel each wheel being braked, then released, as the computers keep the car turning, rather than understeering onto the grass. It wasn't particulaly nimble or pretty (and boy did we make the tyres squeal), but I can't deny that it was effective.

Course #4 - the final course was like a go-kart track, with a couple of tight corners to highlight the braking and then ESP in corners. Again very impressive except on one corner which seemed to send the car skidding straight on no matter what you did - I think a combination of mud and a little oil had caused this, but it did serve as a timely reminded that electronic systems can only save yer ass so far - at some point even they won't do much good.

Still, a mightily impressive performance from such a large car, which looks more like a 4x4 than a performance luxury saloon.

After lunch, we headed to Chavenage (I think) to try the Tregs off-road. We were soon into low-range and using the tiptronic boxes to control gear selection. We had some semi-offroad tyres on and the traction was fantastic. It was interesting to hear the traction control fully at work - something I don't think we're ever likely to encounter on-road.

We did far too much to relay it all here, but these included:

* hill climbs up to around 35-40 degrees

* hill descents up to 45 degrees

* leaning over to 30 degrees

* fording 2ft deep streams

We probably spent around 2 hours in total on the off-road section. The course had previously been bone-dry all summer, so it was the first time our instructors had seen it wet and slippery. Of all the 'obstacles' we tried, only one beat the Treg and this was a long muddy climb of about 35 degrees or so - everything else was dispatched in the end (if not always first time).

What also impressed me was how the Tregs stood up to the punishment - despite rocks getting caught under suspension arms, steam billowing from all crevices after a river run, and plenty of violence against the brakes and tyres - everything was still in good working order at the end of the day - and the bodywork even looked like it wouldn't bear too many scars from the countless branch scrapes.

So there you have it - it really is equally impressive on and off road. While I don't anticipate doing any serious off-roading in mine, it was enjoyable to find out what the car is capable off.

Finally, a word of thanks to the Touareg Team (led by George) and especially our instructor, Wendy, who was a star (apart from not letting us try the slalom with the ESP off; Now that would have been fun...!).

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Re the muddy climb; you should have seen it! It was a monster of a slope, about 150m, pure slick mud, and no less than a 30 degree incline... To be honest, I'm more surprised they even attempted it in the first place!

That said, the first run (by a V6 Treg) came soooo close to making it - it was just inches away from cresting the top of the slope when it started losing the battle for grip - even the hill-hold (which in other place had been excellent) couldn't save it from coming back down ass-first.

A second run produced much similar results, so it was decided that this obstacle wasn't going to be do-able on that day. Remember, this was the first time they had tried the course in the wet, and it had p*ssed down all weekend.

So, my hat is off to the instructors for even giving it a go. It would have been much easier for them to quietly ignore this 'obstacle' all together... In the end, far from being embarrassing, I was impressed the Treg got as far as it did.

Re the Tyres, I can't honestly remember, but think they might have been CompTAs (BF Goodrich?). The instructors loved them and recommended them for those that want a compromise between road handling and off-road ability. Only around £100 per corner, apparently.

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Re "Secret hints" - all seemed to agree that the V6 was the best balanced car in the fleet. I didn't get to drive a V10, but one chap who owned one agreed that the V6 has a much better turn-in and general balance.

Other than that, we learned about using the tiptronic in low-range, but that was nothing you couldn't figure out for yourself. 2nd gear effectively becomes your 'pull-away' gear, with 1st reserved for steep descents (hill descent control becomes active in first). Also the box won't let you shift up too early in low range, to avoid getting bogged down.

I guess the biggest surprise for me was to be encouraged to emergency brake with both feet... Personally I would have thought that I had more than enough power in one leg, but maybe it's a technique more applicable to the ladies (no offence intended).

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re: "The Hill"

Scary stuff. That is in fact the only real offroad test for me. So many times rolled back on snow hills in Alps... Did they try to do it without ESP -worked for me on 2 wheel drives many times?

Now more than ever feel that I should have invested at least in rear diff block (If you like to use high preformance road tyres all the time). I have heard that with all three diff blocks the car is a tank...

Also surprised about BF Goodrich Comp T/As recommendation. I would think Scorpion S/T (standard on Range Rover and now available in 255/55/18) would perform much better with the same handling offroad compromise. IMHO it was the tyres that failed the test. Treg on proper tyres should eat that slope for breakfeast even without extra diff locks.

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Tyres may well have been Scorpions - no doubt you'll get to see when you do the day yourself! To be honest, didn't pay all that much attention as plan to keep road tyres on mine.

They did say that extra diffs do affect the handling - but perhaps it's worth it for extra grip...? I'm no off-road expert, so definitely not the one to ask!

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