Updated: October 31, 2025
OK, let's do a car review, shall we. Passat is no stranger, as I've driven and reviewed this car before. Now, this is going to be a super-interesting test. The last time I tried this vehicle, it was the B8 model, the current minus one. The "final" version before touch technology took over cars and ruined everything. It had a good balance between analog and digital commands.
Recently, I had a chance to drive a more modern, facelifted edition. Still not the latest B9 model, mind! 'Tis the old one, so to speak, plus a mid-life update (from 2019 onwards), which brings various interior changes, new safety features and improved engines. So, I find this test extremely valuable, as you shall soon discover. To make it extra fun, it's a 2.0 TDI Evo, with 150 horses, 340 Newtons of torques, and a seven-speed DSG. Let's start, shall we.
Riding the fine line between mild and aggressive. Image courtesy: Volkswagen Newsroom.
Safety features, or rather not
Instead of doing my customary exterior, interior, trim, driving sections first, I'm going to start with all the annoying and negative things, and boy, there were a few. Then, we shall look at the more positive aspects of this car. But I want you to get the full picture. So, let's begin with the most important aspect: safety.
Modern cars are designed for clueless people who can't - and shouldn't drive. There, I said it. From what I see, the functional logic of car design goes like this:
- Touch, touch, smartphones, profit - let's make car interiors like smartphones! More gadgets, more apps, more hyperactive, interactive crap.
- Because the driver is now overloaded with unnecessary nonsense, car manufacturers start adding "aids" that helped the "distracted" driver become less distracted. After all, using phones while driving is prohibited, but using a 8-10-inch tablet plastered in the center of your console is fine, it seems. Hypocrisy, irony.
- Thus, cars come equipped with stuff to protect idiots from themselves. Best example: Lane Assist.
- There are other technologies, but they all sum to: unnecessary and DANGEROUS.
Let me explain ...
I started driving the car without disabling the defaults. These include: Front Assist, Lane Assist, traffic signs recognition, and speed limit warning. The first one makes sense as it can help avoid traffic jam bumps, or even prevent jumper accidents in city driving. Logic. So far so good.
Lane Assist, which I hated in my T-Roc review, is simply dangerous. It tries to correct your position in between the lanes, without taking into consideration ANY other parameter. So say you're driving down a two-way street, with no separation, and the car in the opposite lane moves slightly more toward the center, the logic and safety dictate that you move slight to the right (if you drive on the normal, correct side of the road). This way you maximize the distance between your own vehicle and the oncoming potential danger.
But!, but, but!
This turd of technology will then interfere and try to move you back to the center of the lane, TOWARD the oncoming car!
The end result is manyfold:
- You are endangered because a blind sensor ignores all other parameters and tries to "correct" you.
- You are surprised by the semi-violent movement of the steering wheel. Your concentration drops. You are less likely to respond correctly to a potentially dangerous situation developing in front of you.
- The Passat actually moves you toward that potential danger.
- When you deactivate Lane Assist, the steering wheel becomes more responsive and precise. If you do long driving, having this technology on actually adds fatigue to your hands. Cumulative potential risk.
This is FAIL on every level.
You need time to find the right menu and disable the pointless Lane Assist. But it all feels like an unnecessary gimmick. Also, I purposefully didn't do much editing, so you can see all the finger smudges and the dust motes on the shiny screen. Unless you buff that pointless plastic and glass daily, your interior will look ugly.
If this is supposed to help cretins who can't drive, there's a simple analog solution - don't allow cretins to drive. It's simple. Lane keeping is the most basic of driving skills. If you can't do it, straight to jail. You play with your phone, straight to jail.
Driving is a heavy responsibility. You are in charge of 1,500 kg of metal, hurtling at tremendous speed. You are responsible and accountable for the people in your car, as well as anyone in your surroundings. If you can't commit to this tremendous role, don't do it. Use the bus or the tram.
But what companies are doing - just because the tech allows them to - they are accommodating idiots.
You can disable it (for now), but the process is odious. And you must do it every time you start the car. So it's idiot conditioning. Companies are deliberately adding crap that is difficult to find in the "touch menus". More difficult to find, more difficult to disable. Human intelligence suffers.
