The Tiguan has faced a number of maintenance issues recently. First, the coolant warning light came on unexpectedly – something which has never happened to me in a test car before.

I discovered the coolant had dropped below the minimum level, so I put a call into the Volkswagen press office. Their  workshop manager said it was “quite normal” for a new car to need coolant topping up after a relatively short period of time, due to possibly having had air trapped in the system and the levels then settling down as the car is ‘run-in’.

A few days later, a second maintenance issue occurred: an AdBlue warning popped up on the information screen, telling me I had a range of 1,500 miles before it would run out. The car had done 5,400 miles at the time – better than the 3,000-4,000 miles Volkswagen suggests it might manage before needing a top-up. I contacted Robinsons Volkswagen in Peterborough to arrange one, but was quoted an eye watering £75-£100.

It turned out that Robinsons had “missed the bulletin” about the company’s pricing matrix (a fixed price of £1.50 per litre of AdBlue).

Although the press office assured me I would now be quoted the right price, we decided to go for a DIY approach and purchased 10 litres of AdBlue from Euro Car Parts for £15.88.

The AdBlue tank is in the boot in the Tiguan, so we had to take the boot carpet out and remove the packing around the spare wheel to get to it. The height of the boot lip also meant we needed to buy a plastic funnel to pour the AdBlue in without spilling it. Other than that, it was straightforward.

As for the coolant, I went to Robinsons Volkswagen in Stamford to check there wasn’t a leak. The technicians confirmed all was well.

(spec shown for Match Edition model, which has superseded that of our test car)