Passat lands a haymaker

What is so great about going from zero to 60 in 7 seconds? Unless the driver is on a race track, she/he is breaking the law and putting others in danger, not to mention the fact that expensive gasoline is consumed at twice the normal rate. As to the cost, it seems very pricey to me.

Wonder what the fuel consumption is like? Not a word about that in the referenced article.

No one doubts that VW designs some really great cars that are fun to drive. However, their weak point the past few years has been reliability. If they are using the same electrical components as in the past and making engineering gaffes like reducing the oil capacity of a turbocharged engine to a little over 3.5 quarts and recommending 105K timing belt changes when the belt can fail at 60K miles, they'll get no more than an initial bump in sales out of the new Passat and then a lot of dissatisfied buyers when they have to visit the dealership month after month for problems and face a major repair cost in less than 3 years of operation.

I'll wait a year or two before I consider the B6. By then it will either show some indication of decent reliability or be on sale at a substantial markdown. . .