Our Alltrack - the first 7500km

[Marakai]

Hello all,

It's been a long period of silence since just before we took possession of our Alltrack. Literally a week after we got the car my then-employer decided they no longer had need of my services (me and about 1,500 others, oh and they just got banned from doing government business in one state, I'll let you figure out who it was). Obviously after the first anger/shock/denial my life's focus went into finding a new job. That search, I'm happy to say, was more than successful and after getting through the queue of things that were put on hold and subject to finding employment, I have some time to post my impressions on our Passat Alltrack.

Overall: a wonderful car. I love driving it, just look forward every time I sit in it. It's a car that *wants* to be driven, driven fast in fact. It's quiet, smooth at any speed, even on the neglected country roads of rural Victoria.

We had one little annoyance pop up when after a mere 2-3 weeks we noticed a horrible grinding noise when backing out of the driveway and then driving forward. Bringing it to the shop, it turned out that Volkswagen was *very* generous in sealants and lubricants around the drive and axle area. As a result, with us living off an unsealed road, a lot of dust and little rocks accumulated quickly. A proper cleaning by the service centre resolved that without any lasting damage.

Otherwise, broken down in good and bad:

Good:

- Must start with ACC. Single most favourite feature in the car for me. It was made for sharing the road with the average clueless Australian driver. The workload and stress decrease made it worth every cent. It really works as advertised. While it took a while for me to "trust" it (as in not constantly hover my foot over the brakes), I now have experienced it safely bringing a car to a full stop as fast as I would have done. It adjusts distances based on speed and I have the fine-tune lever set to exactly my comfort zone for safety. It's only occasionally that somebody uses that gap to squeeze in - mostly in rush hour freeway traffic - forcing the ACC to re-adjust. Never find it that big a deal. A little play with the accelerator to shorten the distance a bit is sufficient without having to muck around with the level.

- Off-road mode. As we don't have our car to look fashionable in the suburbs , we actually get to use the off-road mode, especially when it gets muddy. It's probably subjective but it feels like the whole car gets wider and deeper and becomes absolutely glued to the track. It seems to also essentially switch the transmission into S mode, or otherwise changes the gear pattern. Great feature and precisely what I would expect as what makes this car distinct from its non-Alltrack cousin.

- Start/stop. I know some people dislike it, but I love it. I experimented a lot with it; when to use it, when to turn it off. Generally when there's traffic lights, I leave it on, or stop and go traffic. In traffic with lots of roundabouts, I turn it off in heavy traffic entering and I know I'll have to wait but be able to move very quickly. As I've found that sweet spot on the brakes where you can bring the car to a stop without the S/S kicking in, I can leave it on most of the time. I haven't done any special testing of leaving it on and then off for whole tank filling or such, to see just what the effect on consumption is (more on that below, in Bad).

- Overall driving. I'm a fiddler. I've actually read the manuals (all 400+ pages) cover to cover and then went to play with all the functions. Continue to do so. Which means I have developed patterns where I now instinctively use various functions of the car. None of the buttons are left untouched, each has its use in the right conditions. Which means I wouldn't call a single feature of the car a "useless gadget".

- Towing. So far I've only towed smaller trailers, but the adapter (7 ping flat) works as advertised, though I had to get the VW LED adapter. But with that, all lights and brakes on trailer work, as well as the car correctly recognising the trailer and not going into some weird spazzy mode like some have written. Probably smart decision to have an original VW towbar installed.

- Heatable seats: winter, rural Victoria. Must have for your tuches! Enough said!

Bad:

- Consumption. Even after 7500 km I'm not seeing a notable decrease and am quite disappointed that the car seems to have settled into about 850km per tank filling. That's about 200km less than what I hoped for and expected. Even allowing for winter driving. We don't use winter tyres. In Australia you don't flog your car on the Autobahn going 200km/h. We (no longer) do city roads with stop-and-go. Rather it's country roads and freeways with long constant stretches at 100km/h. No frequent towing. Most of the time only one, maybe two people, not loaded to the gills. Yes, 7l/100km doesn't sound bad, but I feel it's a bit disappointing for the driving pattern. I would have liked and expected to see 6l/100km. This is likely "first world problems" style whinging.

- Nav/GPS. Seriously VW, this is pathetic. Google, heck even infamous Apple, Maps run circles around you. Shocking, the roads it doesn't know about in this day and age. And most of all the routes it would have me take, even in major cities is just mind-boggling. I love pitting it against my own knowledge of the area and against Google Maps on my phone. Just to see the utterly baffling advice the lady in the little box gives. For a car of this calibre utterly unacceptable.

- Media. While I had no issues with hooking up my old iPhone and storing it in the little box, the controls could be a lot better. Have to use the console unit far too much, which is distracting and dangerous with the sluggish touchscreen, as the steering wheel controls do nothing but "next song" and volume control. On top of that, now that I got an iPhone 5 and have to use the 30pin/Lightning adapter, I can no longer store the phone and close the glovebox. Apple didn't come out with the Lightning adapter yesterday, Volkswagen. When are you going to bring out a direct Lightning cable?! And when are you improving your integration? For a while I also used an Android unit - and that was even worse, almost nothing worked without actually controlling music from the phone and only using the GNS for audio and volume control (even that often failed, once even crashing the entire Android). Could someone call Wolfsburg's radio/car-media team and tell them it's the year 2013?

