[s-cars] VW Passat 2.8 Experience

[Abe Berman]

Paul et al,

I second the "be careful with the W8" message.  I test drove a 2004 W8
4-motion wagon before I bought my wife's 2005.5 4 motion v6 GLX wagon in
March of 2009 and I was in love.  Thing drove great and was quieter and more
refined feeling than any other Passat I've driven.  Then I read about the W8
cost of ownership online and I ran the other way -fast-.

One look at the picture of the entire nose of the car apart up to the
firewall was enough for me...

So far so good with the v6, although echoing the commentary here it is not
an inspiring engine/tranny combo, it is very smooth on the highway.
Throttle response is just plain NUMB though and gas mileage is worse than
chipped ur-s.  Only issue so far was that the alternator went south at 50k,
which is actually fairly common apparently.  $500 for alternator and $350
labor, ouch...

YMMV

Abe
2005.5 Passat 4-Motion GLX V6  52k
1995.5 S6 Avant 112k