USED Volkswagen Passat Saloon (05 - 11)

My car

I do lots of miles. I’m up to 112,000 in 2 ½ years. I have had problems with the fuel pump along with 300 other Passat drivers and many of our VW’s were of the road for 60 days or more. The service intervals are good at between 17 and 20 thousand miles for me on variable service but the front tyres and brakes need to be looked at every 8 thousand miles. I have also had problems with the Auto handbrake it only works 80% of the time – and yes I have read the hand book . I work with 6 other 55 and 06 plate Passat drivers and they all complain that the auto handbrake is not so ‘Das Auto’ The engine is very powerful at low revs the ride is as comfortable as an A4 and far more comfortable than a C-Class Sport or Avantgarde in my opinion – the Passat is also flaming massive. I got a 2m long sofa bed from IKEA, along with half a kitchen in there over the weekend a passing random white van man was very surprised. Over all its been very good value for money. The engine is more than powerful enough and I only pay £120 a month BIK tax at 40% ~ fantastiche.

My car

A company I work for has run a fleet of Passats for many years.The previous model was excellent notching up as many as 350,000 miles!!. The new Passat is not as good as the old model in many areas.

The same faults plauge all the cars on the fleet. The ride quality unless at motorway speeds is crashy, deisel engines are noisy and rough, squeaky suspensions, electric window faults, door locks jamming, uneven rear tyre wear that VW mechanics admit there is a problem but VW customer service refuse to help!!! Blown turbos, the list goes on and as the mileage increases so do the problems. I really wanted to like tis car but its a massive dissapointment.

I drive this car almost everday for work and still own the old model for my personal use which I much prefer. Even though on paper this is more powerfull than my 1.9d SE it feels much slower on the road and just doesnt drive as smooth.

The only positives I can think of is it looks good there is plenty of space inside and lots of handy cubby holes and motorway cruising is fine but that is just not good enough to recommend this car.

My car

This car is a nice smooth motorway car. It runs well, has enough power to overtake when you need to, and can happily cruise at motorway speeds.

It has very poor low down torque, it is an easy car to stall, so to pull away it does need some revs. It also has quite bad turbo lag.....no power...no power....then whoosh! This can have a bad effect on passengers if they get car sick easily.

The boot is adequate though obviously not as practical as a hatchback.

It is fairly economical on the motorway.

My car

This is just an update on my last review in March.

Now I have done 500 miles and my Passat is still strong. So far, there have been no problems.

It's excellent to drive, has fantastic road-handling and quality is absolutely top class. I just cannot fault it. Well done, VW!