2006 VW Passat 2.0T

To start, this is the first VW I have owned. My wife and I have been looking at cars for the last two years as her old 96 Maxima is starting to get up there in miles. We came across the Passat at the car show in Denver, and my wife immediately fell in love. We were blown away by the options you can get for the money, and the styling is dead on.

Drivetrain & Performance- This Passat is a Candy White 2.0L turbocharged 4 cylinder with a 6 speed auto transmission. The engine itself would be a dead stick without the turbo, which is smooth with NO lag. I have always been a little skittish about turbos because of maintainence issues, but we hav had no problems so far. Step on the gas and GO!! Its enough to put you back in your seats, and when you get to your highway speed you start saving money on gas. It handles very well at high speeds with a very balanced suspension that is neither too soft or hard. We live in the foothills of colorado with a long windy drive to get home, and have found myself pushing the comfort level to see just how well the car holds around corners at high speeds. The Passat accomadates my nudging well, eats through the corners without a sweat and asks for more.

Interior- This car has the 'fake' leather seats which are heated, and in my humble opinion, more comfortable than real leather. The heat is controlled by a dial on the dash and you can adjust it to your liking. The sunroof is first class and has the usual rear vent, or a wide variety of open levels. It also came with a satellite radio, and a slew of innovative features that I never even imagined such as integrated nalgene bottle holders in each doot, an umbrella holder, cup holders in the middle console, accessory plug ins everywhere, A/C in the glove box, an info center displaying gas mileage, travel times, distances, and distance till empty for the fuel. We are still finding features every once in a while which makes us dive back into the owners manual.

Exterior- This car just looks sweet. Not too flashy, but not too subtle either. This is the best looking car for the price.

Issues- Our XM radio didnt work for the first month that we had it, even after going back to the dealer twice. They finally replaced it with another unit, now it works fine. The only other issues are all with the dealership through whom we purchased this car. They missed alot of little things both during the pre-delivery inspection, and services. We have since changed the place we take our car for service.
The car itself would be a nightmare to work on. There is no transmission dipstick, the power steering is electronic, and I wouldnt even no where to start if I had to replace the brakes or do anything that I normally do on my other vehicles.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with this car. We average 23-25mpg between city and highway driving, which is alot better than I had hoped. The mpg is offset by the 91 octane requirement, but not by much. The oil used is Castrol fully synthetic 5w40, which is pretty costly, but if the car runs for 200,000 miles I wont complain. The interior space is excellent, my wife often has three adult passengers for business and she has recieved nothing but compliments, and these are people that drive high end BMWs and such. The trunk space is more than acceptable, swallowing anything that we have dared to put in it like a 16 year old football player at a hot dog eating contest.

I would highly recommend this car for anyone wanting a well equipped sedan for business, pleasure and family for under $25000.