2015 Volkswagen Passat first drive review

The mid-size luxury car segment has a new competitor.

Or at least that's the thinking behind the new Volkswagen Passat, the eighth generation of the German brand's best-selling vehicle.

With dwindling global sales of mid-size family cars, the overhauled Passat is essentially an expression of simple German logic: build a vehicle that straddles both the basic passenger car segment and the premium segment, therefore appeasing a larger demographic.

"We wanted to break the boundaries with this car," the Passat's technical boss Dirk Nessenius tells Drive.

"The (mid-size) luxury car segment is a stable market, but the lower end of the segment is a shrinking market, so our goal is to satisfy both. We have a trend of challenging [sister company] Audi, that was the intention with the new Passat."

The Passat has always been a more refined take on the family sedan, but the latest iteration feels decidedly more upmarket. The seats are comfortable and supportive, lush materials adorn most of the visible panels and there is acres of interior space fit for five adults, thanks to an exhaustive internal makeover in which dimensions were stretched without making the car any longer or heavier.

The Teutonically clean interior is only enhanced by the driving experience. Rolling off the line in any of the cars available at car's launch in Italy this week, there is a genuine sense of tranquility inside – little road noise, minimal vibration and a lovely fluidity to the steering and drivetrain. Any low-speed hesitation and lurchiness found in Volkswagen's earlier dual-clutch gearboxes has seemingly been ironed out of the Passat's automatic.

On the pockmarked B-roads around the Mediterranean oasis of Sardinia, the Passat impresses with its excellent bump absorption, suppressing smaller undulations without fuss and showing no sign of unwanted mid-corner kickback. Only the sharpest of bumps manages to upset the cabin, though without being crashy or jittery.

Ten different engines will be offered in the Passat globally. Volkswagen Australia has confirmed two of those thus far – a 132kW 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol, and a 135kW 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel – with a third derivative on the cards. Having only sampled the latter, a new 176kW/500Nm bi-turbo diesel, it must be said that it should be at the top of Volkswagen Australia's priorities

The top-shelf four-cylinder oiler offers sharp acceleration off the line, blazing through its seven gears with honed precision and timing. Thanks to the use of two turbos – one for low-range revs and one for the upper echelons – there is barely any semblance of dreaded lag. Instead, the engine revs cleanly and unhindered right up to its 5000rpm cut out, helping facilitate a spritely 0-100km/h sprint time of only 6.3 seconds. It is also efficient, sipping on a claimed 5.3L/100km combined in sedan guise. The only mark against the engine is some noticeable diesel clutter at low speed.

Approaching a fast right-hand corner, the Passat pulls up with reassuring bite, tipping into the apex with little body roll.

The steering lacks the initial bite of Volkswagen's sportier models but it weighs up progressively and offers excellent feel and feedback. Both the 1735kg wagon and 1721kg sedan tend to writhe under their weight through corners and feel slightly nose-heavy, but thanks to all-wheel drive grip, prove lithely and engaging. Only when the boundaries are truly pushed do the Passat's traction and stability control functions come into play.

The prodigious diesel is enhanced by Volkswagen's different driver settings, including a sport setting and a comfort setting. In daily driving, the engine spins lazily between barely perceptible gear changes, while also providing rapid bursts during overtaking manoeuvres. When tweaked to sport, the steering, engine – and on certain models, adaptive damping  - sharpen slightly, without changing the handling characteristics seismically.

Volkswagen hasn't held back on technology with the new Passat. It gets as standard a digital screen in the place of the traditional instrument cluster. The clever display projects everything, from speedometer readings to satellite navigation maps. More whiz-bang applications are coming with the approaching rollout of Apple Carplay and Android Auto, Volkswagen tells us.

In addition, the Passat will come standard with an automatic emergency stop function in which the car applies its brakes to lessen or mitigate an oncoming impact at low speeds.

This attention to detail merely bolsters the Passat's traditional strengths: refinement, driving enjoyment and in the latest variant, a more functional layout (including a 586-litre boot in the sedan, 650 litres in the wagon).

The caveat is that Australian showrooms won't receive any new models, including the prodigious diesel, for another year due to unfavourable global timing.

The Passat isn't a car you'd necessarily lust after, but if priced right, it could happily please premium and non-premium buyers alike.

Nuts and Bolts

Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TDI 4Motion

Price: To be confirmed

Engine: 2.0-litre bi-turbo diesel

Power: 176kW at 4000rpm

Torque: 500Nm at 1750rpm

Transmission: 7-spd dual-clutch automatic, AWD

Consumption: 5.3L/100km (sedan)