The Volkswagen Passat will be redesigned for 2012. There's a lot in store for the 2012 Passat. Buyers can choose between a five speed manual and a six-speed automatic transmission. A six-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission (DSG) is standard. Now 50-state emissions legal, the 140-hp TDI makes the Passat the only mainstream family sedan available with a diesel.
The 2012 Passat is facing a kind of perfect storm of skepticism from long-time fans of the
brand. Volkswagen has wasted no chance to tell the world that the company's newest sedan will be custom-tailored to the American market, with styling and packaging tweaks designed to set the vehicle apart from its European counterpart. That trend kicked off with the 2011 Jetta – a vehicle that sacrificed interior materials and suspension refinement to meet a lower price point while growing larger to accommodate American tastes.Does the Passat share a similar fate? That lead many onlookers (ourselves included) to conclude that in creating its new mid-sized sedan, Volkswagen had simply supersized the Jetta.
There's no denying that the 2012 Passat is cut from the same design cloth as the 2011 Jetta. The look is right at home on the larger Passat, with its slightly aggressive headlights, three-bar grille and scowling hood. No matter where your eyes rest, they're bound to fall on a line that runs nearly uninterrupted around the entire vehicle. Base models wear 16-inch steel wheels with plastic covers, though 16-, 17- and 18-inch alloy rollers are also available depending on the trim specification. For 2012, Volkswagen has built almost four additional inches into the Passat, and most of that length has found its way into the rear foot well. One of the biggest highlights of the 2012 Passat interior is its sound system. Volkswagen teamed up with Fender to create a nine-speaker audio system that pushes 400 watts of power. Volkswagen has worked to slim its option sheet to just 16 buildable combinations down from 128 possibilities, and as a result, long-time Passat fans will find a few notable omissions. Buyers will no longer be able to enjoy a wagon version of the vehicle. Additionally, the 2012 Passat is only available with three engines. Those include a 2.5-liter gasoline five-cylinder with 170 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque as well as a 3.6-liter gasoline V6 with 280 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of twist.
The Passat will also be available with a 2.0-liter turbocharged diesel four-cylinder with 140 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. We're happy to report that Volkswagen has left some quirkiness in the Passat line by offering the 2.0 TDI engine with both the DSG and a six-speed manual option.
We were able to spend time in both a 2.5-liter, automatic-equipped Passat and its 2.0-TDI, DSG counterpart in mixed driving. Though the big German sedan weighs in between 3,300 and 3,400 pounds depending on engine and transmission choices, neither engine has a particularly hard time moving the Passat in any conditions. The five-cylinder gasoline engine offers similar power to four-cylinder options in both the Camry and Accord, and as such, there's enough grunt on hand to keep the vehicle on pace with the rest of traffic. VW says that while the EPA hasn't finished its fuel economy evaluation for the Passat, the company expects the 2.5-liter powered sedan to see 21 miles per gallon in the city and 32 mpg on the highway in manual guise and 22 mpg city and 31 mpg highway with the autobox of our tester. Those numbers put the base entry around three mpg behind the Hyundai Sonata on the combined scale and 1.5 mpg behind a comparably equipped Honda Accord.
As a result, the TDI-equipped Passat feels and drives like a sedan you want to spend time in. As in the Jetta TDI, the 2.0-liter engine is quiet both inside and out, producing marginally more engine noise than its petrol counterparts. We encountered just over 40 mpg combined during our time behind the wheel of the Passat TDI.
Volkswagen hasn't announced pricing for the 2012 Passat just yet, but the company says that it's aiming for a price point in the low-$20K range with topped-out models landing in the lower- to mid-$30K range.
Volkswagen's Passat replacement, still called the Passat, grows to large-midsize, will sticker for as little as $20,000 and gets an optional 2.0-liter turbodiesel. VW's spin on the Accord-sized and -priced 2012 Passat is that it represents "accessible German engineering." It's a key component in VW's quest to sell 800,000 cars and sport/utilities in the United States by 2018.
VW, exclusive of Audi, sold about 260,000 cars and sport/utilities here last year, and expects to sell about 300,000 here in '11.
To appeal to a wider audience, mostly Toyota, Honda and Hyundai owners, VW is replacing the smallish-midsize Passat with an Accord-sized 191.7-inch long four-door sedan on a 110.4-inch wheelbase. VW claims best-in-class rear-seat legroom. Strictly speaking, the new Passat doesn't share its platform with anything else sold in North America, though VW has commonized its transverse-engine models (which is just about everything) into the MQB component set.
Base engine will be the unimpressive 170-horsepower 2.5-liter inline five, the Jetta's volume engine, supplied out of Mexico. Just like the 2.0-liter base '11 Jetta, the '12 Passat will start with a low-priced version featuring the 2.5-liter five, for about $20,000, "a breakthrough price for VW," one executive says.
Assembly begins in VW's new Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant later this year.
