Test Drive: VW Passat TDI offers space, mpg, comfort
— -- Explain again, please, why a gas-electric hybrid is a good thing, worth the higher price and added complexity of two separate drivetrains.
Oh, yeah, that's right: mileage. Like 40 or 50 mpg, right?
So take note of the Volkswagen Passat diesel ("TDI" in VW-speak) because in real-world driving, the test car handily exceeded its government ratings of 30 mpg in town, 40 highway, 34 in mixed use, even though it was the victim of our lead-foot pounding.
Piloted less vigorously, it probably could deliver an honest 40 mpg in mixed use, 50 mpg highway, without resorting to sometimes unsafe hypermile driving tactics.
And it has a spacious interior. And, while not cheap, it is pretty reasonable. And it has elegant styling that probably will wear well on the eye. And it doesn't have a hybrid's big battery pack to cause you back-of-mind anxiety about reliability and replacement cost. And it's made in Chattanooga, Tenn., so more of your money stays home than if you buy a hybrid that's imported (as many are).
But, no. Passat TDI is a diesel, and we know from the sages in the auto industry that Americans don't buy diesel cars, so the story goes.
Except that 21% of Passat sales the first quarter this year have been diesels, VW says. In fact, 21% of all VW U.S. sales the first quarter — which includes models, such as the Tiguan SUV, that don't offer the diesel — were TDI models.
Not that the diesel Passat is flawless. On the test car, a couple of issues are noisily significant.
Our test car, a $29,000 Passat TDI with dry-clutch automatic gearbox (VW calls it a dual-shift gearbox), registered about 38 mpg in mixed use, 46 mpg on the highway before 20 miles of a stop-go traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike eroded that to 44 mpg.
For awhile, it appeared the car would hold at 50 mpg, but herky-jerky traffic on I-95, even before that dreadful Jersey jam, began slicing the numbers back into the 40s.
As a Passat, the car is capacious in the way good ol' Detroit sedans used to be: stretch-out room, leg-flop space. Sized inside to allow you to lean, squirm, shift and stay alert and comfy on a long haul, though you might find you needn't move at all because the seats fit about right.
That upsizing was part of VW's Americanization of the car, which had been among the smaller, more-cramped midsize sedans.
On the plus side:
•The diesel engine starts quickly, runs quietly even when cold, generally intrudes not at all.
•The dashboard layout is attractive, and the big, simple gauges and fat buttons make life easy.
•Trunk is generous, closer to what you get on a full-size car than a midsize.
•Rear legroom and knee space are remarkable, more like full-size accommodations .
Gripes? Oh, yeah.
The worst two may be solved by now on newer-built models. The test car had significant wind noise around the driver's mirror, and a racket that sounded like the door banging in its opening when going over choppy bumps at highway speed.
VW blames the mirror for the noises, and says it has made running changes to quiet the airflow over the mirror and make it less likely to rattle over harsh bumps.
The lesser issues:
•Diesel fuel is more expensive, harder to find and smellier than gasoline. Diesel's been hovering around a nationwide average of $4.16 a gallon the past week, says AAA's FuelGaugeReport.com, and gas has been about $3.92.
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