Road Test: Volkswagen Passat TDI Wagon

Review by Feann Torr - 28/Feb/2008

It's official: wagons are now cool. But it wasn't always this way...

Station wagons used to be dorky, utilitarian, family-oriented barges needed for the transportation of freakishly large dogs or rolls of soiled carpet and pilfered outdoor furniture.

But the humble station wagon has grown in confidence over the years, due in part to a number of trendy European designs.

The modern station wagon is now a high-tech, sophisticated vehicle that is attracting the attention of wealthier buyers who don't want the bulk, fuel consumption, and antisocial issues related with an SUV.

Oh, and they're not called station wagons anymore. They're known as sportswagons, sportbacks, or estates. 

Even Holden is taking its new Commodore wagon upmarket, bringing the VE 'Sportwagon' to market this year - a sure sign that the times are changing.

One company that has been doing the Euro wagon thing for a while now is Volkswagen. The German automaker mastered the art of the practical but fun-to-drive family wagon many years ago, so surely the Passat wagon has to be one of the best? Let's find out:

Volkswagen has been one of the first automakers in Australia to benefit from the wagon's return as a style meister: the Passat is one of the only vehicles in this country whose wagon sales eclipse those of the sedan.

When we first sat behind the wheel of the VW Passat wagon back in September 2006, we were suitably impressed by the vehicle's versatility. But how does it fare today?

Very well, as it turns out.

When we first tested the Passat it was new, it was fresh, and it had the kinds of bells and whistles that no else had.

Today the Passat has lost a touch of its newness - the design hasn't changed - and it's innovative features, while impressive, are becoming standard fare nowadays. 

But these things still cannot erase the fact that the Passat wagon is a very good motor vehicle. It's not without flaw, but the pros far outweigh the cons.

Take for example the standard features list. 

You get stability control, ABS, climate control, eight airbags, rain sensing windscreen wipers, dusk sensing headlights, an electronic button-press hand brake, rear parking sensors, 17-inch alloy wheels, an 8-speaker 6-stack CD stereo and enough cup holders to quench everyone's thirst. 

While it's true the asking price is higher than some of its Japanese rivals, such a strong features list nevertheless reflects good value.

The model we tested even had a rather clever push-button boot that closed automatically, but this costs a bit extra ($750).

Being a wagon, it's got a great big boot as well, offering 603 litres of room. That's about 100 litres more than a Ford Falcon. Fold the rear seats down and you can fit all sorts of stuff in the Passat wagon, opening up 1731 litres of space, enough for bikes, surf boards, skis and yes, even pilfered furniture.

Sitting in the vehicle is also a pleasant experience - the seats are supportive and there's plenty of width to the car which gives it good shoulder room for wider drivers.

Leather seats are a $2,990 option and when you add $1,490 for electronically adjustable front seats, the asking price rises significantly. I'd be happy with manually operated cloth seats myself, which I thought offered plenty of comfort.

The view from the drivers seat is typical Veedub - everything is laid out logically and well labelled and using the trip computer, cruise control and audio system was a piece of cake. 

The electronic park brake is also nice feature and opens up more room on top of the transmission tunnel between the driver and front passenger's seats. It can even be activated while you're driving, at which point it initiates an emergency stop that slows the car miraculously quickly.

Volkswagen has also added an 'auto hold' feature. Hit the 'hold' button next to the gear shifter and the car will activate the park brake when you come to a stop, automatically releasing it when you next press the accelerator pedal to drive away. 

This is a great addition to the vehicle's systems, especially when you're in stop start traffic as you don't have to have your foot pushed on the brake pedal the whole time, which can put pressure on the brake calipers. It's also useful for hill starts.

Only one aspect of the Passat's interior was not up to the high standard set by the rest of the vehicle: dash plastics. 

While the top most sections of the dash employed soft plastics of a good quality, the bottom parts left something to be desired. These lower sections are rock hard and hollow sounding when you wrap them with your knuckles. Call me picky, but I didn't like it. They felt cheap.

Back seat passengers get a fair amount of room; children will be fine for the most part, but taller adults may find the lack of legroom limiting on longer journeys.

Speaking of longer journeys, the Passat is a very comfortable mode of transport with a fairly smooth ride and an easygoing character. The diesel engine has a combined cycle fuel consumption rate of just 6.8L/100km. With a 70 litre fuel tank, you can go a long, long way in this vehicle.

