Natalie Middleton reports back on how the Tarraco is faring.

The driver assistance features on the Tarraco are coming in handy on the whole

The wealth of assistance features on our Tarraco has kept me well occupied of late, from the front and rear assist to the lane assist and adaptive lane guidance.

The front assist – currently set on medium advance warnings – has only so far stopped me in unneces-sary circumstances, once for no apparent reason and once when I was about to overtake a row of parked cars. Speaking to others, it seems this is par for the course for front assist tech but it does worry me when drivers are tailgating me.

However, the rear assist proved its worth this week when I’d already started reversing out of a supermarket space and a pedestrian walked behind me.

I’m still not sure about the VW Group’s lane assist and adaptive lane guidance. It has taken over once during a lane change, trying to pull me back into the lane I was indicating out of. I do like the fact that the ‘take over the steering wheel’ alerts are suitably abrupt to ensure no one’s nodding off while the car’s in control.

But talking off nodding off, I’m impressed by the driver alert system, which kicked in recently mid-yawn on a late-night trip and told me to take a break. That’s what I call on the ball.

P11d/BiK:£36,330(33%) MPG/CO2:38.2mpg (WLTP)/147g/km (NEDC Correlated) Test MPG:39.2mpg