BMW X5 vs Volkswagen Touareg 2020 comparison review

I'm Tom Baker, this is Chasing Cars, and if you're looking for a luxury SUV, it's a really good time to be buying, because there's lots of good vehicles around, and I've got two of them right here for this week's comparison. What we're doing is we're putting the new Volkswagen Touareg, the Generation 3 Touareg, up against BMW's new G05 X5. Now we did give Mercedes-Benz the opportunity to be in this comparison, they didn't have a new GLE available, so we're going to be finding out from this twin test which of these large German luxury SUVs you should be buying. Now in Australia we do refer to these as large, if you're watching overseas, welcome, they may not be large in your market, but either way, the information will be relevant to you. So the specs that we've got here, this is the Australian launch edition of the Touareg, V6 diesel under the bonnet, 190 kilowatts, 600 newton meters of torque. This is actually a petrol X5, straight six, 250 kilowatts, so quite a beast actually, and it's cool because you can get petrol power in the X5, you actually can't in Australia for the Touareg, so that's one point of difference. But as for where we're going to be starting, I reckon we should jump into the BMW first. It's 20 grand more expensive in virtually every specification than the Volkswagen, so I guess this has got to be the car to beat. Now you and I drove the new X5 together recently in 30D form, and if you haven't seen that video, you can find it on the channel, but one of the most impressive things about that car was its interesting specification. It was really nice, I think it's called Phytonic Blue outside with tan leather seats. This one is a lot more basic. We've got the flat white paint outside, black leather interior. I don't think it shows up the X5 to its best extent, but still, we are reminded of the fact that this BMW has a really nice, high quality, but pretty understated interior. It doesn't overwhelm you with modern technology, even though it is all there. We've got a large screen over here in the centre, we've got fully digital gauges in front of us, but they're not that immersive. You can't put a really detailed map in the gauges, you can just get this kind of annoyingly lacklustre map in there, which is frustrating. But all of the bits and bobs in here feel really high quality. The leather on the steering wheel is great, there's soft-touch materials sort of everywhere you touch, including down here, below the belt line. The dash is stitched, you know, even this stuff here is soft. We've got the sort of geometric pattern in this X5, I think it looks okay, you can get woods and stuff if that's your taste. And these are the basic G05 X5 seats in Australia, and I think that they actually are really comfortable and supportive, and the driving position is good for an SUV. As we know from the last X5 we drove, you can get lots of interesting colours and combinations in the interior, and I'd recommend that. But practicality is good, we've got two cupholders here, we've got wireless phone charging, we've got a really nice deep bin with USB-C charging. And as for the infotainment, it's a touchscreen these days, but you can also control it through the old-school BMW iDrive controller, which I think still works very well. You've got wireless Apple CarPlay, but you've only got a year's subscription to that, you've got to pay after that point, which is a bit disappointing when the VW gives it to you for free. The VW, as we'll shortly see, has some pretty incredible cabin tech. But what's the BMW like in the back seat? Because if you're buying a vehicle this size, it needs to be roomy, and you can see that for me, at six foot, I've got plenty of room, even with the panoramic sunroof. Headroom's no problem, lots of legroom, lots of toe room, and you can fit three adults because the floor is nice and flat in the X5. We've got some amenities as well, we've got just air vents back here with kind of like the fan dials, we don't have the additional climate zone in the back, none of that matters. That's the kind of thing you kids complain about, you've got problems. We also have on the back of the seat the mounts for a BMW tablet holder, USB-C charging in the back of both front seats, that's pretty cool. And we've got a flip-down armrest, hard storage area there, cup holders, the whole shebang, it's pretty good. Plus we have the built-in sunshades on the rear windows, which is always nice if you're going to be putting a bubba into the back of the car. What's also pretty nice is the boot space, and that's because the X5 has the biggest boot in this comparison, but not by a massive margin. What I do like is the split tailgate, that's carried over from all the generations of the X5, so you get this extra piece that just glides down because you wouldn't want to do anything manually. 845 litres in the BMW, easily fits large suitcases, and because of this split tailgate, stuff just slides straight in and out, couldn't be easier. You can fold down the back seats with toggles here, you've got shopping bag hooks, you've got the whole shebang. And the cargo cover, it's not one of those trick ones that kind of goes up with the boot, but it's kind of the traditional style. But then, with a touch of a button, single button, to fold up the rest of it. So it's a pretty practical thing, but so is the Volkswagen. Now this car is about 20 grand cheaper, and I don't think it's a huge step down in terms of the luxury, but we'll find out more inside. Start with the boot, love the wide-spaced letters, I know I say that every time like a broken record. No split tailgate, but the electric boot gets up and out of your way nice and quickly. We've got 810 litres of space in the boot here, so just down by about 35 litres, not any room that I think you're going to miss. Now it's nice and flat here as well, so you can slide bags straight in and out. As you can see, it's just slightly smaller, but the same types of features. You can put the back seats down with these pull things here, you've got the shopping bag hooks, but the Touareg does have one party trick in its boot, and that's