Last year's Passat was a solid vehicle with a roomy interior and refined ride quality. Based on our brief drive in a prototype of the new Passat, those pluses remain. But then, they should鈥攖he car is basically the same as it was before. Even though the new Passat shares only its roof with the old model and appears slightly more dapper, it remains instantly recognizable as a mainstream Volkswagen sedan. With its prominent body-side crease running from nose to tail and more three-dimensional front-end styling, the Passat closely resembles VW's compact Jetta. The Passat's interior is similarly overhauled visually, in a style wholly reminiscent of the old Passat's cabin. A classy new full-width-appearing vent stretches from the center stack to the passenger door, although climate-controlled air only flows from its far right corner. We detected no great leap forward in the cabin materials, which as before skew toward the basic end of the spectrum, particularly around the lower half of the door panels, the bottom of the dashboard, and the center console. Volkswagen's other notable upgrades to its mid-size sedan have to do with the equipment it offers.
An 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (along with SiriusXM satellite radio) is now standard. As before, VW includes safety gear on the base model such as forward-collision warning, automated emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, and rear cross-traffic alert. Buyers can pay more for adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and niceties such as 18- or 19-inch wheels, a Fender audio system, keyless entry with push-button start, and nappa leather seating surfaces. Unchanged aspects of the Passat include its suspension, the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that was new to the Passat for 2017, and the six-speed automatic transmission. Volkswagen performed some tweaks to the engine to increase its torque production to 207 lb-ft, up 23 lb-ft; it again makes 174 horsepower. The base engines in numerous competitors have more horsepower, including the naturally aspirated four-cylinders in the Mazda 6 and the Kia Optima. Few consumers will realize or care that Volkswagen carried over the old Passat's New Mid-Size architecture, rather than shift the Passat to its newer MQB platform.
Every other U.S.-market Volkswagen uses MQB except the Beetle and the value-oriented Tiguan Classic, the old Tiguan that VW sells alongside the new model at a discount. By not using the newer components, the Passat is boxed out of the fresher infotainment screens and digital gauge clusters available in other VWs. The evolutionary Passat takes no risks, and its intelligently allocated updates (maximum surface change where customers will notice; little deeper down, where they won't) likely were far more affordable to Volkswagen than a full redesign. It's a logical strategy given the rate at which consumers are abandoning mid-size sedans, once the industry's biggest-selling non-trucks, for crossovers and SUVs. Too bad the sedan segment is shifting to an emotional sell for customers. Competitors are putting on a braver face and lobbing ever more stylish, better-turned-out four-doors at shoppers to try to convince them to pass on a crossover or a truck. The not quite new, not quite stylish Volkswagen, on the other hand, is playing the unexciting role of a traditional mid-size sedan鈥攖he very format its fiercer competitors and customers are fleeing for flashier duds. Luckily for Volkswagen, it has the drop-dead gorgeous, more upscale Arteon sedan on its way to our shores.
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