New Car Test - Passat V5 SE

28 March, 2003

The new entry-level Passat.

By Julian Edgar

In Australia the Volkswagen Passat badge has always had variable success. While the sister Audi brand has achieved real prestige cred in the last decade, to a much greater degree Volkswagen has struggled - especially with its larger models. To encourage interest, the importer has recently released a new entry level Passat - the V5. Top of the Passat pile is the soon to be released 202kW W8 model, while at the other end is this 2.3-litre V-configured 5-cylinder, which develops 125kW at 6200 rpm (15kW more than the previous base 1.8-litre four cylinder turbo). With a price of $55,130, the tested V5 SE model is actually a touch better equipped than the absolute base V5 (the S model, which lacks the SE's alloys, heated front seats, electric sunroof and leather).

Sharing Audi underpinnings and many interior trim bits, the Passat uses what - to many eyes - is a far more attractively styled body than contemporary Audis. The body shape is also very practical, with excellent rear room (only headroom is a touch marginal for the tall), a large boot entered through a smallish opening, 60/40 flat-fold rear seats and a high opening boot lid. The seats - both front and back - are comfortable and in terms of safety the occupants are looked after very well - there's no less than eight airbags (including front and rear side curtain 'bags), electronic stability control, ABS and traction control. In addition, in the event of an accident the central locking system is opened and the fuel pump switched off.

Apart from the 'bouncy' way in which the doors shut (you always want to check that they have in fact latched - like the Beetle, the sound just isn't right), the Passat looks and feels well-built. The controls work with precision, the paint and panel margins are good, and the sound system - which includes a 6-stacker CD built into the dash and eight speakers - is excellent. Inside the car there's one minor downer - the height- and reach-adjustable leather steering wheel has a peculiarly greasy feeling.

As with all current Volkswagen models, the Passat feels immensely secure on the road. Show it a winding, difficult country road and it will take it absolutely in its stride, despatching the ground behind its 225/45 Bridgestone Potenzas much faster than you'd think likely. While the suspension spec is nothing fancy - front independent multi-links and a rear torsion beam axle - the sticky tyres, well chosen spring/damping rates and very stiff body give the Passat excellent handling. Unusually for Volkswagen (although the recently tested Polo also broke the longstanding tradition), the Passat is more than just a front-wheel drive understeerer - get off the power mid-corner and the back will progressively come out. Despite the stability control, the car can be tweaked into quite a lot of understeer and oversteer - for the enthusiastic driver it's all good fun, while for the person making a mistake the handling control system will still gather it all up without damage. It would be hard to slide off the road... or anyway, the miscalculation would have to be a big one!

The only negative of driving quickly over rough bitumen is that the steering - fairly slow around centre but always precise - can feed back to the driver a little kicking and rattling. The ride is very good at higher speeds - but around town the low-profile tyres can fall into potholes with a car-shaking thump. That's not to say that the ride at slower speeds is poor - but it's more 'European sports sedan' than Australian or Japanese luxury car spec.

The engine is a more mixed bag. These days, 125kW of power to cart around a mass of 1476kg doesn't make for a great equation, however at rpm over about 4000 the car performs quite well - a full-throttle overtaking manoeuvre or the climbing of a steep open-road hill are both fine. But at lower revs the engine shows a real lack of torque - surprising, since Volkswagen usually endow their engines with lots of bottom-end power. Peak torque of 220Nm occurs at 3200 rpm - compare this with the 5-valves per cylinder 3-litre V6 model which has 40Nm more, 200 rpm lower in the rev band.

The engineers have worked their way around the torque deficit by programming the 5-speed auto to downchange quite early: approach a suburban hill at 60 km/h in 5^th gear and the trans will first shift back to 4^th, then back to 3^rd, then - if you're still not going anywhere, back to 2^nd! On flat roads the lack of bottom-end grunt is far less noticeable - there you might just find that there's not the response that you'd expect to allow you to quickly cross a gap in traffic, or to join fast-flowing traffic from an entry lane. The electronic throttle has also been programmed to help give better low-rpm response - but whenever you request decent acceleration, the trans will have downchanged and you'll be seeing lots of revs on board. It makes the engine feel smaller than it is. The long-stroke V5 develops a characteristic throbby noise at high revs - though it's not unpleasant - but at idle in some conditions (eg warm-up) the test car had more vibration than expected in this class. The engine - which uses a comp ratio of 10.5:1 - requires a constant diet of premium unleaded.

The 5-speed auto has a driver-selectable Tiptronic function: pull the lever across to the right and it becomes a push-forward-to-change-up and pull-back-to-change-down selector. A dash display keeps tabs on what gear you've selected, while returning to Drive is very easily accomplished (from whatever gear you're in) by pushing the lever back across to the left. The latter, incidentally, is easily achieved with your knee!

The instruments are clear and easy to use, although the sourcing of the central display from Audi models means that a reverse red-on-black LCD is used for this portion of the instruments, looking a little odd juxtaposed with the traditional black-on-silver of the two other LCDs. The trip computer is scrolled through by a button on the end of one of the stalks - a much better system than using controls mounted on the dash itself.

The AS2877 (government test) fuel consumption figures are 11.3 and 6.4 litres/100km (city and highway, respectively), while we recorded a test figure of 11.7 litres/100. At 62 litres the tank capacity is on the small size - at a trip computer'd distance of 505km the display was showing zero kilometres remaining range.

With a 3-year, 100,000km warranty, fully-galvanized body, attractive looks and a practical, well-equipped interior, the Passat V5 warrants a close look if you're in the market for $55,000 European luxury.