that the air suspension can actually be lowered from right here, which means that it's nice and easy to kind of load up heavy suitcases and that sort of stuff. So it's not as high off the ground. Close up the boot, and let's jump in the back seat and see what life is like there. Similarly to the BMW, the back doors open nice and wide, but the roofline isn't quite as high, so it's a little bit more awkward stepping in. You do have that nice thunk from the doors. The Touareg is built in the same factory as the Audi Q8 and stuff like that, and it's actually probably Volkswagen's most premium chassis, given that it's shared with SUVs, all the way up to the Lamborghini Urus. A little tidbit for you, you still have the blinds here in the Touareg, that's pretty cool, and the amount of space on offer is good. So lots of headroom, but we don't have a sunroof as fitted to this car. Legroom's good, toeroom's fine. We do have a separate climate zone, it's two of them here in the back. In fact, a bit more of a hump in the floor, so less of a comfortable five-seater than the X5, but still okay. Flipped down armrest, we've got two and a half cup holders, the old two cup holders and the espresso holder thing. And in terms of charge points, they are down here, but they're the old USB 3, not the USB C, so I think that's one way BMW's kind of future-proofing things a little better. All the soft-touch materials do continue here in the back of the Touareg, but this car is all about domain event in the front seat. Now, sizes and everything. When it comes to the Volkswagen's touchscreen, I mean, what can you say? It's 15 inches in size, it's called the Edelvision Cockpit, and it is an $8,000 option on the Touareg, but given that the one they give you as standard is like the same as you'd get on a top-end Golf, the 9-inch screen, which looks tiny in this amount of space, I think you'd have to part with the cash, wouldn't you? It combines with digital gauges. As standard, they remain analogue, actually, and you get bits and bobs, you get ambient lighting thrown in, you get a little scroll wheel for the volume, but it's mainly about this screen here. Love the way that maps look on it, it's basically cartographic with the size that you get. Apple CarPlay, it doesn't present on the whole size of the screen, which is a little bit annoying. You kind of get it in a boxed form compared to full screen on the BMW, but the mix of materials in here is nice. So you get this kind of brushed metal finish here, white stitching up on the dashboard, soft leather on the wheel. I know quite a few journos have complained that this is the kind of standard Volkswagen wheel, but I mean, that's definitely slim pickings. What isn't slim pickings is the fact that below the waistline, the materials become scratchy. I mean, come on, it's a hundred grand, Volkswagen, at least give it some soft touch down here, what are you doing? But you cannot say the same for the seats. The seats are beautiful. This one's got the higher than Nappa, Volkswagen say, leather finish, Savona, they call it. Really soft, really plush, huge amounts of adjustment in the seat, all electric. You got massaging, you got heating, you got cooling, all thrown in actually. So that's pretty impressive. And just generally, it feels really modern in here, definitely feels more modern than the BMW. I think the BMW's quality is a bit deeper than the Volkswagen's, but if you're after an interior that's bang up to the minute with technology, it's got to be the Touareg. And then there's the way these cars look outside, because I think what they give you is really quite different. The Volkswagen is very slabby. The grille is enormous. I mean, you could say the same for the BMW, but I guess in a bit of a different way. The X5, there's a few classic elements to the way it looks, but I find the rear of the thing quite unfamiliar to my eyes, those taillights. Whereas the Volkswagen may be a little bit more homely looking, I don't know. Let me know down below in the comments which one of these SUVs you think is more of a looker or neither. What we're going to do now is take these things out on the road to see which one performs better on the blacktop, and we're going to be starting in the BMW X5 xDrive40i. Stepping behind the wheel of the new BMW X5, sort of the initial feeling I get is one of BMW trying to balance their sort of new focus on comfort with their heritage, which is around, you know, sporting and performance cars. I think BMW have kind of been struggling with this conundrum for a little while, but a number of the recent cars have done quite well, I think, at achieving it. The new 3 Series, the new X3, and so it goes with the new X5. This is a large-ish SUV that combines a nice sort of touring character with, you know, a few sporty elements that make you feel like you're, you know, you're definitely not driving a cushy Mercedes or anything like that. Instead, it feels, you know, fairly BMW in character. That starts with the engine. We've got a very classic BMW-style engine in this particular car, 250 kilowatt straight-six turbocharged petrol. A bit unusual for this segment, a six-cylinder petrol engine, but it's all the better for it. Sounds great. You can bang it into sports plus mode and it'll, you know, fart on upshifts and all sorts of stuff you just, you know, just don't get from a diesel SUV in this space. 