Toyota C-HR vs Volkswagen Tiguan

What's the difference?

There’s not much in terms of practicalities that are going to convince you the C-HR is a better option than Toyota’s other small SUV, the Corolla Cross.

Even other ‘stylish’ small SUVs like the Mazda CX-30, fuel savers like the electric MG ZS EV, or performance small SUVs like the Hyundai Kona N are more affordable than the GR Sport version of the C-HR.

In the case of this car, unlike most of its Toyota stablemates, buyers will likely be making a decision from the heart based on exterior styling and its interior rather than value or practicality.

And who would anyone be to tell you not to buy a car you like for its styling?

It's a hard to deliver a definitive verdict yet, because we’re still some way out from the Tiguan’s local arrival.

Expect a pricier mid-size SUV, but one which leans into its best traits as a semi-premium option, with a stellar cabin and a significant tech upgrade. What sets it apart in such a crowded segment is its ability to appeal to the keen driver, although it’s a shame Australia will miss out on some of the more ambitious and modern powertrain options available overseas, at least initially.

For now though, consider us impressed.

Tune back in in the second quarter of 2025 for all the details on the Tiguan’s local launch and pricing.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

There’s a fair bit going on here compared to most of Toyota’s other products, much like the first generation, but being designed with Europe as the key market and Australia as a secondary means the styling team needed to take on some fairly fashionable brands.

All three variants of the C-HR are relatively close in aesthetics, with major differences being two-tone paint or specific trim elements for the top-spec GR Sport.

It uses new Toyota design elements that have been seen on some models already, the ‘c-shape’ lights have been used on the new Prius, which we no longer get in Australia, for example.

The black roof was also available on the previous generation, where this car has carried over the ‘egg-like’ silhouette from.

The overall relatively aquatic styling and shape must be for aerodynamic advantage - its chief engineer told us the drag coefficient is just 0.318Cd - but the removal of the rear wiper to lower drag might have been unnecessary for a city-focused small SUV.

The cabin isn’t as wild as the outside, which may be a let-down in some ways, though it’s still a little more visually interesting than its more mainstream stablemates.

The 64-colour ambient lighting changes based on settings including time of day or drive mode, but can be set to a specific single colour if you wish.

The centre stack on the dash is gently angled towards the driver with a small separation between it and the passenger, creating a slight ‘cockpit’ feeling.

Seats are made from different materials depending on the grade, though no real leather is used even in the GR Sport, where synthetic suede and leather are the main upholstery.

The cloth textiles are made from entirely recycled materials, while the synthetic suede is made from a little less than half recycled materials.

They don’t look cheap, but they also don’t look particularly luxurious.

There’s a lot of familiarity with this new Tiguan. It doesn’t stray far from the sturdy, boxy, but pragmatic shape of the current car, at least at a distance.

Up closer, though, it’s clear there are some significant changes this time around. The previous car’s hard and angular character lines have been replaced by curvy finishes over the top of the wheel arches, paired with heavier contours down the doors and across the nose.

The face has dumped the previous chrome highlights, moving the grille lower and replacing the horizontal strips which used to sit behind the VW badge with a solid plastic bar (incorporating an LED light) running across the top.

The grille has been moved lower, and chrome has largely been replaced with gloss black and matt silver finishes. While the outgoing car was attractive in a relatively conservative way this new Tiguan makes more of a statement.

Round the back, expect a similar contemporary translucent plastic light-bar treatment to marry the rear two light fittings, with the VW badge taking pride of place alongside the TIGUAN typeface, as is the current trend.

Design elements carried over in the rear three-quarter include the shape of the rear side windows, the tough extruded bumper and the little roof-mounted spoiler. Trendy aerodynamically-styled wheel choices round out its modern appeal.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this design is how it somehow manages to make the Tiguan look smaller where most next-gen designs make new cars look much larger than their predecessors. There’s something subtle about it.

Inside is a radical departure from the now significantly dated outgoing vehicle. The somewhat drab greyscale dash, which was also strangely upright, has been replaced by something much more intriguing.

A huge piano black panel defines the character line of the dash, housing the air vents, dashboard, and new ambient lighting, sitting behind the enormous pride-of-place 15-inch media screen.

VW clearly heard the audience and for this car has put a major focus on tech. The new software to match looks much better, the screen is sharp and fast, and as usual the brand’s digital dash is easily one of the best on the market.

Swapping out old switchgear has also allowed for a more contemporary, pared-back centre console with the nicely-designed steering wheel carrying across. EV-like controls from the ID series take their place on the steering column.

