Comparison Road Test: 2012 VW Tiguan vs. 2012 Nissan Juke

At first glance, this may seem like an odd SUV comparison to make, considering the fact that the Juke is perhaps the wildest looking vehicle of this type ever built while the 2012 VW Tiguan remains as Teutonic as ever with a restrained yet tasteful new front corporate front end easily noticeable whereas the much improved six-speed automatic now returns 2 miles per gallon more on the highway with EPA ratings of 22 city/27 highway. As the Juke was all-new last year, the vehicle needed nothing more than detail changes and our front-wheel drive manual transmission tester returned EPA figures of 25 city/31 highway. So, again, why the comparison?



This VW motor is one of the best in any vehicle at any price.

First off, both of these SUVs come standard with high revving, quick and quite addicting turbocharged 4-cylinder engines that still manage to return decent fuel economy in real life situations. Also, as Nissan and VW don't sell these SUVs in Honda, Chevy, Ford or Toyota numbers, you won't have to suffer the ignominy of seeing your exact same SUV always parked in the Home Depot lot every Saturday right next to you. Not that the Juke or Tiguan were meant for extreme cargo duties, although the VW has the Nissan easily licked in this department. With the Juke, you are buying a style statement to a degree so you take the small sacrifices in substance.

While both aren't exactly overflowing with legroom in the second row, the big difference comes in how much cargo room is available in the Juke and Tiguan. The Juke, what with its cute and pert rear end design, sacrifices a cargo hold for what amounts to the inside of a teenager's backback what with this SUV's paltry 10.5 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats. Fold those down and you can squeeze in about 35 cubic feet of your junk.

The Tiguan, on the other hand, gives buyers a much more useful 23.8 cubic feet behind the rear passengers growing to over 56 cubic feet when those seats fold (relatively) flat. Seriously VW, should the back seat fold with a giant lump in the middle of it because you didn't worry about where the cupholders would go during such an occasion? Also, the Tiguan's cargo hold feels tall and not very deep with the Jetta Sportwagen topping it as a cargo hauler for extreme duty.To read the rest click this sentence.

Consumer Comparison Test: 2011 Chevy Suburban LTZ Vs. 2011 Toyota Sequoia Platinum

We noticed a lot of similarities between the Chevy Suburban and Toyota Sequoia during our road tests of these highly proven family vehicles that are perfect for hauling a boat, 8 people, the entire contents of your studio apartment or all the kids all at once. We saw that not only were these fully loaded gas guzzlers priced to within $1,000 of each other (both around $60,000 fully loaded) but they also are sized to within an inch of each other, so neither one is exactly easy to park.

Both the Suburban and the Sequoia also have what we would call in the real world serious drinking problems, as they both had V8 engines that never topped 14 miles per gallon during our time with them. But our Sequoia definitely could out-muscle the Suburban thanks to its larger displacement engine, additional power and more responsive feeling six-speed automatic.

The Suburban we tested came equipped with a 5.3 liter V8 with 320 horsepower that proved more than adequate when asked to motivate the Chevy but it just didn't have the insane oomph offered by the Toyota Sequoia's 5.7 liter 381 horsepower 5.7 liter V8 that is Lexus-like in its refinement. But in the end, does having this much brute accelerative force matter in an SUV that doesn't exactly corner like its riding on rails (we are talking about both the Toyota and Chevy here).

In fact, both the Chevy and Toyota had very soft suspension tuning directed towards passenger comfort that conspired with rather numb steering racks to create two of the least rewarding to drive vehicles on the market today. It's also just not fun having to worry about finding a big enough spot to park it unless you live somewhere with lots of open space. Like Texas.

To find out our final choice in this battle of the giant SUVs, click here for a link to Yahoo! Autos