Hi guys.. I bought a 2014 Passat TDI last year and it has exceeded all my expectations. After one year of driving it We have it settled into averaging 41 MPG per each tank full. This is combined local and freeway driving. On the road to and from Las Vegas I am seeing 44 at 80mph on CC.
Last time I came home I drafted a Suburban for 70+ miles across the desert from state line to outside of Barstow. It got 48.6 MPG on that trip home and it cost me $21 in fuel. 7 gallons for 340 miles. Not bad!
The car has 140hp but is a torque motor, and if you drive it that way (no need to exceed 3500rpms) it delivers excellent performance.
The 6 speed gearbox is easily controlled with your throttle foot, and you can row thru the gears easily. It is running 2200rpms at 80 mph and cruises effortlessly at 80-90 mph. Passing times are quick as there is a gear for everything. Punching it in bottom gear yields a nice turbo lag and then wheel spin from hell. Best to come out of the hole easy and as soon as it picks up 2nd you roll the throttle into it and away you go,,, the 20 to 50 time is about 2.5 seconds. Getting on the freeway is all about 2,3,and 4th gears and you're doing 80 mph with two subsequent upshifts to the stacked OD's. This car doesn't even feel like it is moving below 80 mph and if you don't look at the speedo, that's where you end up. 65-70 is ole lady speed.
There is absolutely no reason to take this engine to 4K rpms. You do it all with midrange torque and the gearbox.
This car is an absolute joy to drive on trips. Oh, a Passat is a North African Wind. It seems that VW marketing is obsessed with North Africa.
I have an older German guy I have breakfast with at McDonalds frequently, he was part of the VW Engineering Department, and did testing on all the cars here in the US up til 2005. He is extremely intelligent.
Two weeks ago I bought a 2015 Touareg. Touareg's are North African Goat Herders or something like that.
This car has the 3.0 V6 Diesel engine and an 8 sp Gearbox. It is still learning how I drive , and I am still learning how to drive it smoothly.
The power on this one is considerably more than the I 4 in the Passat. It is 240HP and over 400ftlbs. It is more powerful than the Cummins B 5.9 in my 95 Dodge Truck by a considerable margin and half the size.
The gearbox I'm still learning, but bottom gear is nearly useless as it's all done about 20mph, 2nd gear doesn't last long either, but 3rd is where you roll the power in and then 4th you're at 80 mph waiting for 3 more shifts down to 2K rpms at 80mph. The gears are about 250 revs apart which is exactly what you'd expect with 8 gears
This car is much faster than the Passat and the Passat is by no means sluggish or slow. This engine wants to rev a little higher but like the I4 there is little need as the midrange is where all the power is all at.
I had been trying to figure out how this body compared to the Audi Q5 or Q7. My friend told me it was not part of that line. The Touareg is a Porsche Cayenne with a different front clip and a different engine. It is easy to see when you see them side by side.
So far I'm loving this car. It is a lot more car than the Passat and was also $20K more . Much smoother on the road, but since it is a heavier car the fuel mileage is not going to be comparable to the Passat. So far with only 900 miles on it I'm seeing 26-27mpg combined. I'm taking it to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks, so we'll see what it will do on the road. I expect over 30MPG which for the size of the car is quite acceptable.
If we got Audi A4 wagons with Diesels here in the US, I would have bought one. If we got A6 wagons with diesels I would have bought one. We don't get either? Why?
I have no idea. Marketing departments run on a different type of logic than the rest of the world.
I now have two new VW diesel cars and I really like both of them. Both of the MBZ's went down the road to new owners. Still have my Dodge, the DeScrambler, and my CJ5
Now The only gasoline car I have is my CJ 5 which hasn't ran in 8+ years. I'm fully dieselized. Just hope they don't stop making the fuel. My wife would hate me if she had to drive the CJ5!
Randy