Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £15,150 to £32,780
Large, solid and impressive-looking; quick and agile; economical.
Feels rather big, looks rather plain; horrid electronic parking brake; poor reliability record.
The consummate company car; does everything it's supposed to do, but lacks excitement.
The Mk6 Passat is stiffer and stronger than its predecessor, but has suffered a number of minor quality defects and teething troubles. There have been problems with the steering rack and power steering, electronic issues and general electrical troubles, failure of the electronic parking brake, leaks from the air conditioning system, failure of the cruise control and a catalogue of build defects and problems with fit and finish reported.
To give Volkswagen the benefit of the doubt, many of these glitches should have been ironed out by now (there have been a few recalls) and the cars do seem to be leaving the factory better-built than at first. The new CR diesel engine also replaces the old Pumpe-Duse unit, which had more than its fair share of problems.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volkswagen Passat
wrote on 06 06 2006