Overview & Reviews

The 2012 Volkswagen Passat has been fully redesigned. Highlights include a lower price, a roomier interior and a newly available turbodiesel engine.

• Roomy cabin
• Refined ride.
• Many upscale features come standard
• High-quality cabin
• Available fuel-efficient turbodiesel engine

• Rearview camera not offered.
• Lackadaisical throttle response
• Below-average braking distances

User Reviews:

Showing 1 through 10 of 83.00

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  A Couple of Tweaks Needed - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By robbykay - December 7 - 2:28 am

  This car is great. Very enjoyable to drive and loaded with all kinds of goodies. Excellent value. The Fender sound system is beautiful. Handling is nice and tight. Great car, so far. Ive only had it for 1.5 weeks, so hopefully no surprises. Tweaks needed: The touch screen interface is pretty slow. It usually takes a few seconds before theres any reaction. When highway driving, that can be an big issue. Also, the trunk is difficult to close. Im a 511, 200 lb guy, and when I give the open lid a tug, not only does it not close, it re-opens completely. I have to give it some effort for it to close on the first try.

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  Great car, lousy service - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By dplok1 - November 21 - 5:07 am

  It disappoints me to write a negative review since this is a great car, but, the electrical problems, dealer service, and VW of Americas poor service are genuine issues. For the first 5K miles this car was outstanding. After that it began having unusual issues -- seat belt warnings for no reason, losing Infotainment presets, cruise control switching off, instrument cluster resetting to factory settings, etc. Several trips to the dealer resulted in repeated "We just cant find the problem". Eventually, the instrument cluster began returning to zero everytime the car was turned off so I no longer know its actual mileage. VW claims it was designed to do this. Still not working.

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  Missed Opportunity - Poor Quality - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By dfwtdi - November 14 - 2:37 pm

  Let start by saying VW designed this car for people like me at they got my attention. I went out and bought one. In favorite features I will list what I love but: In my 2012 Passat TDI I get a pretty loud fuel sloshing noise from the back. The dealership confirmed the sound exists in other 2012 Passat TDIs as well. This sound is at its loudest when the diesel tank is about 1/2 to 3/4 full; it makes loud thuds (diesel sloshing sounds). The VW service manager is very helpful but he says that is a design flaw and VW does not have a solution for it right now. He says may be if enough people complain they will come up with a solution. Besides this I have at least three different rattles fixed.

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  Like the car but very poor headlights - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By caseydog3 - October 7 - 7:15 pm

  i bought this car in July and overall Ive been pleased with it EXCEPT for one extremely important thing. The headlights are terrible. I traded in a 1999 Nissan altima for this car and never had one problem seeing at night. Not only did the passat not come with foglights, but the low beams arent the projector type. The combination of the two is very poor. Now I had to go to a specialty shop to inquire about custom headlights just so I feel safe driving at night. I did a test drive during the day with this car and all the others. I never even considered this would be a problem. I called the dealership about it and they dont even make upgrade headlights for the passat in U.S.

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  Edmunds has a great tool for finding a vehicle - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By QATL - August 28 - 8:22 pm

  I purchased the 2012 VW Passat. The VW Passat has a great value at this time however I do regret that I have to wait for the airbags to get repaired. The vehicle was recalled for the airbag safety. This is my first time owning anything other than a Toyota, Camry. I was in the Toyota family for 25 years. I have only owned it for two weeks so we shall see if the VW family can live up to my expectations of a quality vehicle.

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  Very happy with my Passat - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By johnwild - June 8 - 1:37 pm

  The last VW I owned was a Rabbit Diesel, I loved that noisy, smelly car and it got great mileage. Since then I have had a couple of Mercedes Diesels, I also loved them but the mileage was nothing to brag about I bought my Passat 4 months ago and now have almost 8,000 miles on it. I recently took a 2400 mile round trip and got an easy 45 mph at highway speeds. Now at almost 8,000 miles I get amazing mileage. If I keep my speed around 50mph I get almost 60 mpg!! Im loving this car, even though the oil companies are ripping us off on Diesel. I wouldnt hesitate to buy another one or send a friend to VW to buy one either. Great Car........5 stars!

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  Love this car! - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By scott314 - May 2 - 10:27 pm

  After 13,000 miles in six months I truly enjoy my Passat. The V-6 is remarkably powerful and makes driving a lot of fun. It has a pleasant growl when accelerating briskly but is very quiet otherwise. I have had two minor problems - the iPod cord quit working but was replaced under warranty, and the dealer even replaced the wiper blades under warranty which I found impressive. My biggest regret is that the V-6 is not available with a manual transmission. The automatic works fine, but ... Other than that, it rides and handles well, its roomy, its quick, it gets good mileage and I get lots of compliments on the appearance. (And the Fender stereo is amazing!)

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  Awesome car, with BAD customer service!! - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By ashafi - April 5 - 10:31 pm

  This is my first VW, and its awesome, it caught my eye and I couldnt resist it and had to get it. However, I had so many issues, from bad dealership experience to bad customer service from VW corporate office of America. I completed the paperwork with Momentum VW of Fairfield, CA, initially everything went smooth, but the car wasnt in stock and was promised to be delivered in 1-2 days, which took more than a week, but in wrong color, plus very poor customer service, no followup. Contacted VW USA, but regional mgr, Daryl didnt help at all, in fact didnt even return my calls. I ended up canceling my order with this dealer and went to a different dealership, compromised on the options!!!

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  Better than basic transport for tall drivers - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By Paul Erbe - November 19 - 11:35 am

  I recently purchased a 2012 Passat S(manual) that must have been coming off lease. Even though this is the base model it has everything you would ever need. Expert reviews ding it for lacking rear-view camera and navigation. Todays smartphones handle navigation just fine and how about looking over your shoulder to back up. I drive almost 90% off the highway and my combined mpg has been 25.66 for my first 2500 miles, seems fine for a car of this size. I do occasionally make a 60-70 mile highway trip and the on board computer has reported those trips getting 40 mpg. I am big and tall (65" and 300 lbs) and the front seat leg, head and shoulder room are all more than sufficient. AS a matter of fact I dont need to have the seat in the furthest bask position. I have two son who are also tall(65" & 61") and they can easily sit behind me in the back seat.

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  Too many issues have made me regret this purchase - 2012 Volkswagen Passat
  By mercuriciodide - August 30 - 8:59 pm

  The light cover wouldnt stay on on the drivers side door, so I had to take it in later for repair. They claimed it was repaired but the next time I brought it in for another issue, they replaced the entire door panel without asking. The new door panel was lower quality than the old one and flexes a whole lot, especially in winter, making considerable noise and giving the car a very cheap feel which is very frustrating since it cost $30,000. When I brought up the flexing door panel problem the service manager said he would bring up the issue to a visiting VW exec, get a resolution, and call. After months of waiting, I heard nothing. When I brought it in, another manager refused to fix it.