Wassup ya buncha featherless bipeds. I’ve got the keys to a VW Touran (whatever that is) and Switzerland as my playground! You know the age old debate of “good car – bad road vs bad car – good road”? This. This is that debate. God help me.

But we’ll get to that later. First, the car. Or Mini-minivan? MPV? I don’t really know what this is, call me too American.

Volkswagen’s Touran is a bloated Golf with 7 seats. It has a 1.4L engine, it’s paired to a 7 speed auto that shifts quicker that it has any right to, and drives like a less precise Golf. Ever driven a VW Golf? It’s just that but bigger and a more wobbly. Pedals are light, steering is numb but at least you have some idea about what’s going on, and it’s fairly competent around mountain roads for whatever it is.

It has “an engine”, I can’t be bothered to tell you how much power it makes, but after 4th gear the answer is somewhere around “not nearly enough”. It’s loaded with driver aids like lane keep assist, which cause you to fight the car from veering into curbs sometimes. No actually, it makes the car sometimes drive like a shitty mobile racing game that pulls the car into walls like a magnet. Other times, it fights you tooth and nail when the road has a construction zone and you dare go out of your lane (because that lane doesn’t exist anymore). Lane keep acts like bi-polar girlfriend with anger issues. One moment, it helps save your ass from your own stupidity, then next it tries to throw you off a cliff. Ya know, for funzzies.

There’s no sport mode, but there is an “S” on the gear selector. Don’t bother using the knob as a sequential, VW has it backwards (push away to shift up, towards you to shift down vs the opposite which to me feels more natural). Just use the cheap plastic paddles. It can get up mountains but don’t try and be heroic on the highway.

From the inside and out, it looks like a Golf that you selected the roofline and then stretched it a bit. It’s spacious, although with the 3rd row up, cargo space gets consumed whole. You sit upright, in a very van like position. Honestly, the whole driving experience is a weird mix of is this car or is this van, with the truth being somewhere in the middle. And I still don’t know what this thing is.

It corners fine, especially considering it’s size relative to other cars in Switzerland. It’s front wheels will get overwhelmed on aggressive corer exists and spin. It’s amusing to watch the poor car’s computer struggle to understand why you’re trying to go wide open throttle out of a switchback in the Alps, before either it reigns you in or you go for another gear. The vague underpinnings of something far more competent are here, and you start to get the feeling that it does long to be a smaller thing with two less seats. VW parts bin I guess.

But if you put that aside, because you’re not buying this for hillclimbs, it’s fine. Mostly.

Oh boy, it’s time to talk about VW and their stupid digital buttons!

Mmmhmmm yes, more capacitive touch controls please. Waiter! Oooh waiiiter! Yes I’d like digital buttons, gloss black plastic, and the feeling of running my greasy grubs over a feeling-less surface. I want them on the wheel, I want them around the screen, I want them everywhere. Hey, at least they’re backlit I guess. I’m starting to see why people don’t care for these, and my reasons won’t be very original either. They’re weird to press, hard to read at times, and leave your greasy fingerprints all over the dusty surface for the CIA to come and collect the moment light hits the surface.

It’s mildly frustrating, especially when your brain is expecting to feel some sort of response from a pressing action. The worst is probably the AC control. You slide your finger left and right on an illuminated bar to control the fan speed. You feel nothing and driver can’t see the light bar grow, especially once your fingers get smudged all over. I’m sure some designer out there was thrilled by their choice to use these and finally bridge the dash together with a single sheet of plastic, but from a user perspective it’s a poor solution. It sucked when Honda did it, and it still does with VW. At least the radio volume and tune controls are physical knobs.

By the way, did you know that TC can be disabled? It’s somewhere buried in the screen but it does exist!

Anyways, that’s the Touran. It’s… a thing. More competent than that boring Renault despite its van-ness, but also nothing more to really drag on about. It’s a fat, sloppy Golf that holds your family plus your kid’s friends, sips gas, and has annoying infotainment controls. Sounds standard VW, no?

But what about the debate from the start?

The poor Touran was put through some abuse. It drove Furka Pass as well as many other twisty mountain roads in the alps. And in the moment, did I wish I was driving literally anything else while behind the wheel?Especially while watching Lotuses and Alpines and Porsches driving the other way? 110% yes I was driving a half baked German minivan through the Alps, what the fuck do you think?

What they also don’t tell you, is that sometimes the mountain pass is the only pass. And the you’re in 30kph traffic up and down, stuck behind a doofus in a Ford or BMW riding his poor breaks all the way down barely in control. Disappointing, sure, but I guess that’s the theme with these European rentals. However, it was still fun. Leagues more engaging than crushing at some ridiculous speed on i95, and when the driving slows, the scenery is an 11/10. Twisting around glacial lakes and up alpine passes can’t not be fun.

But you do still wish you weren’t in a damn half-assed minivan.