About the Volkswagen Passat
B L purchased this Volkswagen Passat new with additional options for $65,000 (including all on-road costs). B L would buy this car again because: “Every car has a story. I’m not talking about; this model embodies the spirit of the company’s founder; or this model saved the company from financial ruin.
Not even that this model comes from a decades-old lineage and car company X’s best selling model. I mean that every car built and owned exists in a context for its individual owner, and it’s this context which makes or breaks the whole deal. That context is a time, a place and a purpose in a person’s life which answers whether the car does what you want it to do.
For this car, I need to talk about the car which came before it. That car was the family 2011 Subaru Liberty wagon, 2.5L CVT. Sure, as new, you see the best and don’t dwell on the faults. It was roomy and reliable, and could carry a fair amount of stuff like bikes and flat pack furniture. But over the course of its ownership experience, things soon began to grate.
The CVT and N/A engine combo had two modes; sleepy as hell, or shrill like a banshee, and a relaxed acceleration response whether pedal-stomping kick down, or with the paddle shift.
It became quite tiresome to rev its guts out to get any kind of movement going. It was fine in the city with light loads and just two occupants, but put it on a road trip with four occupants and the requisite luggage and it rather struggled on the highway. What’s the point of having space for five people and luggage if the performance feels like it’s a punishment for being used that way?
It had a distinctly tinny feel throughout, with doors that closed with a clink rather than a thunk. Handling wise it was more light and floaty than confidence inspiring, probably not helped by the stock everyday eco tyres that protested through any kind of pace exceeding runabout.
And technology wise, frustrating – the Japanese nannies (no not those ones, this is a family site right?) wouldn’t let you change navigation settings or Bluetooth connections whilst on the move, really frustrating for when you’ve teed up someone at your road trip destination and they decide to meet you at a different lunch venue, for example, or when everyone else has had enough of your music and want to hijack the Bluetooth connection.
Sure, Subaru really wants you to drive without distractions, but I’m not sure if they are aware that the front passenger can be the one using the infotainment and navigation? Another niggle – when you slow down to drop your passengers off, and as the car nears the destination, they understandably take their seatbelt off to get ready to exit, only for said nannies to protest loudly as you drive at 15km/h down a quiet suburban street. Dangerous? Probably not. Real conversation killer? Definitely.
Ok so back to the car at hand for the review. Given the above context, the Passat addresses really every major issue with that car. I literally had the salesperson go to their dealership car park, where I drove the car at around 30km/h for probably 50 metres and it didn’t as much as chirp (yes, it does mind over a longer distance or higher speed). Likewise for being able to use the infotainment whilst on the move. The engine’s torque has an actual mid range, and the transmission is pleasingly snappy rather than sloppy.
The handling was firm and planted, and inspired confidence more than inspiring wariness. So far so good.
It’s a great all rounder, and back to the original question of whether it does what I want it to, for pretty much any reasonable purpose, that’s an affirmative.”
How reliable has your car been? Tell us about any issues.
Although it’s now more than five years old, doing only 6000km a year (and more like 5000km with the pandemic reducing the average) means it’s not really showing its age.
For what that’s worth, it’s been as reliable as I could really ask – I’ve never had any DSG issues, yada yada anecdotal evidence to which I’m sure someone has a story about their friend’s mother’s dog’s cousin who had a terrible example.
Similarly, for the EA888 engine – tons of them around and with tuned examples capable of more power than in this stock form, no issues there either. The rest of the car has been without mechanical fault, not too surprising given the production numbers of MQB platform cars and Passats elsewhere, where they’d have ample opportunity to iron things out, or find out issues if there were something majorly or commonly faulty.
I did need to replace the car battery after about 3.5 years, but I hear infrequent usage contributes to a shorter battery life span so I’ll give it a pass. I did also lose two tyres’ sidewalls to the recent Sydney potholes, but obviously that’s not the car’s fault.
For more minor stuff – at some point one of the seat folding levers in the boot area wouldn’t make the ‘40’ half of the rear seat fold down – the dealership fixed it under warranty.
The right rear door keyless lock/unlock sensitivity is a bit low, you need to push noticeably harder than every other door – I reported it to the dealer but they said they couldn’t detect a problem. In my cynical view they probably didn’t look that hard… liveable but an annoyance.
Very occasionally the AV stops responding to a paired phone over Bluetooth, but that can be fixed with the good old ‘have you tried turning it off and on again’. These kind of issues are small or expected things, so really can’t complain overall. A thumbs up.
