Noob needs help with 1st Passat purchase...

[Nico76]

Hey all,

Great to be a new member of this forum!

Looking to trade my Liberty 3.0R Spec B wagon on a Passat wagon & would really appreciate some help from the Passat Brains Trust out there...

The 2 I'm loooking at at this stage are a 2007 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT Type 3C MY07 V6 DSG 4-MOTION FSI ($36k) & a 2008 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT Type 3C MY09 V6 FSI DSG 4-MOTION HIGHLINE ($43k). Both are private sales & both have 27000k's. The MY09 has 1 year factory warranty remaining.

So, my questions are...

1. Whats the difference between MY07 Passat & MY09 Highline? (all I can see is the 09 has satnav)
2. Do you think these prices are reasonable starting points for private sales for these particular cars (both seem to be in excellent condidtion). What should I pay??
3. Any problems that I should be aware of / look out for / reason to avoid on these particular models?
4. I beleive sport suspension was an option on these? Neither have it, but I've heard the later models have an adjustable suspension or something Can someone explain this for me please??
5. I had a replacement engine on my Liberty so warranty is important (I'm erring towards the 09). Is VW extended warranty redily available? Any idea of cost??

Thanks for reading!

[kleung]

The 2 I'm loooking at at this stage are a 2007 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT Type 3C MY07 V6 DSG 4-MOTION FSI ($36k) & a 2008 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT Type 3C MY09 V6 FSI DSG 4-MOTION HIGHLINE ($43k). Both are private sales & both have 27000k's. The MY09 has 1 year factory warranty remaining.

So, my questions are...

1. Whats the difference between MY07 Passat & MY09 Highline? (all I can see is the 09 has satnav)

Without a shadow of a doubt, go the MY09 if you can afford the difference in price, and it is mechanically sound.

The MY09 got new seats, new instrument cluster and new steering wheel trim. I'm not sure when Adaptive Chassis Control was made standard, but it should be standard on the MY09 as well.

The new seats are more supportive than the old ones, with better side bolstering.

The new cluster is more readable, and gets the updated white MFD (vs the old 3-display red MFD).

The new steering wheel comes with updated controls - on the left side, you get dedicated next/previous buttons, as well as separate mute and phone buttons. On the right, you get left and right buttons to move between the MFD displays, as opposed to just a 'next' button, plus a 'back' button to exit out of a menu. With the old MFD you had to move the cursor to the 'back' option to get out of a menu.

The MY09 may or may not have the newer Climatronic panel as well. If it does, the climate control settings should be displayed on the RCD510/RNS510 screen as well.

Since the MY09 you are looking at has satnav fitted (RNS510), the standard radio isn't relevant, but if you look at other MY09s, they also got touchscreen CD/radio players (RCD510). The RCD510 probably has the MDI unit and SD card reader standard as well in the V6.

4. I beleive sport suspension was an option on these? Neither have it, but I've heard the later models have an adjustable suspension or something Can someone explain this for me please??

This is called Adaptive Chassis Control - you can choose between 'Sport', 'Comfort' and 'Normal'. It adjusts the damper settings to give you different ride and handling characteristics depending on the driving conditions. As I understand it, setting ACC to 'Sport' give similar ride to the suspention fitted on the R36.

A form of sport suspension is standard on the V6 Highline - if you look in the brochure it will tell you that the V6 rides about 15mm lower than the TDI or 4-cylinder variants (the R36 rides 25mm lower).

5. I had a replacement engine on my Liberty so warranty is important (I'm erring towards the 09). Is VW extended warranty redily available? Any idea of cost??

Yes, but make sure you get the VW new car factory extended warranty - have a read around the other threads on here for an idea of what you can get the warranty for.

[Caddyman]

The new cluster is more readable, and gets the updated white MFD (vs the old 3-display red MFD).

The new steering wheel comes with updated controls - on the left side, you get dedicated next/previous buttons, as well as separate mute and phone buttons. On the right, you get left and right buttons to move between the MFD displays, as opposed to just a 'next' button, plus a 'back' button to exit out of a menu. With the old MFD you had to move the cursor to the 'back' option to get out of a menu.

The MY09 may or may not have the newer Climatronic panel as well. If it does, the climate control settings should be displayed on the RCD510/RNS510 screen as well.

The early MY09 cars had the highline spec (sports luxury seats, adjustable suspension, Chrome bars on the grille etc) but not the white MFD, it turned up in approx Feb 09 thus MY09 cars before that still had the Red MFD.

The new steering wheel turned up in MY10 cars, not MY09.

MY10.5 was when the new climatronic panel appeared(Nov 09 build onwards)

Matthew

[Nico76]

Thaks alot for your responces fellas. This helps alot.

What do you think about the prices?