Shopping For Herself: Car Girl’s Garage Goes Top Gear With the Volkswagen Touareg

by Alexandra Straub on Friday, December 6th, 2013

The Touareg was within our price range, it had a generous cargo capacity, all-wheel drive (for our various trips up the mountain) and best of all, a diesel engine… 

The following three questions are probably what I’m asked most often when someone finds out about my line of work.

1)    What is my favourite car?

2)    What car would I buy if I had an unlimited amount of money?

3)    Do you watch Top Gear?

I can’t really say what my favourite car is because there are many I love. Whether it’s a subcompact (Fiat 500 Turbo) or a supercar (Bentley Continental GT Speed Coupe), there are just so many good ones to choose from.

Let’s skip to question three. Yes, I do watch Top Gear and am thoroughly entertained by it. Any car lover would be. And who wouldn’t fall in love with the British accent?

Addressing question number two: What car would I buy if I had an unlimited budget? Well, at this point in my life, that’s not the case. I have yet to win the lottery. But I can refine the question to, if I had to buy a vehicle for my family, what would it be?

Currently, we’re the owners of a 2001 VW Cabrio. We imported it from Southern California and have put quite a few kilometres on it. But, we needed something that was bigger, had more trunk space, was preferably a diesel and could make it through the snow.

So, the hunt began. It actually began in December, 2012. The better half and I went looking for an SUV. It didn’t matter if it had five or seven seats. We preferred a diesel but were not excluding gasoline options. The first place we went to was the Mercedes-Benz dealership. The ML350 Bluetec was in a new generation and something we were interested in. However, with the options we wanted and a three month wait time, the price was out of our range and the wait was too long. Then we looked into the Mazda CX-9. Granted, it’s not a diesel but a classy car and one that’s nice to drive. Again, the Ford Explorer Sport was not diesel, but a strong contender. Though, the fuel economy wasn’t as stellar as we had hoped.

We had spent the better part of a road trip in an Acura MDX in 2013, but wanted to wait until 2014 for the all-new version to come out. After taking that for a spin, that was top three on the list. We also fancied the Volvo XC90 and the Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel.

With all these great options, it was hard to narrow it down. But there was one that we had still not looked at… that was the 2014 VW Touareg TDI.

It wasn’t hard to fall in love with it. As a VW owner, it’s something I should have thought about right away but for some reason didn’t. Regardless, testing it out fit everything we were looking for. The Touareg was within our price range, it had a generous cargo capacity, all-wheel drive (for our various trips up the mountain) and best of all, a diesel engine.

I’m a huge supporter of alternatives to gas-powered vehicles, whether that’s diesel, electric or hybrids. It only seemed fitting to welcome this type of beautiful machine into our home.

Upon recommendation from a colleague, we went to Gold Key VW in Langley where our sales rep, John Nielsen, was fabulous. Upon entry into the dealership, we knew exactly what we wanted. He joked with us that we were making his job very easy.

(We said we can make it difficult if he wanted! We didn’t…)

The whole process was anything but painful. In fact, it was very pleasant. It seemed as though the other clients of the dealership were also experiencing the same thing. And from what I’ve heard from readers who have emailed me about the car buying process, it is becoming more enjoyable for many people. I’m happy to hear that.

With our new addition to the family and smiles on everyone’s faces, we couldn’t be happier. We’ve also driven almost 2,000 kilometres in the first two weeks of having the Touareg TDI at home and have only filled the tank twice. Even better!

Email: alexandra [dot] straub [at] driveway [dot] bc [dot] ca