Beijing 2014: Volkswagen to showcase Touareg facelift

Volkswagen will unveil the new Touareg at Auto China 2014 in Beijing that’s starting next week. The new Touareg is essentially a facelift with a lot more added tech. 

As part of the update, the Touareg receives a new front end. The headlamps have lost the kink and are more horizontal now. Keeping with the symmetry, there are more chrome slats to the grille than before. The bumper is new as well with the inverted fangs splitting the air intakes. It’s a lot more aggressive looking now. Rounding off the front end update are the still disproportionately small fog lamp housings. Move towards the side and you will spot the new set of alloys and a large chrome strip running along the door sills. This carries on and wraps around the rear, also being the only noticeable change to the posterior.

On the inside, you get brighter colours. The beige leather seats are certainly more pleasant and the contrast well with the brown dashboard. The wood inserts are new as well. You get chrome accents around the control panel and white illumination for the controls. 

Under the hood, you still get the same 239PS 3.6-litre V6 diesel mated to the 8-speed automatic transmission. Volkswagen says that efficiency has improved by six percent. This has been achieved by aerodynamic improvements such as air inlet openings, a new wheel spoiler and modified door mirror caps. An optimized low-friction gearbox and low rolling resistance tyres also contribute to better efficiency.

The Touareg V6 TDI will now come equipped with an automatic post-collision braking system (helps prevent a secondary collision in case of an accident), bi-xenon headlights and a coasting function. While coasting(when acceleration is not needed), the engine is decoupled from the gearbox to return better efficiency. The new Touareg will also come with Google maps integration and online traffic information.