Re: VW Passat arrives Yesterday, I bid adieu to my 2009 Passat Stationwagon which has been my primary mode of transport since Dec 2010. The car was on a company lease and had the 2 ltr (140 hp) diesel and a DSG auto trasmission. The car had been used by a colleague for about 50k kms when it was alotted for my use. I clocked an additional 65K kms distributed over Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands since.
I wasnt enmoured by the cars design at first being accustomed to hatchbacks and sedans. But I cannot describe how handy the magnanimous loading space (with the rear seats down) was during the time we shifted apartments and the few times when we've had visitors with so much luggage that we were left wondering if they were visiting or moving in.
If I have to sum up my ownership experience - I would label this car as an underrated over-achiever.
I could almost fit my house in it with nooks and crannies for the small bits, was comfortable for long distance travel, could cruise at frightening speeds on the A'Bhans all day long, returned respectable fuel averages, did not suffer a single breakdown (some minor niggles), & in due course also registered in my head as a pretty decent looking car. All this for an on-road price of ~ Rs 22 lakhs (considering current exchange rate of around Rs 68 to the Euro).
The only minor hitches
1. On a few occasions, mostly in winter, the handbrake release refused to work while starting up. It would start working immediately when I restarted the engine. I recall that just one time I had to fire and kill the engine 8-10 times to get it going.
I reported this during my last service (about 3 months ago) and have not experienced the problem since.
2. On two occasions the condenser fan kept running for an inordinately long period of time. I had to crank the engine and switch off (just once) to stop the fan on on both occasions.
And that was about it.
The technical bits that really helped me were the electronic stability program and ABS (a real life saver in winter) and the cornering lights (part of the adaptive lighting package) for city driving. And how could I forget the seat warmers - did they feel good or what on freezing winter days. I have to thank the bright sparks at VW from the heart of my bottom for that one.
In the 18 odd months that Ive used the car the 'time to service' popped up twice and I had the car serviced on both occasions. Cost about € 400-500 per service that included material & labour at a VW service centre. I had to change a set of summer tyres (~ € 450). Topped up the engine oil on one occasion (~ €20) and filled up the windshield antifreeze fluid, roughly on a quarterly basis.
When I scrubbed and vacuumed it last week it certainly did not look or feel like a car with 115K on the odo. And that is a testament to the build quality and engineering that goes into these babies.
And that about sums up my ownership experience with the Passat.
Last edited by Zed : 13th July 2012 at 16:28.
|