We tested the new 2.0-litre TDI model, which outputs 125kW of power. It doesn't sound like a whole lot of shunt, but coupled with Volkswagen's acclaimed twin-clutch automatic gearbox, the DSG, it can really move. 

Volkswagen also offers a less powerful but more affordable 103kW diesel Passat, and will also release the high performance AWD Passat R36 wagon later in 2008.

Gunning the throttle in a lot of diesel cars will result in a smooth, easygoing wave of torque working the wheels, but Volkswagen's uprated diesel engine has more urgency than most. Even with the electronic stability program (ESP) activated I noted the front wheels chirping as they scrabbled for grip coming when turning out of T-intersections and the like. This particular Passat has plenty of poke.

The engine and gearbox combination is one of the best aspects of the VW Passat TDI wagon, and it'll hustle from 0-100km/h in 8.8 seconds. It has a top speed of more than 210km/h, yet still manages to be one of the most frugal wagons available in Australia at the moment.

The engine rotates at just 1850rpm in 6th gear when the car is travelling at 100km/h on the freeway which delivers good mileage, and it's a fairly quiet cruiser for diesel. Though you can hear the diesel 'rattle' of the engine from the outside the car, in the cabin it's remarkably subdued - you'd be forgiven for thinking this Passat was powered by just another small petrol engine.

Volkswagen's high output diesel Passat is well-suited to highways, eating up the miles effortlessly while still providing plenty of power in reserve for overtaking.

This $47k performance diesel is also fitted with nice looking 17-inch alloy wheels to reflect its more powerful nature, and the tyres? They look like they've come from the Audi's sports car garage rather than the VW shop. 

Shod with not-insignificant 235/45 R17s, this Passat uses Pirelli P Zero tyres which are cheating a little as they're some of the best tyres money can buy. 

They provide the Passat with awesome road holding in the dry and the wet and together with the Passat wagon's competent chassis, the German sportwagon can be remarkably, well, sporty. These fancy Italian tyres do sacrifice a touch of ride quality over equivalent Bridgestones or Continentals, but a compliant suspension system ensures the family won't complain about a harsh ride.

There's a lot to be said of the Passat wagon's dynamics too.

It handles very nicely, without too much confidence-eroding body roll as it tracks through corners and the DSG provides very fast gearshifts - faster than a manual gearbox. 

In essence, it's the kind of vehicle that won't be solely consigned to transporting people and goods; this is the type of motor vehicle that adventurous owners will want to drive because it's exciting and rewarding to do so.

Before I go any further, I do have a few quibbles with the DSG gearbox though. While it is an excellent transmission and better than traditional automatic gearboxes in almost every way, slow speed acceleration can sometimes feel a bit nervous, as though the gearbox isn't quite sure whether to change gears.

It's expected that Volkswagen's next generation 7-speed DSG will remove a few of these quirks, but ultimately we're talking about fairly small issues that don't harm the cars drivability in an overall sense.

Getting back to the European sportwagon's driving dynamics, and it's hard to say anything truly negative about it. Sure, the car does have an understeer tendency, but the steering is direct enough to ensure that spirited drives through the hills are generally very satisfying.

There's only mild levels of kickback through the tiller when you hit bumps mid corner, which suggests intelligent suspension and damping levels that can asbord irregularities rather than trasmit them through the steering wheel. 

The brakes are very good in commuting and everyday situations and during hard driving they hold up pretty well, capable of decelerating the Passat wagon's almost 1600kg bulk rapidly. During some prolonged driving through the hills we found that the brakes did exhibit fade and needed more pedal pressure to get results, but we're talking prolonged hard driving here - not the kind of thing that owners are likely to regularly put their vehicles through.

Overall: 4/5

Built in Germany and boasting a high tech suite of driving tools, the Passat TDI is every inch a sport wagon. It's not advertised as such, but this uprated 125kW TDI diesel engine gives the car an impressive turn of speed while simultaneously maintaining excellent fuel economy.

The Volkswagen Passat wagon is also a very pragmatic vehicle. There's room for the whole family - freakishly large pets included - and with class-leading standard features such as eight airbags, an electronic park brake, and reverse parking sensors, the Passat TDI wagon gets you a lot for your money.

There were aspects of the interior where it felt like VW had cut a few corners and the exterior design could do with a little more flair, but apart from that the car is hard to fault. It's pleasant to drive and exceptionally easy to live with, it has excellent roadholding and provides a very good balance between a 'sports' and 'family' wagon.

As I said, wagons are cool now.