[s-cars] Passat 4motion W8 wagon: Opinions? (LAC)

[Taka Mizutani]

Not to rain on your parade, but I've recently seen a lot of '01 and
'02 Passats come in as trade-ins. I'm not too impressed with these
cars, with 50-90k miles on them- the body integrity is not as good as
the Audis- little rattles, doors don't close with the solid thunk that
they used to, etc. Seeing this, I would not consider a used Passat
unless it was seriously inexpensive. I guess the quality standards or
the materials used in the cars are not as good as the Audis.

On the other hand, I've seen recently a '02 Infiniti G35 come in- it
was beat to hell after 50k miles- window regulators were not smooth,
transmission didn't engage smoothly, I was pretty shocked at how
poorly the car took the miles. The facelifted '05 cars might be
better.

I drove the W8 Passat when it came out a couple years ago- the
standard suspension was very soft, the car was undertired, massive
understeer, slow shifting transmission (tiptronic), I was very
underwhelmed. The A6 4.2 was a much better drive, even with standard
suspension. I think the only way to get a Passat W8 would be with a
6-speed manual and sport suspension- anything less would be
disappointing.

The other issue is that the W8 is such a rare drivetrain that I wonder
how difficult it will be to repair a few years down the road- not too
many techs have experience with one.

Taka