[The One]

Great write up mate.

Totally agree with the Sat Nav issue, complete utter useless, only thing going for it is that it looks good with the dash...

The fuel economy your getting seems quite good IMO, although everyone has their own opinions. I do agree the Alltrack is a great all round car, I cannot wait untill I purchase one, because it will be the day I buy a car with 'cream' leather and go golfing all day long - har har har ;p.

So overall average rating /10 on the car matey?

[Guest001]

Put your music on the HDD or an SD card and it will all work and you don't have to open the glove box and you can have your phone on BT for calls Simples 7 L per 100km isn't to bad I only get 6 in my standard Passat.
Just remember to keep the brakes on hard enough to keep the clutches disengaged or they mightn't last long.

[Marakai]

So overall average rating /10 on the car matey?

8/10. If I take consumption out of the picture, even 9/10. The nav/media isn't enough of a major issue, as it's didn't have any influence on the purchase decision. It's simply one, if not the, best car I've ever owned, and that includes bimmers and Audis in the past.

[Marakai]

Put your music on the HDD or an SD card and it will all work and you don't have to open the glove box and you can have your phone on BT for calls Simples 7 L per 100km isn't to bad I only get 6 in my standard Passat.

Though with an SD it seems you don't get Playlists, which the system picks up from an iPhone. It's nice to click on "road music", then mix and let it do its thing.

Just remember to keep the brakes on hard enough to keep the clutches disengaged or they mightn't last long.

Hmm, actually hadn't considered that. Need to keep that in mind in the future, as I *do* sometimes let the car roll ever so slightly, meaning the clutch is engaged. Didn't know that might be a bad thing!

Cheers!

[The One]

Though with an SD it seems you don't get Playlists, which the system picks up from an iPhone. It's nice to click on "road music", then mix and let it do its thing.



Hmm, actually hadn't considered that. Need to keep that in mind in the future, as I *do* sometimes let the car roll ever so slightly, meaning the clutch is engaged. Didn't know that might be a bad thing!

Cheers!

6 and 7 speed DSG clutches are quoted by Volkswagen to exceed the 300,000km lifespan mark, you're sweet mate.

[Guest001]

6 and 7 speed DSG clutches are quoted by Volkswagen to exceed the 300,000km lifespan mark, you're sweet mate.

What VW promise and what they actually deliver appears to be two totally different things in lots of vehicles. LOL

Letting you car "creep" or hold in place on a rise is exactly the same as riding the clutch in a manual and will eventually result in a very similar burning smell and lack of drive.

Stop Hold brake on fully DONT CREEP.

[WestOiler125]

Excellent summary.
On stopping - Use "autohold", it allows the car to stop and be ready to go rather than the burp and go of an Start/Stop restart. For me the fact that "autohold" can be left engaged but you need to disengage Start/stop with each drive (if it doesn't suit - and I hit heavy freeway traffic daily, so it often doesn't), is the biggest disappointment. Autohold is the best feature for me, no sitting on the brake at each stop, and in my Passat 08 I used it exclusively with no adverse effects after 115000kms.
I agree on the SatNav, what's it with the dumb map resizes everytime you hit map. What use is a 500km scale!!! And how the radio will change stations of its own accord, although I do like how you can have your favourite AM and FM stations on the one page. Ipod integration - yes is average.
Park assist is excellent, just don't trust it to handle bullbars! Yesterday I used it to get out of a very tight parallel park, somebody had parked very close at the rear, and it worked exceptionally well, especially given how much the sensors were screaming! I'm not sure how many owners are aware that this feature also gets you out of a tight park.
On the tyres, at a recent event a Continental rep told me they should reseal if punctured and to look for "conti-seal" on the side wall. It is there, so does anybody have experience post puncture??

[Marakai]

Excellent summary.
On stopping - Use "autohold", it allows the car to stop and be ready to go rather than the burp and go of an Start/Stop restart.

Thanks, need to play with that. I only use autohold on inclines, so far.

I agree on the SatNav, what's it with the dumb map resizes everytime you hit map. What use is a 500km scale!!!

Heh, yeah especially when the scale is so large that it's "faded" everything out and you're looking at a blank screen. Maybe it's one of those things that works well in Germany. Might have a Passat with nav when I'm going o/s in a few days (I requested one at rental), so I may be able to check.

Park assist is excellent, just don't trust it to handle bullbars! Yesterday I used it to get out of a very tight parallel park, somebody had parked very close at the rear, and it worked exceptionally well, especially given how much the sensors were screaming! I'm not sure how many owners are aware that this feature also gets you out of a tight park.

Indeed. Took me a bit to trust it but, like you, I can now fit the car onto an A4 piece of paper.

On the tyres, at a recent event a Continental rep told me they should reseal if punctured and to look for "conti-seal" on the side wall. It is there, so does anybody have experience post puncture??

Speaking of tyres: on the very first day I calibrated the pressure gauge in the MFD. After all this time I would have expected that it needs a top up but so far nothing has pinged at me. Maybe the tyres are just better in holding air?

[Eaglen00b]

Very late contribution to this thread, but if you select the map view to 2D instead of 3D, the scale won't change from what you set it to be.