The machine that goes ping
That's not all. The Passat likes to ping. But here's a paradoxical thing. There's only one PING sound for pretty much everything. This whole modern car with a digital LCD display where you can change a dozen configurations and see all sorts of views, this modern car with a huge infotainment system and voice recognition, it can only do ONE silly ping:
- You drive a bit too fast (and it could be just the car not correctly reading the signs), ping.
- You put as little as 2 kg of weight on a seat, the car thinks there's an unbuckled passenger, ping.
- Your wiper fluid is about to run out, the car notifies you, ping.
There's no differentiation among these situations, which range from mundane to moderately important. But every time you get a ping, you're distracted. You suddenly must look around, try to visually absorb the overload of digital information (you get an extra penalty for polarized sunglasses), and during this time, your vehicular safety drops.
- Case in point, I was using the wipers + fluid. The car decided I needed to add more. Big huge ping! You get a popup that obstructs the area between the odometer and the rev counter. If you have a navigation map displayed there, you can't see it for about five seconds.
- It tells you in TEXT: you need to replenish the fluid. You must READ while driving. Insane.
- And the thing is, I hadn't fully run out - just enough for the sensor to kick in on inclines and descents. So any time the road dipped a bit, ping. And I couldn't stop, because there was no rest station or fuel station available at this stretch of the road. For about an hour or so, with me having no ability to do anything about the missing fluid, I got about a dozen stupid pings about the same antagonizing thing.
- So this majestic modern car cannot announce the problem? Or do it just once? It needs to ping me about the washer fluid like it's some DEFCON 2 situation?
I am so utterly disappointed. What kind of kindergarten level programming is this? Who okayed this model of work into production, into a nice, upmarket car targeted at the middle-aged user? Who thought 50-year-old drivers, the typical Passat customer, would enjoy interacting with their cutesy car and its touch apps like some hyperactive zoomer?
And the technology, when you actually need it, it's not there. One 8-bit MIDI ping for EVERYTHING, but a billion pixels and apps for totally unnecessary crap. Sure, go around rearranging your dashboard like your desktop, but intelligent notifications, nope. That won't work.
Awful navigation
I have little good to say about the navigation system, either:
- It takes about 10 seconds to power on.
- If you turn your engine off for more than 5 minutes, it will STOP an active navigation, even if you have not reached your destination.
- The search is slow and cumbersome.
- The navigation was particularly bad in the urban settings. It failed me in city driving, taking me down slower, more congested routes, and several times, led me to construction sites (dead-end roads). Where's the glorious data and OTA updates and all that modern nonsense when you need it?
- I also tried it in familiar urban settings, where I know the best routes, and it consistently chose poorly.
- The instructions are meh - it doesn't properly tell you which lane to use, which exit to use. Not always, but enough that I made at least four wrong turns over the two days of driving, all of them in city traffic, which was only about 15-20% of my total behind-the-wheel time. Subpar results.
The navigation was wrong from the get go. Also, notice the shiny black frame around the dashboard. It shall prove detrimental to the driving experience, as I shall elaborate shortly.
Other problems
There were a few. Most of them stem from poor design and cheapening:
- The instrument console is framed in some cheap shiny, glossy black plastic. I think this is called "piano black", and it's supposed to feel posh. It feels like a gimmick from 1983. And, the shiny plastic reflects sunlight, directly into your eyes, while you're driving! Look at the image above. Even when stationary, and no direct sunlight just yet, you can already see the dazzling effect. They couldn't bother with nice rubberized plastic (which covers most of the console), or matte colors? Nope. That's not flashy and gaudy. I guess the goal is to be crass and sell to impressionable idiots who mistake shiny plastic for class. The "market research" audience, I guess.
- The wipers didn't move smoothly over the windshield, especially above 100 km/h.
- The driving seat isn't that fun. After 3-4 hours, you feel somewhat tired. I expected more "freshness".
- The steering wheel can be adjusted by rake and reach, but it does not go down far enough. This is a common problem in lots of cars. This means you can't have a fully relaxed driving position, with your hands on three and nine and thumbs out. You will either sit too close, too far, or your arms will experience slight strain.
- The emergency light button is too far away. You must lean quite a bit to reach it - this is also the consequence of the driving position vs. steering wheel position conundrum, see above.