450 newton-metres of torque, so not quite as much twist as the Touareg, in fact, quite some way off, but it never feels slow. Quite the contrary, it'll run a five-and-a-half second zero to 100, but it is more expensive than the Volkswagen. You can get a diesel engine for a few grand less. A really nice three-litre straight-six diesel, so nothing to complain about in that department here, and a variety of other power plants as well. Steering, it's not classic BMW steering. It's fairly disconnected, low effort. It does have the classic sort of quick to sort of get back to centre feel BMW steering, but apart from that, it's pretty low on feedback for the driver, but that's kind of how electric power steering goes, unless you're Porsche. Other stuff, the ride is sporty. Now, there's a few different suspension setups you can get on the X5, and that makes it a bit confusing for buyers. This one's an M Sport, so we've got an M Sport suspension, but not air. So we've got steel springs, but they're adaptive, and so the comfort mode is floaty up until a point. It'll float and sort of feel compliant, and then it'll just crash through urban imperfections, not $120,000 worth of suspension. You can get air suspension, and I would do that just to improve the compliance of the car in town, which if you're buying a luxury SUV, you're buying it kind of to drive in town in the main. On a good road, it does keep the X5 nice and level, but the air suspension can do that as well by just tightening everything up. You get M Sport brakes on the X5 40i, which is nice. Improves the stopping ability of this big old bus pretty well. It is a heavy old bus, near two ton, so being able to stop it quickly is a good thing. It's very, very quiet. BMW have worked really hard on excellent cabin insulation in the last few years, and that's what you get here. It's not a noisy car whatsoever. And it's spacious, visibility is good, and all the safety toys are included. Full speed AEB, adaptive cruise, lane keep assist that works really well, 360 degree camera. All the options for this car are more on the sort of style and convenience front. So, the Volkswagen Touareg, what's it like to drive in this company? Well, straight out of the bat, it strikes me that the Volkswagen is more about sort of comfortable touring and comfortable getting about town than it is about sports. And that's fine by me, because I think that this kind of genre of car actually suits a more sort of big, comfortable, supple, bruiser type of recipe than it does trying to ape a sports car. That said, if you can pull off sporty dynamics and a comfortable ride around town, then you've basically, I don't know, reached nirvana in this segment, and that's kind of what the BMW is trying to do. Here in the VW, it definitely doesn't abandon sporty dynamics. And in fact, on a sweeping country road where the changes of direction are more gradual, it's actually a lot of fun. Where the roads start becoming really, really tight and hairy, though, it does feel its weight. But most people don't spend their life trying to punt a two tonne plus SUV around hairpins as fast as possible. They spend their time doing what I'm doing now, running errands around the suburbs or, you know, on a very occasional kind of road trip in the country. And the Touareg just excels at that sort of stuff. That starts with what's under the bonnet. So we've got a pretty tried and tested VW group engine here, three litre V6 diesel producing 190 kilowatts of power and 600 newton metres of torque. So heaps of pulling power, all available, just above idle. So this car feels incredibly muscular and strong. No great shock that it can tow three and a half tonnes of brake trailer as a result. But, you know, with no load on the back, it's just, you know, effortless and pretty rapid. Six and a half seconds to 100. So that's only a second behind the petrol powered X5 that we've got on test here. And a little bit quicker, actually, than the diesel X5 30D. So it isn't slow at all, but its standout feature is its great ride quality. So you get that if you go for the air suspension on the Touareg. That's an option I would definitely recommend going for, because what it does is it gives you a really nice level ride, but it soaks up the bumps really, really nicely, especially urban imperfections, potholes, ruts, sort of lateral lines in the road. You just don't really feel them. You see them, but they just don't get transmitted into the cabin. Obviously, there's a tiny bit of road feel, but not a lot. And that's great for this genre of car, as I mentioned. Handling doesn't suffer too much as a result. It's fairly kind of leisurely in how it goes around corners, but the steering is slow enough to feel relaxed, but quick enough to give you the impression that the front end is going to go where you put it. There's a decent amount of grip from the Bridgestone Alenza tyres. That's their new crossover tyre. They're just fine, you know, fine trending to good. And the refinement is excellent, so there's very little road noise, very little wind noise, and you do hear the engine a little bit, but it's not too diesely. V6 diesels are certainly a lot better than four-cylinder diesels for their noise, and, you know, it just kind of builds like a bassy rumble, this car, which is fine to my ears. Now, definitely compared to the X540i on test, it's just less dynamic. It doesn't sound awesome like that car. It doesn't have the same verve in the corners, but as an all-rounder, I think the Touareg is a very, very good proposition. It also has all the safety stuff included, you know, adaptive cruise control, high-speed AEB, lane keep assist, that really kind of tightly keeps the car centred in its lane. Flyspot, the works, it's all got it here in the Touareg. The impressive thing about these SUVs is they both accomplish the mission. They're luxurious, they have a premium image, they're pretty comfy, and they're spacious. But there are key differences, as we've addressed in this video. If what you really want is a luxury SUV with a stonking petrol engine and the kind of sound that you only get from a straight-six, well, it's got to be the X5 xDrive40i, at least until that Mercedes GLE with the straight-six petrol arrives in Australia at some point in future. But really, on balance, out of these two, the Touareg is the car to buy. At $20,000 cheaper, it doesn't feel like you're getting $20,000 less for your money. On the contrary, it's a very complete car. Only the lack of optional seven seats lets it down a little bit. That is a feature you can get on the X5. The X5 is better to drive, it's sportier, but you pay for that with a firmer ride. So, as always with these sorts of things, it's really about priorities. Definitely test drive both, and definitely subscribe to Chasing Cars beneath the video. Leave me a comment letting me know which of these SUVs you like best. And as always, thanks for watching Chasing Cars.