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Ken Gratton10 Jun 2011
REVIEW

Volkswagen Passat

Sophisticated Passat makes a virtue of practicality

Volkswagen Passat 125TDI Highline Wagon
Road Test


Price Guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $45,990
Options fitted (not included in above price): Metallic paint $700, RNS510 satellite navigation with Park Assist 2 $3600, adaptive cruise control $2000, automatic tailgate $750, integrated booster seats $850
Crash rating: Five-star (Euro NCAP)
Fuel: Diesel
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 5.7
CO2 emissions (g/km): 151
Also consider: Ford Mondeo TDCi, Mazda Mazda6 Diesel, Skoda Superb TDI


Overall rating: 3.5/5.0
Engine/Drivetrain/Chassis: 3.5/5.0
Price, Packaging and Practicality: 3.5/5.0
Safety: 4.0/5.0
Behind the wheel: 3.5/5.0
X-factor: 4.0/5.0


About our ratings


The Passat has long been an exceptional model in the VFACTS medium car segment, but does get overlooked when it comes time to buy.


Numbering just over a thousand cars for the first five months of this year, the Passat's sales don't match the typical monthly sales for segment leader, the Toyota Camry.


Possibly buyers are crossing the Passat off their shopping list because they expect it to be less affordable than some of its Japanese and Korean competitors.


As the saying goes, however, you get what you pay for... and that's a truism particularly fitting for the Passat diesel wagon on test. At $45,990 (before options and accessories), the vehicle in question is bobbing up against the acceptable-price ceiling in this segment, but the Passat is such a complete package, and very few of its competitors offer a wagon. Add in a few options though and the price creeps up rapidly...


Still, the standard Passat boasts the sort of refinements and features — if not a few extra — that are hallmarks of larger mid-size cars. Unlike some of those bigger-selling rivals though, the VW remains a satisfying vehicle to drive as well.


The ride quality of the Passat is quite assured, for example, considering the overall cornering ability of the car. While this car doesn't really set out to be anything but a family hack, it happens to be a champion tourer and surprisingly capable when put to the test in tight and twisty going. There are few of the vices experienced in other mid-size wagons and the suspension remains utterly composed in harder cornering.


The one qualification is Passat's steering, which is communicative enough, but not really a match for the similar system in Ford's Mondeo. On the plus side, turn-in is positive and committed, matching the car's high levels of grip, and the level of assistance, which is progressive across a range of speeds.


Overall then, the Passat manages to be enjoyable to drive and comfortable to boot, but the comfort and driving dynamics don't come at the expense of the environment or running costs.


Based on our experience over the course of the week with the test vehicle, fuel consumption typically fell below 8.0L/100km in city and suburban driving, with an open-road cruise pushing that figure below 6.0L/100km. An intercity run should see fuel consumption closing in on 5.0L/100km; commuting that's more arterial than clotted could see average consumption fall as low as 7.0L/100km.


Despite its parsimony, it's not like the Passat is slow and laborious on the move. The 125kW turbodiesel engine produces 350Nm of torque. Both figures promised decent straight-line performance... and delivered. With the six-speed DSG transmission providing close ratios and slick-shifting, the turbodiesel is hardly ever off the pace. Since it runs hard right up to the 5000rpm redline the powerplant feels practically peaky, by diesel standards.


The Passat not only accelerates hard through the gears — smoothly too — it also gets off to a good start, thanks to the competence of the DSG, the engine's negligible turbo lag and an auto-stop/start facility that's one of the best around.


Volkswagen's engineers have calibrated this system almost to perfection. Unlike similar setups in the BMW 118d and the Volvo C30 DRIVe, there's less rock-and-roll when the engine restarts — and it starts quite quickly. There are those times, however, when you don't want the engine to stop, if you anticipate the traffic moving forward shortly, or if you're approaching a turn to the right across busy on-coming traffic. You just want the engine to be ready to go.


With the Passat, it is. The system won't shut down the engine if it detects just light pressure on the brake pedal (indicating that the driver has not relaxed the foot as he/she would for a prolonged wait at a traffic light). Relax the foot on the brake pedal however, and the system will shut down the engine to conserve fuel. It's been very finely calibrated for a balance of environmental considerations and driver satisfaction/safety. For those who are a bit paranoid about the auto-stop/start system, it can be manually disabled from a button to the left of the gear shifter.


