Volkswagen Passat - Boot space, comfort & practicality

It’s worth noting that, unlike its forebears, the latest Volkswagen Passat only comes in five-door estate form. Anyone who’s been waiting for the Passat saloon to make a return since it went off sale in 2021 will have to look towards the Skoda Superb instead, which will be sold in both estate and hatchback body styles. 

Every Passat comes with LED headlights, with Elegance trim and above gaining the excellent IQ.Light Matrix headlights. These are a brilliant feature that improves safety during night driving because not only will the light units accurately shoot beams of light between cars ahead of you to avoid dazzling oncoming traffic, the system will also do tricks such as light up your lane on dark motorways, or project warnings onto the road surface ahead of the car, just like the Mercedes Digital Light system. A full-size spare wheel is available for £350.

Dimensions and size 

The Passat is a large estate car at 4,917mm long, 1,849mm wide, and 1,521mm tall. That makes it 155mm longer than an Audi A4 Avant, and only 32mm shy of the pricier Mercedes E-Class Estate.

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Seats, leg room, head room & passenger space

When pitched against a similarly priced Tiguan SUV, the Passat offers tangible benefits in terms of legroom, ride quality, and general driving dynamics, once again calling into question the validity of our far-reaching SUV obsession. Much like the Skoda Superb upon which the Passat is based, space inside is vast whether you’re sat in the front or the back.

As with a number of Volkswagen Group cars, the Passat comes with ISOFIX child seat mounting points on the outer positions of the rear bench, plus another on the front passenger seat.

Boot space

The Volkswagen Passat’s huge 690-litre boot is 40 litres larger than before, and with the rear 60/40 split-folding bench folded down, this increases to 1,920 litres – 140 litres more than in its predecessor. The plug-in eHybrid has a smaller capacity boot of 530 litres with the rear seats up and 1,760 with the seats down, but that’s still a decent amount of space compared with other plug-in hybrid estate cars.

It’s a shame you don’t get a more flexible 40/20/40 split folding rear bench like premium rivals such as the A4 Avant, BMW 3 Series Touring, and Mercedes C-Class estate. There’s a ski hatch in the Passat, which enables you to pass through longer items, though.

Non-plug-in models have an adjustable height boot floor so the load area can be level with the tailgate opening. The eHybrid model, however, has a fixed-height boot floor, with a smaller compartment below to store the charging cables.

Towing

The 1.5 eTSI mild-hybrid has the lowest braked trailer rating of 1,600kg and this goes up to 1,800kg with the 204 eHybrid. Towing capacities top out at 2,000kg for the 272 eHybrid. Fitting a tow bar to your Passat is fairly pricey at over £1,000.