Articles by Joshua Dowling

April is the slowest month of the year for car sales, which means dealers are desperate to move metal. Here's how to grab a bargain.

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The Toyota HiLux, Australia's favourite workhorse for more than three decades, has been among the Top Three sellers outright for the past four years.

Buyers on a budget will soon be spoiled for choice.

The all-new Volkswagen Tiguan SUV has grown in more ways than one.The second generation is bigger in every dimension, giving it a roomier cabin and, finally, a decent sized cargo hold.But when it arrives in showrooms in September, the new Tiguan will also come with a higher price.The current model is already at the dearer end of the compact SUV class, but Volkswagen has hinted the price of the new edition is set to rise, with a vast model range likely to stretch from $30,000 to $50,000.It’s part of Volkswagen’s plan to continue to build the brand as a bridge between mainstream and luxury.“Without becoming out of reach, we want to position our vehicles as being premium but for the people,” said Volkswagen Australia head of product planning, Jeff Shafer.To that end the German car maker has introduced a level of technology and safety equipment not seen before in the compact SUV segment in Australia, such as autonomous emergency braking (with pedestrian detection), a pop-up bonnet to protect pedestrians if all else fails, nine airbags, LED headlights, lane-keeping assistance, a heads-up display, and the same digital widescreen instrument display found on the $300,000-plus Audi R8 supercar.Volkswagen Australia is yet to confirm which of these features will be standard across the range and which will be reserved for dearer variants.Among the more basic mod-cons we hope to see as standard fare include Apple CarPlay, rear view camera, electronic park brake, handy fold down tray tables on the back of the front seats, and air vents and power sources for the second row seats.Regardless of what is standard and what is optional, it’s apparent Tiguan buyers may need to do more research than usual before fronting up to a dealership: there will be five engine options across four model grades.The starter of the range is the 110TSI powered by a 1.4-litre turbo petrol engine paired to either a six-speed manual or six-speed DSG auto.If history is a guide, the price leader will be the sole model that may sneak under the $30,000 plus-on roads price, but the automatic transmission that accounts for the overwhelming majority of sales will likely cost $2500 more.From there, the Tiguan is available with a choice of two 2.0-litre turbo petrol engines (132kW/320Nm or 162kW/350Nm) and two 2.0-litre turbo diesel engines (110kW/340Nm or 140kW/400Nm).All 2.0-litre petrol and diesel models come with seven-speed DSG automatic transmission and all-wheel-drive.Volkswagen expects there will be a fairly even mix of sales across all variants and does not foresee any backlash over the recent “dieselgate” scandal.Although the new EA288 diesel engine in the new Tiguan is, according to Volkswagen “based on” the EA189, the same engine at the centre of the controversy, it has new technology, including “AdBlue”, which cleans its tailpipe emissions to the latest standards.

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