What do you think of the ownership experience with your car?
It’s not a sports car but I still look forward to a drive thanks to its muscular performance and competent handling. To my eye the exterior styling is pretty handsome and sleek, though you don’t win many originality points for a silver German car.
The sleeper looks and unassuming badge are a bonus for me. For the interior, I appreciate the (in)famous soft touch plastics, comfortable space, and coherent and you might even say stylish design – a far cry from the Starship Enterprise of modern Mercedes-Benzes.
If you were to be less charitable you might say the interior design is slightly dour, but very much in fitting with the ‘silver German car’ theme.
It ticks many of my lifestyle boxes, being great for holidays such as snow trips, for helping friends move house, or accommodating a bike inside (wheels on, seats folded, minimum fuss). In many ways it’s a sweet-spot combination of car, without being a standout in any area.
This means it’s more a ‘satisfying and faultless’ experience more than a ‘set my world on fire’ experience, and actually that is fine by me.
How has the purchase and aftercare experience been with your car?
The dearth of options for ‘wagon, AWD, decent performance, reasonable price’ cut down the potential candidates a lot – realistically, Levorg, Superb, Golf R, or the Passat. You’d think with such a limited selection, it would be a faster and smoother process, but the journey was just beginning.
I’ve been to enough car dealerships to have seen some good salespeople and some less good salespeople, and wow there are plenty of the latter. I’m not sure if ‘treat em mean and keep em keen’ is a good strategy for selling cars, or for anything really.
Earlier on in the purchase process I went to a number of dealers for the cars mentioned, and eventually a number of Volkswagen dealers – I tried to keep an open mind to the alternative choices. I’m not sure if it’s my face or the sales peoples’ “I’ll treat you seriously only if you show me the money today” attitude, but overall the purchase experience was pretty poor everywhere.
I need to poke around the car, feel surfaces, have a drive, before I am even thinking of putting money down. Despite my earlier comments about the previous car, I wanted to at least look at all the options, but the Subaru dealer wasn’t even willing to let me drive the Levorg, claiming they didn’t have one available, despite me seeing one return from a drive as I was leaving.
They said they would call me back to arrange something but I was completely unsurprised that they never did. Anyhow, the cut-short chrome strip on the Levorg’s rear quarter window would have driven me nuts, so maybe they did me a favour.
The Superb was a little larger than preferred, but I didn’t have a great dealership experience there either, and if I recall correctly the quirk was that the liftback of the time had a full size spare whilst the wagon had a space saver. Likewise the Passat had the active info display and LED headlights vs. normal instruments and xenon lights.
The Golf R wagon was a tad smaller than preferred, and in various ways you could tell that it was still based on a Golf as kind of a 2+3 seater– scratchier plastics low down and in the rear seats, for example, and manually-folding mirrors. Sure it was a little faster but in the Golf Mk7 it wasn’t as much of a difference as with later Golf Rs. That left the Passat, but it was hardly the consolation prize winner.
Despite narrowing that down, I had to go to a number of VW dealers before one seemed willing to give me the time of day.
Eventually I found a reasonable salesperson and was so relieved such that I couldn’t be bothered to play the game of pretending to be disinterested, nor being good enough a liar to pretend to be looking at alternatives, though that’s probably a way to end up paying more than you might otherwise.
I see a lot of comments here that people like the haggling experience at dealers, but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience of mostly being ignored unless I told them I was going to put down a deposit that day.
Despite being quite keen on cars and knowing where to look for prices, I don’t for a minute imagine I’m going to beat salespeople whose literal job it is to make money from selling cars. You might get a better or worse deal, but the house still wins, and in the meantime I have a life to live and don’t have the time or energy to play their little games.
Aftercare wise, well that dealer wasn’t local to me so I took it to a more local dealer, in the southeast of Sydney.
Having been there before, I’ve found that their customer handling and booking system is a lot slicker now, but the actual service is still only adequate. But this is all par for the course, you only get disappointed if you have higher expectations.
Are you happy with the price and features of your car?
Overall, yes, and although it’s cheating a little, the benefit of seeing it from the current context of similar cars becoming rarer and rarer, and the current woes of higher prices, scarce availability and Covid-special de-contenting makes me that little bit happier with how it is.
Maybe I could have paid less but in the end the ownership and driving experience has been satisfying enough that I don’t have to feel hard done by, value wise.