This is not a car you can judge from several metres away. This is a car that's been well and truly launched into the 2020s.

When it comes to interior layout and ergonomics, there’s never much to criticise in a Toyota, unless playing it safe is a downside for you.

The buttons you’re most likely to use regularly, across the climate control, centre console and steering wheel, are all very obvious and easy to find, if a little uninspiring, as is wheel design itself - form definitely doesn’t sacrifice function here.

Welcome are the two large screens, the multimedia touchscreen a large 12.3-inch unit and the driver display either 7.0-inch or another 12.3-inch version depending on variant.

Toyota’s software is simple and accessible, using a few main menu sections, though many will likely bypass this with wireless phone mirroring.

Everything’s in a sensible place: a tall bottle in the cupholders won’t block access to anything, the phone charging pad is tucked away to minimise distraction, and Toyota has kept things like the gear selector and stalks behind the steering wheel relatively traditional.

While the interior feels a little dated by its many buttons and some of its simple graphics, there’s certainly something to be said for a welcome change from distracting screens and menus - if the aim was to not exclude Toyota’s older market, it seems like mission accomplished.

In terms of comfort and space, the C-HR makes pretty good use of its interior from the front, the seats are relatively comfortable and visibility is fine, though the back seat starts to feel a bit cramped.

While cupholders and door bottle storage is plentiful in the front, there’s no armrest and no bottle storage in the rear, only relatively shallow cupholders on the armrests in the doors.

Visibility is also relatively poor with high windows, a narrow rear window, and not a lot of light unless there’s a sunroof.

Behind that, with the seats up, the C-HR’s boot has a claimed VDA capacity of 388 litres in the GXL and Koba, or 362L in the GR Sport. Total volume with the seats down is 1154L and 1490L respectively.

The previous Tiguan was always notable for how spacious its cabin was, and for the most part that pragmatic approach continues.

The re-designed seats proved comfortable over the significant amount of time we spend behind the wheel traversing central Germany, and while it feels a little smaller inside due to the much busier design of the dash, there’s plenty of room for even tall adults given the cabin's height and width.

As usual with Tiguan, it’s easy to find a comfortable and sporty seating position, and the touchpoints are all excellent with much less hard plastic in the doors and centre console.

Each door offers an enormous pocket and bottle holder, and the new car gets a two-tiered shelf design in the centre console, housing a wireless charger below.

A single multi-function dial can control either audio volume or drive mode with a quick press, and without additional switchgear. There is a versatile set of bottle holders and a centre console armrest box behind.

The huge screen is oriented towards the driver. In the pictures it looks like too much, but it’s somehow low enough and the software largely has clever shortcuts to minimise distraction.

The most unfortunate feature of the screen, though, is the requirement to control the climate via touch sliders or a screen-based menu.

If only the brand had committed to giving us two more dials to control the climate zones or fan speed as appear in its Skoda relations. Still, it’s a significant step-up from the outgoing car.

The back seat offers heaps of room for myself, at 182cm tall, behind my own driving position. The generous seat claddings continue (as usual for a VW), with adjustable air vents, a rear climate zone and USB-C ports offered on the back of the console for rear passengers.

Lovely soft trims continue in the doors, and there are a set of three pockets on the back of each front seat, good for phones, tablets, or whatever you can think of.

Boot space measures in at an enormous 652 litres, proving VW found a significant amount of space somewhere in this new design.

Need more? The second row is on rails, so if you’re not using it, or you’re using it for kids who don’t need the legroom, you can boost the load space even further.

Australian deliveries of the new-generation Tiguan were still a while away at the time of writing, so we don’t have precise pricing and specifications to share just yet. However, the brand’s Australian division tells us to expect a similar grade walk to the outgoing car.

This will likely mean three key variants tied to three drivetrain options. We know for now the incoming base version will retain the same 110TSI engine, but will take a significant hike in standard equipment, while the next two variants up will use upgraded engines, a mid-spec 150TSI and a top-spec 195TSI.

The bad news is Volkswagen says it will be fair to expect a price-hike on base versions, what we understand is “closer to the $50K mark”, while the outgoing car starts from $43,990, before on-road costs.

The good news is the standard equipment is “more in-line with what the VW customer expects” according to the brand, with the main problem not being price, but apparently buyers wanting things like standard leather seats and upgraded cabin tech with the more basic engine.

