1998 Volkswagen Passat GLS review from North America

Head gasket failed at 13,000m.

Valve gasket replaced 3 times for leaks.

Coolant sensor failed at 10,000m.

Fuel gauge sensor failed at 16,000m.

Driver side window switch failed at 13,000m.

Ongoing brake squealing (dealer has no fix)

Brake pads wear very quickly and will damage rotors without warning.

The Passat's body style and high standard feature list are what sold us. We had a relatively good experience with our '95 Jetta (though it had several initial quality problems) and felt that the Passat was a good step up. As much fun as the Passat is to drive and look at, its reliability has turned us off to VW for a very long time.

The Passat suffers from poor quality control in some areas of assembly and especially in the electrical components. We had several sensors fail early in life. We have never had this problem with Honda or Toyota. Even worse, VW's quality problems appear to be totally random and each failure is something the dealer has never seen before. At least with the Japanese marks, if there is a quality problem, it's very predictable within a given model year/range. VW is very slow to implement fixes for known defects and their dealers are totally in the dark when it comes to fixing problems the first time. Our experience with the Passat continually left us wondering what part of the car would fail next.

The Passat has gained great respect for its styling and performance. I believe the 1.8T engine is the best 4-cylinder engine we've had in any of our cars. But I'm not convinced that VW builds cars that will last a long time or be anywhere near as cost-effective to operate as some competitors. VW is growing so fast in appeal that they're missing the grass-roots importance of establishing repeat customers.