During our Tucson, AZ
trip this was our rental. It is a 2019 Volkswagen Passat Wolfsburb Edition, where the Wolfsburb Edition is apparently is the base model. I find the name a little pretentious.
Appearance is generic German sedan. It will neither offend anyone nor be considered a proper looker.
One thing that surprised me is that it came with halogen reflector head lamps instead of projectors. Light output was decent, though not great. It could have been brighter. But the headlights have a very handsome cutoff due to the reflector and headlights being housed deep into the body work.
The base spec does come with heated seats and blind spot monitoring, neither of which were present on the
Infiniti Q50 we recently rented. Also, it was pretty quiet inside, though not quite as the Q50.
This continues our them of attempting to rent a decent US car and getting something different. We had rented a Chrylser 300 (or similar) when we got the Q50. This time we had rented a Chevrolet Impala (or similar) and got the Passat.
[Note: I did end up getting a partial refund on the rental cost as Budget, by its own admittance, gave us a car in a lower tier than the one we rented from.]
Front seats were comfortable enough, though wider than I like them. We were perfectly fine for our drives to and from Phoenix. There are no padded knee rests though, which were sorely missed.
Rear seats have enough leg room for full sized adults. Shoulder room is lacking when driving with three adults in the rear seats.
Interior dashboard and other materials were distinctly hard plastic and cheap. Looking at the $9,000 base price difference between the Passat and the Impala we were supposed to get... I suppose I got screwed by the rental car company again, and it probably showed in materials. (Now that I research this, they bumped us down from Premium to Full Size.)
The steering material had decent material and feel though.
We also found the climate controls rather non-responsive to requests to change air flow source. It took multiple attempts most of the time. The rear had no climate controls, just two vents and the option to stop air flow.
In terms of connectivity there was one 12V outlet up front, one in the center console, and one USB up front. In the rear there were two USB ports.
Luggage space was quite decent. We fit a large rolling check in only bag, two 21"x14"x9" rolling carry-on bags and our small day packs, plus other stuff. The boot is pretty deep.
Rear visibility was not bad, but at times we wished that it had come with a larger center mirror.
Let's talk about the engine for a bit. This engine has some
power. It also has a point where it goes from Eco mode to power mode,
distinctly non linearly. Especially noticeable when we were in a
neighborhood with a lot of rolling hills going from coasting downhill and transitioning to a steep uphill. It was gutless going
uphill with severe lugging until it got a threshold and jerked forward with too
much power surge. This appears to be because in this particular use case the
transmission takes a long time to downshift. Any other driving the engine seems
fine.
Since this is a US model I assume the engine is the 2.0L TSI with 174 HP @ 5000 RPM and 206 lb-ft of torque @ 4250 RPM.
What was interesting was that other than these downhill coasting to uphill transitions the transmission behaved without issue. There was meaningful engine braking when downshifting to fourth, third, second, and first gears.
The transmission is a 6-speed automatic transmission with Sport mode and manual override.
If you floor the transmission while in D it up shifts at the beginning of the 6K RPM red line.
Brakes are extremely grabby with no discernible pedal feel. Makes it a
bit rough on your passengers when you're learning the car. This is also
why we tested manual mode engine braking so much.
Cruise control has a dedicated plus and minus button. When you click them once they increment or decrement by 5 mph. If you press and hold you can increment or decrement by single mph increments.
Cruise control remembers last speed it was set at if you take a short break at a rest area.
No interference on dash visibility from the steering wheel. Dash hood could be less tall but it does not interfere with parts visibility with the seat bottomed. The seat does not get as close to the floor as I want (my wife notes that this is because I am "car mad").
Dash has some useful information, but I wish I could have everything combined on one screen. I really like having both instantaneous fuel economy and current velocity together on a digital screen.
Regarding steering feel: it was disappointing. Steering wheel has no appreciable feedback or weight. No real sense of what rear wheels are doing either. At least the steering has no real dead zone.
Not sure how much of this was due to the tires, but the car was on Continental ProContact TX 235/45R18 tires.
Also, there was a nice little sun roof. The controls were okay, though I think I prefer operating these with a toggle switch more than a twisting knob.
[I forgot to add this originally:]
Average of 27.95 MPGover 232.4 miles.
While I have the mileage for the second tank, apparently my receipt does not have the amount of gas I put in, so I can only calculate mileage for the first 232.4 and not the 275.0 additional miles we did that included a lot more highway miles. So, that is unfortunate.
As always, questions and comments welcome.
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