Home » This Detail Of Our VW Tiguan Pisses Me Off: Cold Start

This Detail Of Our VW Tiguan Pisses Me Off: Cold Start

Cs Tighandle 1
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Look, I’m not suggesting this is a big deal or anything like that, but there’s something about this little detail I want to show you that just somehow rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it’s because of the past issues I’ve had with the Tiguan: the timing chain fiasco, the stupid fake wheel bolt cover things – or maybe its because this one feels so dishonest. And not just dishonest: needlessly dishonest, which somehow makes it all worse. I should explain.

Again, this is the tiniest of details, and it’s not like it causes any real problems or anything, this is entirely a conceptual, perhaps even philosophical problem.

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

But, to me, it’s still a problem.

And it’s a little bit of a betrayal, because the one saving grace of this car is that the interior is really lovely: open and airy and comfortable and just generally a nice place to be. I made that image above a when I was having the big timing chain problems to convey this very idea. So the fact that this is an interior design issue just makes it all feel worse.

Anyway, here’s what I mean. It has to do with this handle that is used to open a little storage cubby, the same one that you pull all the way out to get to the OBD port. The handle looks like this:

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Cs Tighandle 2

No big deal, normal pull handle, right? Well, not exactly. You see, the way that plastic handle looks, with the different texture on the handle and that separation from the rest of the surrounding plastic suggests that it operates like this:

Cs Tighandle 5

You know, it’s one of those handles that pulls up and actuates a latch or whatever. You’ve used them on doors and other things a million times before. But that’s not how it actually works! It’s not a movable handle at all! It’s just a simple molded-in plastic recess that you just yank and it pops out a cheap plastic latch thing with no actual moving parts. It’s a lie!

If this handle were honest, it’d look more like this:

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Cs Tighandle 3

That’s what this handle really is: just a molded-in concavity. But the way it’s been molded and designed is meant to look like a more complex sort of latch and handle mechanism and it’s not, it’s just not, and I feel like VW was trying to fool me into thinking that it is and that makes me wonder why, why go through this effort for something so trivial, why try to make this simple thing that you can hardly see anyway into something that it isn’t?

It just feels like a strange, tiny betrayal, but one I just didn’t need. You don’t need to pretend, Tiguan. Your interior is already your best quality, so why the fakery? The silly, needless, stupid fakery?

I’m not mad. Just dissapointed.

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Jakob K's Garage
Jakob K's Garage
27 days ago

I haven’t read 72 other comments on some plastic, but I think it is made that way, so it is easier to clean: Dirt from fingers won’t get stuck so much in the smoother texture on the “handle” as it will in the rougher “leathery” texture.

Haywood Giablomi
Haywood Giablomi
27 days ago

I’m guessing the reasoning behind this decision is that it clarifies that this is a handle, rather than a vent of some sort?

(Or maybe a rationalization for it if it’s a manufacturing choice based on mold complications as some are suggesting?)

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