One important feature is the little wheels that adjust how much air comes out of individual air vents – the other half doesn’t like too much breeze, nor the oldies if I take them places, but I appreciate a bit of circulation for a fresher drive.
This way, everyone can have the environment how they want it. These airflow adjusting wheels seem to have been deleted from the newest range of capacitive control VWs, practically a deal breaker for me. On that topic, it also has, drumroll, buttons for the centre console and steering wheel controls.
This would have been unremarkable perhaps five years ago, except most car companies seem to be going the terrible way of capacitive switches and touchscreens. Sure everyone is used to touch screens on phones but there’s probably a reason why they tell us not to use said phones whilst driving.
I’m glad that this car hasn’t entered that era (error?) yet.
Speaking of minor annoyances, Australian Passats have the front console cupholders closer to the driver, and the handbrake switch closer to the passenger, whereas UK versions have it in the more logical arrangement with the handbrake closer to the driver – not sure why we get the illogical arrangement.
Would have liked a better sound system, it’s more ‘adequate’ than ‘stirring’, especially in the lower frequencies (and no, I’m not expecting an ‘I can hear you from two suburbs away’ experience).
I recall Skoda offered better option packs for the Superb, where VW had very few option packs or even standalone options. Would also have liked the kicking bootlid opening function, even though most people say it’s pretty hit and miss – I understand other Passat spec levels had it, not sure why the R-Line doesn’t.
It makes do with a non-kick, normal powered tailgate. The keyless entry and start button are handily convenient too.
The front seats are a good balance between comfort and holding. They have front heating, which is a big hit with the other half – and the driver’s seat even has an extendable thigh cushion, though I haven’t really needed it being more Curt than Collie, stature wise.
The seats feel like you sit ‘in’ them, rather than ‘on’ them as with the previous car, and strike a good balance between comfortable and hold-ability. A little miffed that they didn’t include rear heated seats, which if I recall correctly, the Superb had.
Ventilated seats would have been a bonus in Aussie weather, but those didn’t become more common until a few years later, and I also hesitate to think what would happen if a careless passenger spilled coffee on them. There’s driver’s seat memory, very useful, and also a massage function, more amusing than useful.
Well I suppose any kind of changed seat shaping is nice on a long trip, but I’d hesitate to term it a massage.
What do you think of the performance and economy of your car?
Performance is generally satisfying, and again compared to the previous car it’s night and day. I feel short changed of 30Nm compared to the Golf R of that era, where the Passat R-Line has the same 206kW but only 350Nm.
I enjoy the snappy gear changes of the DSG, though I spend almost all of the time in manual shift mode. I understand that some people dislike the throttle response, perhaps mistaking it for turbo lag, but in my opinion it’s the Drive / Normal mode’s odd throttle mapping, there is a large dead zone that really prioritises gentle responses and fuel economy, but it’s just so sleepy.
In contrast the Sport mode is a little aggressive in holding gears for the most part, but still oddly non-aggressive for really snappy responsiveness lower in the rev range. Maybe I’m just quite particular but this is why I mostly just choose my own gears.
An opinion piece on this web site stated that the author’s preference for manual transmissions was due to not needing the car to interpret your intent is pretty spot on – but I can get most of that with the DSG, with the added ability to drive in auto if needed, and hence make it easier to switch drive duty for longer trips.
Something else I’d like improved is some kind of accessible launch control, for when you want to win the traffic light grand prix – sure, once on the go the car has decent pep, but on the initial takeoff the DSG slurs the engagement, where I’d like to be able to do a ‘drop the clutch’ kind of launch when needed.
Likewise, a switchable exhaust would be nice as the usual sound is not especially inspiring, adequate at best. Would be great if this car sounded more like, say, the Passat R36 of two generations ago.
Economy wise, well I must have a lead foot – the car brochure rates its economy at 9.2L/100km urban, 6.4L/100km extra-urban, 7.4L/100km combined, but I’ll typically get something like 15L/100km urban, and 8.0L/100km on a longer trip, though on longer trips that’s usually with more than one person and probably a bunch of stuff in the boot as well.
It also requires 98RON petrol. Having said that, when doing less than 6000km a year, I might as well make those kilometres count enjoyment wise, if I was prioritising economy I’d be driving a hybrid Camry instead.
What do you think of the technology in your car?