- The normal blinker indicators are displayed on the far ends of the instrument console. So if you're about 180 cm tall, you sit correctly behind the wheel, then the steering column will obscure the two lights. This isn't a biggie, but it's also not helpful. The indicator sound could be louder, as sometimes the left stalk wouldn't quite respond to the single press action (three blinks), and you might want a different clue. You have tiny lamps embedded in your side mirrors, though.
- Climate controls - touch! Ugh, vomit. Capacitative touch. It goes into the same bucket as piano black. Cheap controls you cannot use without looking. Another anti-safety feature for the sake of cheapness. And they don't even look pretty or slick. Nope. This part of the central console looks like something designed by a committee of students during lunch. The old cluster of cool dials was sooooo much nicer. They had great feel, soft, sexy clicks when rotated, and you could operate them WHILE KEEPING YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD, WHERE THEY BELONG. Yes, smartphone crap ruining cars, once again. Also, for me, a dealbreaker. I will never ever buy a car that doesn't offer sane controls for basic and important functions. This automatically disqualifies the Passat from consideration. I wouldn't want to own this car even if someone gave it to me for free. I would sell it and buy something that has real dials and buttons. And to be clear, the same goes for any other car out there. 100%.
Here's a reason not to buy this car - capacitative touch AC controls.
And the climate control panel above doesn't even look nice! It looks extremely cheap. In comparison, from my 2023 Audi A4 review, another VW Group car. Look at the central console. Look at the buttons.
And here's an even sexier example, from my 2023 Skoda Karoq review. Look at those lovely dials, those chunky buttons. Sleek, stylish. Now, scroll back up and look at that dejecting panel of shiny plastic and ask yourselves, are you driving a premium vehicle or playing with some third-rate smartphone?
Looks, outside and inside
No matter how you angle your head, how much you squint or whatever trick you do with your face or eyes, the Passat will never be a beauty. It's a decent-looking car, but it doesn't have sharp features. I find it less appealing than the equivalent Skodas or Audis, although recently, most modern cars look somewhat meh. They lack style and poise. In this regard, the Passat hasn't changed that much, but this is still the older model, mind, so you can expect some soul.
For me, the Passat has always been somewhat nondescript.
Inside, electronics aside [sic], it's typical VW stuff. The cockpit is okay. There's plenty of space everywhere, including the rear bench. You can seat four 180cm individuals comfortably. The front seat headrests are a little finicky to adjust. I also don't like that while I could adjust the back rest with an electronic switch, I had to use a "pump" lever to raise or lower the seat, and then use the under-the-seat slider to move it back and forth. This analog-digital combo feels somewhat wrong.
This interior feels somewhat boring. It's never been exciting, though.
The boot (the luggage thingie) is quite long, so much that if you shove a suitcase all the way in, you might actually have to bend forward a lot to retrieve it. But at the same time, it's not very deep (vertically). So you get lots of space, but you're limited in what configurations you can fit in.
Redeeming features? The engine and the economy
So far, it feels like the Passat is not worth its weight in ... whatever currency floats your boat. There is one element that remains quintessentially German autobahn quality - the actual driving qualities. This is still the car you want and expect it to be. And it's better than the pre-facelift version by a long mile, or a kilometer, if you will.
It rides well. Not supercar well, but well enough for its class. If you engage the Sport mode, it hugs the corners quite snugly. The chassis is stiff and responsive, and the shocks absorb the undulations without breaking into a sweat.
The acceleration is excellent, especially 0-60 km/h. Brutally fast and energetic, well beyond the raw numbers you see on paper. The engine revs happily, noisily. You can even spin the wheels if you're so inclined. An unusual display of prowess for the Passat (and diesel at that). But hey! Thrills!
The gearbox is tuned correctly, and it changes cogs quickly and efficiently.
Now, if you're driving say 130 km/h, and you let go off the gas pedal, the car will begin to coast. But here, unlike your typical car, to save fuel, the gearbox will disengage from the flywheel. So you will have something resembling a "classic" automatic car coasting, or what you get if you depress the clutch pedal in a manual car. This is the whole Evo thingie.
The net effect is your car using less fuel and bleeding speed less. This is great for straights, but not for any sort of descents, or situations where there's quite a bit of traffic.
The reasons are, first, if you drive in a straight line and say you're approaching a traffic light, if you're smart, you will let go off the gas pedal, and let the car slow down a bit. You will try not to have to brake or fully stop before it turns green. Here, you will be forced to either manually cog down (flappy paddles at your service), or actually brake.
