Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

Time off for good behaviour and servicing questions

By Shahzad Sheikh

16th Dec 2012-5th Jan 2013 – week 2 report here /week 6 & 7 here

It didn’t need it, but the Passat has had two weeks off as I was busy moving home and borrowed Volkswagen’s brilliant Transporter van for a few days followed by the equally magnificent Ram truck.

Not to say that the Passat isn’t capacious and wouldn’t have come in handy for load-moving duties. Aside from the worry about ruining the light-coloured upholstery – although the kids are doing a fine job of messing it up anyway – there is, as previously mentioned, a huge amount of space in the rear compartment and the boot space is extraordinarily generous too.

What I didn’t know, because there are no obvious levers to pull on the rear seats, is that they can be folded down flat to create a massive flat loading space, restricted only by the rear bulkhead access. The way to drop the seats is actually from the boot where you can pull on a couple of levers – the temptation to play a trick on rear passengers is nearly overwhelming!

Now quite a few of you have remarked that it’s all well and good the keen pricing VW is pushing for the new Passat (starting from AED93,400 with a 170bhp 2.5-litre five-cylinder, versus AED86,000 for the four-cylinder 2.5-litre 178bhp Toyota Camry), but surely your wallets going to take a hit come servicing?

Well the problem is that we won’t find out in our tenure, because despite this being a new car with only 1463km on the clock, the service indicator is showing the next service at 13,600km or 336 days! However I did ask about the servicing costs and got a response from Chris Johnson, the service manager for Volkswagen at Al Nabooda Automobiles in Dubai.

“All VW passenger cars require a service every 12 months or 15,000km whichever comes first. The standard servicing for the first three years or 45,000km (which ever comes first) is covered by VW. Of course this is for the standard servicing and does not cover such things as brake pads etc. So if the customer covers the standard KM per year (15,000 or less) he does not pay for a service until the 4th year. Another advantage over some of the other brands is the fact that you don’t have to return to the dealer every 5,000km for a service.”

That being the case, concerns over the servicing costs of the Passat, at least for the initially period of ownership, are moot. It would be interesting to hear the experience of other Passat owners out there, although with the car only having been introduced last year, it would seem that no owner should have had to fork out for servicing so far.

Another concern I personally had when I first got the car, particularly considering its length (at 4868mm it’s exactly the same length as a Mercedes E-Class and 60mm longer than a Camry) is the lack of a reversing camera or even sensors.

However, whilst these would still be very handy, I can’t say it’s been too much of an issue as rear visibility is pretty good, and it’s not too hard to judge the extremities, plus it forces you to stop being a lazy driver and actually turn around and look over shoulder as you should do.

The only other thing to report is that the heated seats are proving a boon in the mornings on the school run as we’re getting some delightfully cool starts right now.