Fleet World Workshop Tools
Car Tax Calculator
CO2 Calculator
Van Tax Calculator
BiK Rates Company Car Tax

Road Test: Volkswagen Passat SE Business 2.0 TDI 150PS DSG

By / 8 years ago / Road Tests / No Comments

Sector: Upper Medium Price: £26,840 Fuel: 64.2mpg CO2: 116g/km

The lines between premium and volume brands are increasingly blurred, but the Volkswagen Passat is still slotted somewhere between the two. It’s always felt a little more upmarket than the rest of the D-segment, but never quite as desirable as the compact executive class.

In its 42-year lifespan, Volkswagen's family saloon has become a by-word for dependable, comfortable, incredibly functional long-distance travel, rather than dynamism or excitement. It’s very good at what it does, and the eighth generation is out to sprinkle a little desirability on top.

Lower and wider than the old car, but almost identical in length, it somehow looks bigger than it is, its chiselled bodylines and masculine front end easy to mistake for the much larger Phaeton. But, now on a stretched version of the Golf’s modular platform, Volkswagen has liberated an extra 80mm between the front and rear axles and 33mm in cabin length.

It means nobody will struggle for legroom when sat in its sculpted outer rear seats. There’s also whopping 586 litres of boot capacity with the rear bench upright – significantly larger than the compact executive saloons but also more than many five-door upper medium cars manage. Similarly, the estate – £1,600 extra and the bigger-selling variant in the UK – is one of the few remaining genuine station wagons on the market.

The cabin is flawlessly finished, full of high quality materials accented in satin silver and gloss black and it feels as if attention has been paid to the push-resistance of way every button, knob and handle. Some compact executive cars don’t do this as well.

Volkswagen’s ubiquitous 148bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine is as hushed as it is in other models, with barely any clatter when cold, no vibration through the cabin even under load and a hardly audible thrum when stretched. At motorway speeds it’s practically silent which, combined with suspension tuned for more for comfort than agility and the smooth shifts of the DSG gearbox, make this blissfully easy to cover long distances in.

The UK range structure recognises the car’s 80% weighting towards fleet sales. So there are no petrol versions, aside from the forthcoming plug-in hybrid GTE, and 60% of UK volume is expected to take the SE Business trim tested here.  The main upgrade, over the already well-specced SE version, is a European navigation system with live traffic data on top of the usual choice of inputs and Bluetooth connectivity. It can also stream smartphone apps, pairs with two phones at once and reads SMS message aloud – all ideal for business use.

Picking faults is near impossible, given that it manages all the rational needs of business travel so effortlessly. Like its predecessors, this isn’t a car which frustrates or annoys, but it’s also not likely to excite like a premium model. And that leaves it open to a threat from the larger Skoda Superb, which now feels almost as upmarket but – in SE Business spec – is over £3,000 cheaper and falls into the same BiK band.

Volkswagen may be able to offer executive comfort and quality at a sub-executive price, but it’s not the only product in the portfolio capable of doing so.

Verdict:

An impressive step forward in design and quality for the Passat, but it continues to cater very well for rational needs without having quite the same emotional appeal as a compact executive saloon.

For more of the latest industry news, click here.

Alex Grant

Trained on Cardiff University’s renowned Postgraduate Diploma in Motor Magazine Journalism, Alex is an award-winning motoring journalist with ten years’ experience across B2B and consumer titles. A life-long car enthusiast with a fascination for new technology and future drivetrains, he joined Fleet World in April 2011, contributing across the magazine and website portfolio and editing the EV Fleet World Website.