Next up, the 150TSI 2.0-litre all-wheel drive will replace the outgoing 132TSI, and at the top of the range, the most important R-Line grade (which VW sells the highest proportion of) will also get a significant boost, not only with the 195TSI engine (up from the current 162TSI), but also new equipment.

Across its grades, the new Tiguan will have access to new-generation matrix LED headlights, large alloy wheel choices, and a 15-inch multimedia screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

There is also a completely overhauled software suite, with a new version of the VW's renowned digital dash cluster, and you can expect impressive spec highlights from the current vehicle, like tri-zone climate control, to continue over.

And this third-generation car also scores completely re-designed seats, revised ambient lighting, a new head-up display and extended soft-touch materials throughout the cabin to solidify its semi-premium market positioning.

Stay tuned closer to the new Tiguan’s arrival in Australia in the second quarter of 2025 for full local pricing and specs. That said, the cars we drove for this review were largely representative of what we might see land on our shores.

The difference in boot space is likely because the hybrid-only C-HR comes with two drivetrain options, depending on which variant you have.

The GXL and Koba both use Toyota’s 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine aided by a front-mounted electric motor to produce a 103kW output at the front wheels via a continuously variable transmission.

The GR Sport, however, gains a rear electric motor (taking up some boot space) and a more powerful front motor, helping a larger 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine make a total 146kW - still via a CVT.

Don’t expect to be getting to 100km/h from a standstill in any less than 8.0 seconds in either variant, but both have a claimed top speed of 170km/h.

In some ways, I don’t envy our European friends, who can choose from a whopping eight different drivetrain permutations in the new Tiguan range.

However, again there’s good and bad news for the Australian market.

The bad news is we won’t see the new and more efficient 1.5-litre mild-hybrid engine option which is the base version (and one of the cars we drove) in Germany.

We also won’t see the surprisingly finely-tuned diesel versions, and we also won’t see the great new plug-in hybrid version, at least not at launch.

With this out of the way, what we can expect is a familiar line-up. The 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine (110TSI) will carry over from the outgoing vehicle, producing 110kW/250Nm, a new mid-spec engine, producing 150kW/320Nm, and a new top-spec engine (dropped out of the Golf GTI, no less) producing 195kW/400Nm.

As usual, expect all three options to be mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

It's a shame the local division isn’t ambitious enough to launch with the next-gen plug-in hybrid version, which pairs the new 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine with a big 25kWh battery for an estimated 100km electric driving range.

It also brings with it robust charging specs, like an 11kW AC inverter (for a slow charge time of two hours on a compatible charger) and even the ability to charge on DC at 50kW (for a fast-charge time in half an hour).

Our experience in a German-market example proves one of the other benefits of this powertrain, which is a fuel-efficient hybrid mode even when the battery is drained.

Perhaps it’s a story of petitioning your dealer for one if you want it. No doubt the brand will be listening to on-the-ground feedback post-launch.

Toyota says the C-HR uses just 4.0L/100km on the combined cycle test, which is 0.3L less than the previous generation’s claim, but it should be noted the 2.0-litre in the GR Sport drinks a claimed 4.1L/100km.

During testing on the launch drive, but without being able to measure properly from fill to fill, one quite spirited leg of driving netted a 6.9L/100km reading on the trip computer, while a more sedate drive returned 5.4L/100km.

Given the engines will be familiar don't expect any radical changes when it comes to fuel consumption.

We don’t have official WLTP-certified figures yet because the 1.4-litre 110TSI and 2.0-litre 150TSI engines aren’t even in production in the new body yet, but it's fair to assume they won't stray far from the 7.7L/100km of the current 110TSI, up to 8.5L/100km for the current 162TSI R-Line.

For those wondering, the difference between the carryover 110 and the new one in Europe, it’s about 0.9L/100km according to overseas figures (with the new 1.5-litre MHEV engine consuming 6.8L/100km).

Even better news is the power boosted 195kW engine has the same fuel consumption as the outgoing 162TSI.

Meanwhile, the 1.5-litre eHybrid (PHEV) version we’ll miss out on has claimed fuel consumption of just 0.5L/100km.

As usual, these turbocharged Volkswagen engines will require a minimum of 95RON premium unleaded fuel.

There’s nothing particularly offensive about the way the new C-HR drives, but there’s nothing riveting either.

If you’ve driven anything on the Toyota TNGA platform, this will feel familiar to you - and that’s not a bad thing, it’s generally pretty stable, comfortable and controlled.

