2004 VW Touareg V10 TDI
Once you drive one you'll never want anything else. It's a great balance of power, size and economy. It has a 7700 lb tow capacity, room for 5 adults, real AWD , low range transfer case, adjustable air suspension, HID lights, the list goes on. The 6 speed automatic shifts seamlessly and offers two automatic modes (normal and sport) and a semi manual mode. The adjustable air suspension offers sport, auto and comfort modes, with the sport setting moving to a lower ride height and stiffening up the dampening. The other 4 setting are loading height (speed limited) Comfort, Off road, and Xtra height (speed limited), totaling about 6" in height adjustment. Although the differences between Comfort and Sport settings are small, it is noticeable and on the highway switching over to Comfort smooths out the bumps and floats you to your destination. Really one word describes the available power (or more accurately the torque) Intoxicating! It can be as mild mannered as a Civic, but you press the peddle and the big diesel comes to life, you hear the two turbos spool up and almost 2.5 tons of VW pulls away leaving most other cars behind. Rolling on to the throttle at 100 KM/h will push you well into 'loosing you license' range in seconds, all without leaving top gear. Fuel economy is certainly good for a vehicle of the Touareg's size and weight averaging (for me) 8.8 L/100km highway and about 11.2 l/100km city. The only down side to the big V10 is cost of ownership and potential maintenance. Things like oil changes are going to cost a little more than average as well as things like regular fuel filter changes can get somewhat costly. The potential for very expensive repairs is also possible, many of the engine components, should one fail, require the whole engine to be removed (lowered out the bottom) to be replaced. All those convenience features also means a lot of sensors and related electronics which are possible points of failure.