TopBanana

Considering one of these as a 'weekday car'. Has anyone got any experience of these cars?

brickboy

I've got a PD130 Sport coming as my new company wheels. Had a two-hour test drive in one a few weeks back. Quick findings were:

Very comfortable, good interior, easy to get good driving position. Niggle: had to contort ankle to get to clutch footrest.

Ride very good, smooths out bumps of all sizes well. Goes where you point it, but little feedback or involvement. Reminded me of my old Volvo T4 in this respect. It's a cruiser, aimed at A-roads and motorways.

Engine -- very useable performance, very grunty. The pick-up from 1800rpm in ANY gear is swift, and in 2nd / 3rd gear is too strong for the traction control: I had it spinning up coming out of roundabouts etc. There's a definite power band which starts at 1800 and goes on past 3500rpm. I drove it back to back with a Volvo S60 D5, and the Passat felt very nearly as quick, despite giving away 30-odd BHP and 30 ft-lbs of torque.

I chose the Passat over these cars for the reasons given:

- Laguna 2.2dCi: interior too pimptastic, felt slow
- Mondeo TDCi: quick but didn't like interior
- A4 PD130: effectively same car but 3K more expensive
- Volvo S60 D5: my second choice but emissions (and tax) high
- BMW 320d: don't like BMs

[Edited by brickboy - 12/17/2002 2:37:02 PM]

Jon1T

my dad has one (he's 60) - they're very quick, but they handle like pigs, you can really feel the weight of the engine up front and even with the sports suspensions they wallow like a cross-channel ferry....

But they have a massive boot, lots of space, good amount of kit, are good motorway cruisers, are reliable and have great fuel economy - and the image is still a cut above the usual rep fare...

Steve Perriam

passat is very nice.

i tested a few at the start of the year when choose my lease car.

ended up with the Laguna 1.9dCi as it had all the kit on it and was same price as the passat. however its not as quick as the passat buy i would say handles as well.

audi a4 / passat were the quickest but the audi as u mentioned was silly money and the standard kit was cr*p.

mondeo tdci i did not like - good kit cos it was the ghia x but quite slow and poor handling /cornering.

also tried the 150bhp golf probably should have had this as it was bloody quick ! handled ok, v easy to get the TCS light flashing away !

TopBanana

Hmm, interesting reading. Thanks guys. Never saw myself in a Passat - but still, it's only for commuting

Seen a couple for sale, probably some bargains to be head around this time when the market's dead.

logiclee

Steve,

Did it have flat tyres?

I tested most of the cars listed in this thread and like all the magazines found the Mondeo to be streets ahead as a drivers car, handling and steering feel being very good.
The tdci has more torque than the 155bhp V6tdi VAG deisel and I found all out performance very similar to the Passat and in gear performance felt stronger in the Mondeo.

Cheers
Lee

brickboy

Lee -- I preferred the Mondeo's handling (much better than the Passat etc) and it was identical performance-wise (less of a power-band, the TDCi seemed happy to pull from 1500rpm whereas the Passat is flat below 1800) but the interior didn't suit me ... otherwise I'd have had the Ford without a second thought.

TopBanana

The only car in the world that I hate is the Mondeo. Yuck

smanning

i have the 1.9 tdi quattro audi, i think its great. Suppose the 4WD makes it a little slower than the passat, however the VAG PD130 is easy to modify through a tuning box.

I put on a Bromley Tuning box and have since had it laptop tuned, and now it is SO much better on power and Torque, with no obious Fuel trade off.

You definately got to get the Sports Suspension as well (presume the VW has that option as well as Audi), else they feel like sofa's on wheels!

Mondeo was second choice as they are nice, cheap and IMHO well built.

TopBanana

Giving this some serious thought, but how will it affect the warranty? Did you also investigate chips like Upsolute?

Sofa on wheels... <homer>hmmmmmm</homer> That's exactly what I'm after Spend all my time in the week on motorways and it isn't very relaxing at the moment. Planning on buying a Caterham or something next summer for the weekends.