The modified Corolla platform it rides on is a very good thing, but the C-HR doesn’t have anything in the way of sporting tendencies its styling might suggest.

The hybrid drivetrain in the two 1.8-litre versions of the small SUV don’t offer up a whole lot in terms of keen acceleration, but even the GR Sport and its 146kW drivetrain need a push to get things feeling properly quick on a twisty road.

The added stability of the all-wheel drive in the top variant is noticeable, the front-drive variants feeling a little less planted when pushed.

Steering is on the slightly lighter side of still being well-weighted - it doesn’t wow, but Toyota’s engineers know what they’re doing and it does everything it needs to in terms of communicating feeling to the driver.

Some particularly rough roads on the test drive showed the suspension to handle short, sharp bumps well and not feel crashy over larger imperfections.

The suspension has been retuned in this TNGA-C platform to be stiffer for more control but also more compliant in terms of comfort.

But it’s around urban and suburban streets where the C-HR will spend most of its time, and neglected streets, speed bumps, or tram lines won’t shake you too much from in the cabin.

The Tiguan has always been a stand-out drive in the segment (which VW says underpins the high-spec R-Line version's popularity in Australia) and the improvements for this new-generation car lean even further into its on-road prowess.

Significant revisions as part of the new Tiguan’s upgraded MQB Evo platform include improved chassis rigidity and all-new suspension, which has an immediate and obvious effect as soon as you hop behind the wheel.

We were able to sample a 1.5-litre MHEV (an engine we won’t get, but in a trim level indicative of 'our' base car) as well as a 2.0-litre 150TDI diesel all-wheel drive (as a stand-in for the not-yet-in production 195TSI model) and both stand well above the segment in terms of handling and straight-up fun (at least for a mid-size SUV).

Don’t expect the kind of doughy ride and compliant steering of rivals, instead prepare yourself for what feels like a scaled-up Golf.

The third-generation Tiguan is defined by accurate, engaging steering, punchy and reactive engines, a sandpapered-smooth response from the dual-clutch transmissions, even at low speed, and (particularly for the front-wheel drive) an SUV which feels light on its feet.

This all makes for a mid-size SUV which, if anything, encourages you to push harder on a bit of curvy tarmac. Sure it doesn’t have the nearly EV-like smoothness of its hybrid rivals, but this is supplanted by serious fun to be had, which is extremely rare for this segment.

In our experience, the new ride is springy and reactive, although it was hard to gauge how the new Tiguan might feel in Australia due the high quality of German roads which don’t have the imperfections which riddle the surface of Australian tarmac.

It does feel a bit more locked down, but the previous Tiguan had an outstanding ride considering its more sporty intent, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this continue.

Both turbo engine options roar to life when pushed with a pleasing tone, and as usual the dual-clutch autos are lightning fast at shifting and provide a lot more feedback and engagement compared to the usual dull CVT popular on rival mid-sizers.

The one thing which takes away from the experience is the need to interact with the climate controls via touch interface, a bit annoying and potentially distracting on the go.

On the flip side, the active safety equipment (particularly lane keep assist) is thankfully not anywhere near as overbearing as it is in some of this car’s rivals, solidifying the Tiguan’s position as a robust option for a keen driver.

The new-generation Tiguan was recently awarded a maximum five-star Euro NCAP safety rating and has significantly increased its array of equipment.

Even the base Tiguan in Europe gets auto emergency braking with vulnerable user protection, lane keep assist, and blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic alert.

There is also now front cross-traffic alert, a more thorough driver attention monitoring system, traffic sign recognition, and a safe exit warning system, alongside the usual array of stability, traction, and brake aids.

Airbag coverage has also been expanded to include a centre airbag up front, and full side airbags to join the usual curtain set.

Tune back in when the Tiguan launches in Australia to see if its maximum European rating carries across to ANCAP.

Toyota has a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty which covers the C-HR, as well as capped-price servicing for the first five years or 75,000km, whichever comes first, with each 12-month/15,000km service costing $250.

The C-HR also comes with a 12-month subscription to Toyota Connected Services, with features accessible through the myToyota Connect smartphone app.

As of right now, Volkswagen offers a five year, unlimited kilometre warranty with a year of roadside assist, and it would be a shock not to see the usual three- or five-year pre-paid service packages when it launches in Australia.

On the current car, these amount to about $580 annually (for a 2.0-litre 162TSI R-Line) which is on the premium end for the mainstream SUV segment.

Expect the same service interval as the current car, too, set at 12 months or 15,000km. Check back at local launch time for full details.