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

[Marc Gorelick]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the great responses!

One major factor to point out is that this is going to be the wife's 
daily driver, not mine--I'm driving the UrS4. So, I am less concerned 
about things like suspension stiffness than I would be if it were MY car 
to drive all the time. I think it's got the upgraded suspension, though 
since it's got the sport wheels and I /think /they were a package deal. 
The wife insists she doesn't want a manual shifter so she gets to live 
with the tiptronic, which I have seen others complain about. However 
when you are dealing with a 3-year-old in the back seat I can understand 
where she'd prefer to have the automatic.

FWIW, the car is VW certified so I believe it will be under warranty 
until it's got 74k miles on it (50k + another 2 years/24k). It's got 28k 
on it now.

Here's the actual listing, for anyone interested:  *http://tinyurl.com/cep5s

*I've seen a couple that were cheaper but she is really in love with the 
red paint and hates black interiors since (as she puts it) "black is too 
hot." ;-) 

Having said all of this, it might be that the A6 is a better idea for her.

Thanks again for all the sage advice, I knew this was a good place to ask.

Marc
*
*
Taka Mizutani wrote:

>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
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