Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £15,150 to £32,780
Good looking, feels like a high-quality item, strong image and good diesels.
Not the world's best petrol engines and manual gearbox a bit floppy, newer rivals better to drive, replaced in 2005.
Reasonable car but not as good as latest rivals. High feeling of quality and image means that it'll always find fans though. Petrol V6 and W8 models mostly pointless.
Security provisions are good, with deadlocks, alarm and immobiliser standard. Safety is pretty good, too. Four-stars in EuroNCAP's crash tests is a good rating for a car introduced in 2000, and since then, side-curtain airbags have become standard, taking the tally to six. ABS with brake-assist is also fitted, as are three three-point rear seatbelts and Isofix child-seat mounts.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volkswagen Passat
wrote on 06 06 2006