Volkswagen Passat - Reliability & safety

The latest Volkswagen Passat was too new to have been included in the 2023 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, so we’ll have to wait and see how owners rate what the car is like to live with over time. 

Volkswagen needs to do more to improve the ownership experience customers have with its cars, because the brand came in a lowly 27th out of 32 manufacturers included in the survey, only narrowly beating Ford and, embarrassingly, coming behind stablemates SEAT and Skoda.

Safety experts Euro NCAP have yet to crash test the latest Passat, but we expect it to gain a high score owing to the excellent score the electric Volkswagen ID.7 got. The ID.7 is the all-electric alternative to the Passat, which is available as a hatchback and estate.

Just like the ID.7, the Passat comes with all the latest safety assistance features. One is autonomous emergency braking (AEB) to mitigate or avoid low-speed collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians. There’s adaptive cruise control to keep you at a safe distance from the vehicle in front, plus a lane departure and keep system to keep you within your lane on the motorway. Blind spot monitoring is also standard, and warns you of vehicles alongside you in your blind spot when you go to change lanes on the motorway.

Additional side airbags for rear seat passengers are a £400 option, which is bundled with a tyre pressure monitoring system.

Warranty 

The standard three-year or 60,000-mile manufacturer warranty is quite stingy compared to Hyundai's five-year, unlimited mileage warranty or Kia's seven-year/100,000-mile warranty.

Servicing 

Those who mostly drive around town completing short journeys will be on the more frequent fixed service plan, which requires yearly trips to the dealer for servicing, or every 9,300 miles. Anyone driving more on the motorway will be on a variable service scheme, with longer two-year maintenance visits, or every 18,600 miles.