Do you still wonder why NA lost the Touareg?

Touareg was under marketed. Nobody still has heard of them-people in my neighborhood ask me about mine when I am out and mine are 15 and 16 years old.

It does suck they stopped selling them here, but in all fairness they neutered it first with the 2011 on…so not missing much.

We own two plus an Atlas and that Atlas is boring and only has BIG going for it. We own one because we have six in our family and that does t work with a Touareg. So while it is boring we love ours.

The Scout will be interesting…I am a member on their forum and it is an interesting approach they have to develop a vehicle with being so open and asking for feedback directly from folks. It is to be a proper ladder frame chassis which is pretty cool and they did mention lifting will be easy which also is interesting…both of these points from the Scout official source…not hearsay.

I have been riding them to add a range extended or something for remote off grid charging. That way one could camp and use the power and charge for return…but so far just not feeling listened too there on that. Try charging in a power outage or heating your home without natural gas in a power outage. These “green” people just want money and control and are not actually doing anything positive or moving the world forward…pure greed.

One thing is for sure: I am glad we own early gen Touaregs we got when they were newish. Best vehicle ever made in my opinion.

Spiegelglatt said:

It does suck they stopped selling them here, but in all fairness they neutered it first with the 2011 on…so not missing much.

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My first 2005 T1 had diff locker, air suspension...all the tricks....sweet Reed Green paint even. I get what you're saying.

IMHO, though, the 'neutered' 2011-2017 delivered a big improvement to the platform. Quieter, better handling, roomier, a relatable diesel. No 4X motion, no air, no piano hinge rear seats...but in simplicity, I think VW delivered much better reliability.

The T1 was an amazing, unique vehicle.....SUV of the year even....that - in my experience was also a POS that left me stranded three times. At 11k miles, I'd had enough. Hell, the shop even REMOVED the engine once to fix whatever (typing this just triggered that memory) . In the end, VW rewarded my patience with a sweet 'equity transfer' deal that put me into a later build 2005.

They got the second one right. I put 125000 miles on it (thank you VW Driver warranty purchased thru this site from a kid in NJ) before trading it in on a 2013 TDI Exec. 36000 miles later, I flipped that in on my current 2016 TDI Exec.

Soooo....mileage may vary....but 135000 T1 miles v 145000 "T3" miles has me tipping my hat to the later models in terms of performance reliabily and value.

I always considered the Touareg to be an Audi Q6....slotting between the Q5 and Q7.

JoshC said:

...I can go weeks driving through my area and never spot a touareg of any generations but q7s and cayennes are everywhere. Just yesterday there was 3 cayenne and an rsq8 in the same lot at the grocery store. Plus there was always the image issue of a 50k-60k VW and people just weren't about spending that money.

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You have to be careful when making generalizations based on "your area". I've lived in rural Alaska for over 10 years and have never seen a Cayenne nor an RSQ8, but I regularly see Touaregs. I personally have been tempted many times to buy a Cayenne, but there is a stigma in owning one in my community. Nobody questions my debadged Touareg/Tiguan/Atlas/Taos (the vast majority of my neighbors don't know the difference which is fine with me).

In some communities (I've spent way too many years in them), a Volkswagen badge would not be accepted by the HOA. In other parts of America, you wouldn't dare drive a "luxury" European brand (luxury Asian brands and $100,000 pickup trucks tend to get a pass).

The Touareg needed to fit in the spectrum between these two extremes. Apparently, the United States does not have the bandwidth to embrace a vehicle that approaches a Cayenne in terms of capability, but doesn't have the stigma(cache) of a Porsche.