Volkswagen Passat Review (2015-2023)
Volkswagen Passat cars for sale
4.0
Expert review
Pros
Solid build quality – feels premium
Acres of boot space
Classless image
Cons
Not exactly an exotic choice
It's priced against premium rivals
Some question marks remain over reliability
The CarGurus verdict
The Passat unquestionably has its strengths. It’s comfortable, refined, easy to live with and not expensive to run. The slight snag is that its price has crept ever upwards, which pitches it against an array of very talented competition. A Passat with a few options or one of the better engine choices, as a case in point, can easily cost as much as a BMW 3 Series or Audi A4. Consequently, buyers who want a more accessible option might be put off, while those looking for a premium executive car might judge the Passat not attractive enough.
Some will also find alternatives such as the affordable and talented Skoda Superb far more practical due to the hatchback body style, which offers up a larger and more accommodating boot opening. If you can find a Passat that meets your requirements for a sensible price, however, you’ll get a high-quality, capable and relaxing car with an appealingly premium edge.
What is the Volkswagen Passat?
The Volkswagen Passat has long been a go-to choice for those after a sensibly priced four-door saloon or five-door estate, and this, the eighth-generation model, remains a popular option with buyers.
It’s easy to understand why when you start digging through the details. For starters, this generation of Passat was an all-new car when it arrived in the market in 2015. It was lighter, sharper and up to 20% more economical than its predecessor, and it featured a battery of advanced technologies.
Falling between mainstream rivals such as the Ford Mondeo, and smaller premium models including the BMW 3 Series, the VW offers decent practicality with a sprinkling of upmarket appeal.
A sensible option, it received a mid-life refresh in 2019 that added new engines and tech, while in 2021 the saloon version was dropped from the line-up, leaving only the spacious estate model until 2024, when the latest B9 generation arrived.
How practical is it?
The Passat is a big car on the outside, which translates into a roomy and comfortable interior that’s neatly finished and equipped with infotainment systems that are easy to use. The attention to detail and high standard of finish also makes the Passat feel like a premium product.
Like most VW products, finding a comfortable driving position is easy, with plenty of seat and wheel adjustment, plus there’s plenty of space. A desirable option is the Ergo Comfort driver’s seat, which has even greater adjustment and support to ensure you emerge from long journeys free of aches and pains. You’re also spoiled for storage options, with large door bins that will also swallow a 2-litre bottle of water, an air-conditioned glovebox, and a deep, lidded cubby between the front seats.
Those sitting in the back are equally well catered for, with lots of legroom to stretch out and decent headroom too. It’s even possible to sit three abreast across the rear bench, although the raised middle seat won’t be a comfortable choice on long journeys.
The boot is big, too, but the conventional saloon body style means that access isn’t as great as in some hatchback rivals. That said, a 586-litre capacity isn’t to be sniffed at, while folding the rear seats (using handy levers in the boot) expands the available space to 1,152-litres. As you’d expect, the estate is bigger still with figures of 650-litres and 1,780-litres respectively. Better still, both bodystyles benefit from handy storage under the boot floor, with the exception of the plug-in hybrid GTE which accommodates its large drive battery in this space.
What's it like to drive?
As you might expect, the Passat is no 3 Series or Jaguar XE when it comes to the handling and driver fun stakes, but it’s still a composed and capable choice that mixes decent agility with excellent comfort and refinement.
Precise and well-weighted steering makes it easy to place the Passat, plus there’s good front end grip that allows you to tackle corners with confidence. Body control is impressive too, the Passat slicing through corners cleanly and with little body roll, while mid corner bumps fail to upset its composure. It’s not a sporty car and there’s not much in the way of driver feedback, but for many this laidback approach will be welcome on the daily grind.