Technology, it had a decent set for the time. I thought the radar cruise control would be a gimmick, but I’m totally sold – it really takes the effort out of long distance driving, saving effort and energy which makes for a less tiring drive, though the drawback is that sometimes you’re happily following someone only to look down at the speedo and realise they’re only doing 100 in a 110km/h zone and then realising you could have saved .. minutes!
Note also that its closest distance isn’t ‘Sydney’ enough, it leaves enough of a gap for people to easily cut in – but I note that you can accelerate past it and close the distance if you want to dissuade people from taking advantage of the spacing. Or just turn it off and drive the usual way.
The electronic safety systems set is solid for the time, though these have now become commonplace. The lane keeping system can be a bit annoying, well I don’t see how other cars can do it better but the smooth black tar road repair lines, with just the right combination of rain and light reflecting off, causes it to think the lines are going in all sorts of strange places and then the car attempts to follow the lines.
A real eye opener for anyone unprepared! Likewise the front collision detection, it occasionally doesn’t realise that eg. a car stopped in a right hand turning lane as the road bends left is in a different lane, and it thinks you’re about to ram it and beeps accordingly and even begins to brake – again a bit of a surprise for the unprepared driver.
Bluetooth mirroring is great, as is the active info display – having the sat nav appear in the binnacle is quite useful, though it doesn’t work with CarPlay or Android Auto, which I can’t be bothered to use anyway really.
Minor complaints about the active display are the space doesn’t seem very well used in some display modes (can’t I display more than one type of data in the middle section?) – or that the auto headlight alert overrides the sat nav or other middle section information, which is really annoying when I pass under a few shady trees and suddenly the active info display’s navigation has been totally overridden.
Is it that important that it becomes the only information worth displaying at that point?
As with the features segment above, many of these things have since become available in cars at a much lower price point, but they are still great features. Overall a solid set of technology even five years later.
What do you think of the ride comfort and handling of your car?
As with the performance, satisfactory more than exciting, but then that’s in keeping with the ethos of the car.
Can’t help but sometimes wish for a little perkier handling, in a similar vein to comments about the performance. I spend the majority of my time on the firmest suspension setting, and if it resulted in better handling would even accept a slightly firmer ride.
The normal suspension mode is noticeably more cushy in comparison and would probably suit most people looking for this kind of car. To be expected but given the 19-inch wheels and 235/40 tyres, there is a bit of tyre rumble and you will feel and hear road joints and corrugations, but it’s liveable.
Not being a track car, in the cut and thrust of urban traffic or on a country trip, it promotes confidence in composure – brakes as you need, turns where you want, without fault but also without any special verve.
On longer trips it certainly feels quite planted. The non-eco tyres are helpful too – thought about getting higher performance rubber after losing two tyres, but then the same Pirelli Cinturato P7s were on sale at Jax, sealing the deal. Whether it’s the tyres, the all-wheel drive or also the mass of the car, haven’t had any issues with traction either – or maybe it’s just those absent 30 of Sir Isaac’s best…
Do you have any additional comments about your car?
What else can I say? The car is a great all rounder – smart but stealthy looks, good performance, decent handling, spacious enough, and with a generous boot capacity – 650L per VW’s specs.
Add to that it has a full size spare tyre on an alloy wheel – a rare find these days, let alone on a car with decent performance. Most cars with better performance begin fitting larger brakes, or have staggered or just plain wide tyre sizes.
For anything beyond city runabouts with donut sized tyres, it’s increasingly difficult to find a space saver spare let alone a full size one. It’s not an SUV; maybe one day there won’t be wagons left, but I don’t see how the extra height and weight of an SUV can be anything but a drawback for performance and handling, though throwing more power at it seems to be the solution for many car makers, or with trick electro-mechanical anti roll suspension.
The overall fit and feel suits the ‘premium for the people’ theme.
Taken separately in the above template categories, the car might sound like a mixed bag, or satisfactory rather than pleasing. But then you remember that the car has a full size spare, it’s not an SUV, it has reasonably perky performance, it has centre console buttons unlike newer VWs, it’s relatively affordable, it’s fairly spacious, it has decent interior accommodation, and it has sleeper looks – so much that people who aren’t that interested in cars are probably “a Pass-what?”.
Where can you find this combination of factors in one car any more?
Sure it’s not perfect, but it’s a good compromise. We return to the ‘fit for purpose’ statement and I think it really nails that brief. There are things which could be improved, but for my context and for the price, it’s a great car for when you really need to grab that extra Billy bookcase in a hurry.