2015 Touareg- can't believe I waited so long

Hi All

This is a much more wordy introduction than I would normally give. But if you're remotely interested, you'll know a fair bit about me by the end of this.

I should first thank my sister-in-law for pointing out what should have been obvious to me. "Mikey, you're the only one in the family without a VW" she said, shortly after after my older daughter bought herself a Golf a few months back. I knew I enjoyed the little Golf diesels ever since we hired one in Italy- buzzing along the Autostradas at 160kph was an absolute hoot. So I bought my wife a 6th gen Golf TDI a few years ago, and got my youngest daughter a 5th gen TDI at the start of this year.

My aging diesel Pajero (Montero) had been great- off-road and camping trips, towing the boat or horses around the countryside or dragging a harrow over pony club paddocks, but after 11 years and the horses and daughters gone, it was time to upgrade. But the hunt was not easy. What could I get that would handle at least mild off-road (no longer interested in trashing vehicles in bog-holes or getting covered in horse poo), had plenty of grunt to tow the boat, would swallow several windsurfing boards and rigs, was discretely classy for formal occasions, and didn't have a reputation for crapping itself at the worst possible moment. The last factor ruled out Discovery 4 and Jeeps, at least as I perceived them.

So when the sister-in-law made her enlightening comment, all of a sudden, Touaregs came into my field of vision. A few weeks later and I am now the proud owner of a 2015 Touareg at a less than showroom price. And I love it!

Cannot believe how refined it is. Mind you, I am coming from a pretty low base from the Paj, which was a great vehicle, but nowhere near the same league. I get heaps more silky torque out of a slightly smaller capacity engine using less fuel. How does that work? Oh yeah, Deutsche Technologie. And I thought the TDI Golfs went well when dropped into "S" mode. They're a kinda sluggish now compared to the Treg despite being half the weight.

My only disappointment is that the front passenger seat doesn't lie back very far and I can't remove the headrest. This was important for putting a sailboard or two in the car. I had checked on a 2012 model which did lie quite flat, so I assumed the 2015 would be the same. But it's not. Oh well, probably not a good idea to have salty water dripping on the interior after a sail. Small compromise for all the other benefits. Board(s) now relegated to the roofracks. Lucky I can drop the air suspension down to "load" height. Good foresight.

I'm yet to see how far the Treg can go off-road, especially in sand, so I'm scouring these forums and YouTube for evidence of the ability of 4Motion and no centre diff. A few people have been surprised that I got rid of the Paj as it was almost part of my persona, but I'm hoping I haven't gone prematurely too soft and can still get to most of the places I used to go. 20" rubber will need to be supplemented.

So it's farewell to the Pajero Club forums and hello to the Club Touareg forums.

By the way, I ended up selling my Pajero to my sister-in-law's fiance. He loves it.

Cheers.