The DSG transmission in this application is generally more capable than other units in Volkswagen products from the past — helped in no small part by the auto-hold facility for hill starts — but the auto-hold doesn't work in reverse, if the driver is backing across the camber of a road into the driveway, for instance. You'll still pick the transmission as a DSG by the way the car rides the clutch when parking, for instance — that and the very obvious 'DSG' legend on the gear knob.


As we found with auto-stop/start and the electronic parking brake in an Audi recently, the engine will fire up as soon the driver lifts the foot off the brake pedal, but the vehicle won't move off if the parking brake has been manually engaged. Drivers expecting the parking brake to release automatically, as soon as the engine starts will be disappointed. Like the Audi, the Passat just doesn't work that way, but with the Passat's setup, it's unlikely in most circumstances that anyone would manually use the parking brake during a journey.


There's another oversight too, in the lack of power assistance for the steering if the engine is auto-stopped. In the event the driver is parking a car or changing lanes in stalled traffic, there's no steering assistance until the engine fires up again. Given the steering is an electromechanical setup, there's no reason why the assistance should be disabled in the circumstances.


One might expect a car that's above average in performance and economy would have to make some concession elsewhere — NVH, for example. Not so with the Passat, however; it's by no means raw or unrefined. Lower the window in an underground car park or the fast food restaurant drive-through and you won't be assailed by clatter and rattle; far from it. It's exceptionally quiet in most situations and is barely discernible at open-road speeds, where wind noise dominates more. A whisper around the B pillars and a general rustle elsewhere swamps much of the noise from the road, let alone the drivetrain.


If the Passat is easy on the ear, how about the eye? Some have offered their view that the new Passat looks generic and is all the more boring for it, but buyers in this segment aren't necessarily looking for wedgy, wind-cheating supercar flair. This writer would argue that the Passat is a cleaner-looking car than the model it superseded, and the chrome detail around the front of the car gives it a visual lift. The chrome complements the car's build quality, manifested in the finish of the paint, the narrow panel gaps and the solid closure of the doors.


It's the same inside. Mostly stylish and practical — with black leather and brushed aluminium trim — the Passat is well finished and conveys an air of sophistication, provided you look past the centre fascia inside the car. It's a parts-bin amalgam of components from Jetta and Golf. In the Passat's defence, the common instruments and controls keep manufacturing and development costs lower and if they work, which they do, why opt for something else?


Furthermore, the instruments and controls are a significant component of the Passat's ergonomic merit, but they're not the end of it. We love the seats for instance — comfortable and supportive — and there's genuine adult-level accommodation in the rear. It's not right up there with the Skoda Superb for legroom, but the Skoda is considered a large car, rather than a mid-sized vehicle like the Passat.


There's plenty of luggage space in the Volkswagen too, with the added benefits of Japanese-style seat-folding switches in the sides of the luggage compartment. And the Passat on test came with a couple of useful options and accessories we would recommend to family buyers. One was the upper-body bolsters to hold younger kids in place and used in conjunction with the integrated booster seats. Another option was the powered tailgate, which is always a good thing to offer wagon owners, in our opinion.


On the subject of options, the test car came loaded. There was active cruise control, which was excellent. It stopped the Passat in its tracks behind a car that came to a halt in traffic on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway. The wagon also came with Park Assist, which worked to specification. Indeed, it is one of the easier systems of its kind to use, in our experience. Blessed with the optional bi-xenon headlight system, which is adaptive and incorporates cornering lights, the Passat provided excellent lighting at night — at a cost.


The number of options fitted to the car tend to detract from the point made at the beginning of this review: the Passat is a competitive car in its segment even without the extras. They're good to have, but buyers on a tighter budget might need to exercise some discretion in what they select from the options list — Park Assist is the first one we'd cross off, frankly.


Whatever the case though, there's this to say in summation: the Passat was a car this writer didn't want to hand back at the end of the week.


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Written byKen Gratton
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