In fact, the Passat is at its best when taking it easy, when its comfort and refinement help take the sting out of all journeys. Around town the light controls mean you can guide the car with a fingertip touch, while on long motorway journeys wind and road noise are well suppressed. Entry-level cars on the smaller wheels and tyres deliver a supple ride, but the bigger rims on flashier versions do add some lumpiness at low speed. However, the optional adaptive dampers help smooth progress and are well worth the extra outlay when new, or seeking out a used example that has them fitted.
The engines are good, too, with conventional 1.6- and 2.0-litre TDI diesels serving up anything from steady to swift progress, depending on power output, and there are quiet and flexible 1.5- and 2.0-litre TSI turbocharged petrol options, too. The punchy plug-in hybrid GTE, on the other hand, blends a 1.4-litre TSI engine with electric power for stout performance and impressive efficiency, plus it can crack around 30 miles of EV range with gentle use.
Technology, equipment & infotainment
One of the plus points of the Passat is that, even in initial entry-level S specification, it comes with lots of kit. Standard features included a 6.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system, DAB, a cooled glovebox, air-conditioning, tyre pressure monitoring, an electronic parking brake and 16-inch alloys.
SE, SE Business, GT and sporty R-Line trims were offered as well, but from 2019 the range was revised to include SE Nav, SEL, R-Line, GTE and GTE Advance. Even the lower-specification SE Nav now gets adaptive cruise control, front and rear parking sensors and all-LED headlights.
Buyers can also now opt for a 12.3-inch configurable Active Info Display digital instrument cluster, for example, an upgraded 360-degree parking camera and a newly developed park assist system that allows the car to park itself nose-in to spaces. Such technologies, coupled with sharp exterior styling and a revamped interior, make the Passat a compellingly modern and high-end feeling family car.
The new Passat was a safe option, too, scoring the maximum five-star rating in Euro NCAP crash testing, thanks in part to extensive standard safety kit that included an autonomous emergency braking and a post-collision braking system.
Volkswagen Passat running costs
A Passat isn’t an inexpensive car these days but, despite its size and capabilities, its running costs are sensible. Even the current entry-level 1.5 TSI model will average 46mpg in saloon form, for example, while the 2.0 TDIs will return north of 59mpg. Fuel costs, as a result, shouldn’t prove a problem.
The GTE is the unassailable economy king, though, delivering a claimed average of best of 201.8mpg on the WLTP test cycle and emitting 31g/km of CO2, which will prove appealing to company car drivers. The latest version offers an all-electric range of up to 35 miles on the WLTP cycle, too, which could be ideal if you’ve lots of shorter trips in mind. It’s not a cheap car to buy, but then it is a capable plug-in hybrid saloon with stacks of kit.
Annual VED costs, in general, are also sensible. Some early diesel versions were eligible for the £20-£30 annual tax band, and those might be worth seeking out if you want to keep costs low and have lots of miles in mind. After 31 March 2017, however, changes to the VED system mean that first-year rates are variable and based on emissions and, after that, you’ll pay a sensible flat rate of £155 on all models, unless, that is, they have a list price of over £40,000.
If the list price is higher than £40,000, the car in question will attract a VED premium of £335 for five years after first registration. This means, for example, that you could end up spending £490 a year on tax for Advance models. Consequently, you need to cast a careful eye over the list price of the car you’re looking at if tax costs are a consideration.
On the servicing front, Volkswagen offers two types of service schedule. The first is a fixed service schedule, for cars that do lots of short trips, which entails a service every 10,000 miles or 12 months. A flexible service scheme is also offered for cars that will spend most of their life cruising up and down motorways and, in such conditions, a Passat can go up to 20,000 miles or 24 months between visits to the dealer.
An array of service plans are available to help control costs and, for cars over three years old, Volkswagen also offers fixed-price servicing. Using this scheme, a minor service can cost as little as £184 while a major service will cost upwards of £354, and MOT testing can also be carried out.
Additionally, VW will match the price of any cheaper quotes you receive. Extended warranties are available, too, to help protect against unexpected outlay in the future.
