My wife and I bought a brand new 2016 Passat SEL Premium VR6 (But we bought it in December 2018!. You can find my post. It has 30K miles on it now). We bought it for the roomy back seat, which is even roomier than you might imagine.
Some rambling thoughts in no particular order:
1) Both my wife and I found the ride to be far too soft. The front end bobbed up and down on undulating roadways like an old '60s American car with a big honking V8 in it. Totally unacceptable. Within weeks of buying I put in H&R OEM Sport springs and Bilstein B6 struts and shocks; along with a larger H&R rear anti-roll bar. Also too, BBS SX 19"x8.5" wheels and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. The ride and handling is now perfect in our opinion. If you like a firmer ride the Passat is not the car for you, unless you change springs and shocks.
2) The trunk is just as roomy as the back seat.
3) The VR6 engine is phenomenal. Very good power and a very healthy sound. I cannot imagine the car without this motor. IMO the car will be a slug without the VR6 (which is no longer offered).
4) The car seems to have a few electrical glitches. Sometimes it won't start because it says a key is not in range. But the key is right there in my pocket or my wife's purse. We've replaced the fob batteries more than once, which makes no difference. The only way we can get it to recognize the key is to wave it around the center console up near the dash. Then it'll work fine for weeks, only to not recognize it at some point in the future.
5) Electrical glitches continued... My wife and I both use this car and have each key programmed for our seat and mirror positions. That said, every second or third time I drive the car the seat adjusts but the driver's side mirror doesn't. Because these are memory items I sometimes forget to check the side mirror until I need it - like merging onto the freeway - only to find my mirror pointing upwards towards the sky. Annoying!!!
6) The the one time I used the dealer for warranty service, it was a total joke. I ended up fixing the problem myself.
7) The body structure has a distinct hollow sound compared to our BMWs, and both our BMWs have more aggressive suspension setups. It's not a lack of body structure stiffness - the overall structure seems tight - but it seems it lacks sound deadening material in places. That said, the car is quiet overall.
8) Both my wife and I notice we get treated differently on the roadway when driving the Passat. In the Passat we are treated like old people. In the BMWs and Honda we are treated like peers.
9) I have never seen polycarbonate headlights chip so easily. But, both high and low beams illuminate well.
10) Lastly, we reliably get 30 to 32 MPG at 70.
In summary, we like that car overall. Set up like ours is, it looks and drives great. The back seat room is
amazing. The VR6 is fantastic and the DSG transmission is very, very good. It is a car you can drive 750 miles a day in.
Would I buy it again? No. And the only reason I say this is I think the car might be prone to electrical glitches that could become maddening.
Scott
