Passat R Line Estate 2019
Equipment level is also every bit as kitchen-sink as you'd expect for the money; you get VW's top-end, entirely buttonless 9.2in Discover Navigation Pro infotainment system and fully adaptable digital instruments thrown in, as well as adaptive 'LED Matrix' headlights, adaptive dampers and Area View parking cameras. VW's very latest Travel Assist semi-autonomous driving system also comes at no extra cost; it works more like Tesla's autopilot system than most other lane-keep assist systems when it comes to motorway driving, with a 'capacitive' steering wheel that only requires the lightest of hands on the wheel to remain active. Alternatively and perhaps slightly worryingly, as someone at independent safety testing centre Thatcham assured me a few months ago, an uncooked sausage cable-tied to the rim works just as well.
Since there's been no retuning of suspension for this car, it need come as no surprise that this Passat rides in typically well-mannered fashion. Those 19in rims kick up something of a fuss over coarser motorway surfaces and aren't brilliant at rounding off sharper edges on single carriageway roads, but you only really notice any roughness when you're using the firmer ride modes. Leave this car in 'comfort' and it is and does precisely as described. The four-pot engine remains muted, the gearbox slick and unobtrusive, the car's gait quite supple and calm. In fact the car doesn't impose any serious refinement or comfort penalty to speak of.
Switch to a keener mode of operation and you'll find the car has plenty of outright briskness to summon, from an engine that revs as willingly as almost any comparable turbo four-pot but which doesn't flood the mid-range with non-linear boost-derived torque.
Around 3000rpm and when locked in a higher intermediate gear, a Passat GTE feels a good deal quicker, actually; and so it should. And yet this one has good throttle response, and a moderately zesty and linear style of delivery, too, which is enjoyable to get stuck into. The twin-clutch gearbox isn't always as good at picking ratios in 'S' mode as it is during more relaxed motoring, and sometimes takes just a shade longer to deliver paddleshift downchanges than you'd like. Nevertheless, you soon get used to exactly how hurried it seems to be happy to tolerate being.
The Passat's chassis isn't one to rival the best of the rear-driven executive machines that £44,000 would otherwise buy you for handling poise or driver reward; and neither is it really transformed by the one technical change on the wrap sheet of the R-Line Edition car (VW has made this the only Passat on which the electronic stability control is fully switchable). It is grippy, precise and surefooted in most conditions, though, and body movement is controlled well considering the car's size and generally comfortable demeanor. Quicker cross-country drives can feel gently enlivening and absorbing, then, despite controls that don't provide much feedback, and handling that remains taciturn and predictable even when invited to become otherwise.
Should I buy one?
The Passat R-Line Edition might look expensive even to VW diehards. If I wasn't absolutely convinced that I needed so much space, this tester would find it hard to justify at a price that puts it fully £6000 above an outgoing Golf R Estate; a car that, spaciousness aside, does pretty much everything this Passat is seeking to do, but does it all with more pace, character and enthusiasm.
And yet that makes the top-level Passat's case seem harder to make than it need be for some. As a pretty humble family wagon made ever-so-slightly special, and just a little bit rare and collectable, this car has a very particular and quite niche but nonetheless real sort of ownership appeal.
Source: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/volkswagen/passat/first-drives/volkswagen-passat-20-tsi-r-line-edition-estate-2019-uk
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