Volkswagen Passat reliability
A new Volkswagen Passat will come with a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty. That’s par for the course in this sector of the market, but it’s a shame that a premium-feeling product doesn’t come with a longer warranty. After all, Toyota and Hyundai offer five-year warranties, and Kia’s lasts for seven years.
Warranty extensions are available, though, and every Passat also benefits from a three-year paintwork warranty, a 12-year anti-corrosion warranty and one years’ roadside assistance.
There have been some reliability gripes with Passats, though, so a warranty extension won’t be a bad idea if you’re considering long-term ownership. Volkswagen doesn’t have a stellar reputation for reliability or customer service as a whole, especially when compared to brands such as Toyota or Honda, but it does often otherwise outperform more premium brands in those respects.
If you’re buying a used Passat, you do need to use the government’s ‘Check Vehicle Recalls’ service to look at what recalls might apply to the car in question as there have been several Passat recalls over the years, including significant ones for failing wheel bearing housings and reduced braking performance.
One way to avoid some grief, potentially, is to buy a used Volkswagen Passat directly from Volkswagen. It offers used approved cars, each of which is carefully prepared and then sold on with a minimum of 12 months’ unlimited-mileage warranty, 12 months’ MOT cover and 12 months’ roadside assistance.
- The initial standard line-up offered 1.6- and 2.0-litre TDI diesels and a powerful 2.0-litre BiTDI diesel. More efficient BlueMotion diesel models followed in 2015 and 1.4-, 1.5-, 1.8- and 2.0-litre TSI petrol engines would later join the line-up as well. There’s lots of choice, as a result, and manual and dual-clutch automatic transmissions are offered on many models. Even the smaller engines perform well: the basic 118bhp 1.6-litre TDI, for example, accelerates the Passat saloon from 0-62mph in a sensible 10.8 seconds. Go for the range-topping 237bhp BiTDI, though, and that time drops to just 6.1 seconds.
- An updated version of the Passat was made available to UK customers on 9 July 2019. It benefits from a range of safety and technical updates, which include wireless App Connect as standard across the range: this allows for Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and MirrorLink support via Bluetooth. There have also been upgrades to the adaptive cruise control system that allow it to automatically adjust its speed to suit temporary speed limits and upcoming corners and junctions, while all engines now feature a particulate filter.
- Like a number of VW Group products, the Passat is built on the brand’s MQB platform. This architecture has been designed to be as light and strong as possible as well as scalable, meaning it can be easily adapted to suit different types of vehicle. As a result, it forms the basis for cars as diverse as the VW Golf hatchback and seven-seat Skoda Kodiaq SUV. Audi also uses the structure for its A3, TT and Q2 models.
- The best all-rounder: To avoid pushing up the price to BMW or Audi levels, we’d recommend going for the well-equipped SE Nav model with the 1.5-litre TSI petrol engine. It comes as standard with a six-speed manual gearbox but a seven-speed DSG automatic is available. In manual form, VW claims a WLTP consumption of 46.0mpg and a 0-62mph time of 8.7 seconds. The diesels are more efficient, starting out at 59.3mpg, but you’ll pay a premium.
- For the eco-minded: If you want the maximum efficiency then go for the Passat GTE, in saloon or estate body style. The plug-in hybrid offers the best average economy, in saloon form, of a claimed maximum of up to 201.8mpg the WLTP test cycle, and it emits as little as 31g/km of CO2. It’s not cheap, though, and the flagship GTE Advance model is even more expensive.
- For maximum practicality: The Passat Estate offers 650-litres of easily accessed boot space with the rear seats up, or a stellar 1780-litres of space with the rear seats down. Again, an entry-level SE Nav model with the 1.5 TSI petrol engine makes the most sense in the current line-up, but a diesel might be worth considering if you’re going to rack up the miles.
- For the adventurer: You’ll want to investigate the Passat Alltrack, which is no longer available as a new option, as it benefits from increased ground clearance, all-wheel drive, additional body protection and an off-road driving mode. Only diesel versions were available, however, and it wasn’t a cheap option.