Not quite the model I drove, but this stock photo is immensely better than anything I could have photographed. Image courtesy: Volkswagen Newsroom.
This is even more pronounced when driving downhill. I actually had to use the paddles to downshift a cog or two so the car would keep a steady speed and not accelerate beyond the speed limit. If you let it do its thing, it just might. I guess this fuel saving trick is part of the whole climate whatnot, but it can be dangerous if you are doing a long downhill drive. Unless you use the paddles, you will apply the brakes quite often, and you could end up with more brake heating and wear. This could affect your actual braking ability in the end.
Now, if you switch from D to S, there's no ECO mode. The flywheel does not get disengaged. I tried this when going down a mountain pass, and it made a huge difference. I was able to navigate a whole bunch of turns using S4-6 without ever touching the brake pedal. Elsewhere, in the D mode, I had to constantly caress the brake pedal to keep my speed constant. Gravity exists for a reason, and engine braking also exists for a reason. Negating it is silly.
In general, driving in the Sport Mode is so much better. Quicker throttle response, especially if you need to make a sudden change in your driving rhythm. Tighter suspensions, tighter steering wheel, less driver fatigue, more engine braking. It's simply better in every way.
Now, you could say this may harm your fuel efficiency. Well, that was my big surprise!
The Passat 2.0 TDI was incredibly frugal. I drove for about 850 km, with about 150 km urban driving, with the AC constantly turned on, and about half the time spent in the D mode and half in the S mode. Normally, I drive quite vigorously, but smartly and efficiently at the same time.
You can't fault the engine's frugality. Even if you're quite vigorous, it's going to have a low consumption.
So, when I was being "gentle" by letting the engine do its thing, I averaged slightly under 5 l/100 km, and that's with urban driving, 130 km/h highway driving, and AC on all the time. And by using the Sport Mode, the thirst only went up by about 10%, to 5.6 l/100 km. That's all. The old Passat used more than 6.0 liters. More recently, the Skoda Superb did also about 6.0 liters. So the results are very good. Even if you have a heavy foot, you won't do much financial penalty to your pocket. You can make liberal use of the Sport Mode, and only marginally reduce your range. With the fuel tank of 66 liters, you can go a long, long way without having to think about refueling.
The default 215/60 R16 tires did their job, but the profile is all wrong for a car like this. I don't like the modern trend of smaller, chunkier wheels - the Passat should come with at least 18-inch rims, and not as an expensive extra, and the tires ought to have a 235 thread, maybe even 245. Most cars I tested more than a decade ago had these, and they were often much smaller vehicles.
These kind of wheels were okay for 2000. They don't suit big, modern cars. More inch-age required.
Indeed, the driving experience is surprisingly refined and fun. When the el-cheapo tabletonics and piano black plastic don't get in the way, that is. Alas ...
Conclusion
Touch technology ruins everything. Really. It's the one conclusion I can say without equivocation. I also commented on that in my Superb review, and quite a lot in my BMW 118d review, and the same principles apply to this car as well. The Passat actually made me sad. It's taking the phenomenal German engineering, and then degrading, spoiling and befilthing it with third-grade electronics and cheap gimmicks the likes of which you expect in a car 5x cheaper than this, if ever. And check this out. Volkswagen haven't learned from their mistakes. Despite promises to do better and respond to customer backlash over horrible controls, the new Passat comes with an interior that is even uglier, more crass and less fun! Check the photos online, it's basically one giant touch tablet with 2014-era Android bezels. Makes me wanna cry.
If I do my best and ignore the el-cheapo infotainment elements, this facelifted outgoing-model Passat is pretty good. It drives great, it's economical, and unlike the previous model, it does actually stir an emotion or three. For me, the Passat is rather milquetoast, bland, whatever, but this one has teeth and hair on its chest. The 2.0 diesel engine is excellent, and it even sounds nice. I would still take the Octavia or Superb over this, sure, but for a moment, this car could fool even a jaded dinosaur like me. Only I cannot ignore the horrible infotainment elements, and thus this vehicle is a no go for me. Now, as a former (happy) customer of various VW Group models, I've emailed my dissatisfaction with the touch nonsense several times. I remain steadfast. Thus, when I look at all the different issues and problems, I'd say 5/10. And we must bring this review to its inglorious end.
Cheers.