Just a Big Passat - Volkswagen Phaeton
Discussion
Apologies in advance for the essay - this is my first posted thread, and I wanted it to be about something vaguely interesting to other people!
The backstory to this car is I've probably wanted one of these for the better part of two decades or maybe even longer. I could never really pinpoint exactly why I wanted one, or why I thought that they were cool; I just did. Maybe it was the Q-Car, the sleeper aspect of them. Maybe it was because to most people it was just a Passat.
I was always a VW guy, since I was a child, and various cars came and went when I was young, but MK2 Golfs stuck in my psyche.
My mother had a Tornado Red G-reg MK2 turbodiesel when I was about 11, and a neighbour's mother had an Oak Green J-plate run-out 16v some time in the late nineties. Things like that tend to have an effect on you, and my first car project when I was 16 was a Terracotta Pearl MK2 diesel, my third legal road car at 18 a Classic Red MK3 1.4, and then by the time I was 19, my Royal Blue MK2 8v, replete with GTi Engineering conversion. As you can see, I've got form with VW.
I remember being a teenager and talking about cars with my buddy, me being the ridiculous VAG fanboy that I was (and to be honest, still am, though my tastes have far expanded), and about the ultimate VW. It stuck with me, always keeping it in the back of my mind, but never really doing anything about it or having the means to do anything about it. I've probably had over 40 VW group products over the last 20 years, but it was always something about these that seemed too ridiculous, unattainable, and silly as an ownership prospect.
Ironic, really, that my current daily driver is from the Blue Oval, but half of the reasoning behind that decision was to curb my excessive modification of practical daily drivers into compromised machines too low to be used as intended by their dear engineers in Wolfsburg, Kassel, or Emden.
I definitely wasn't looking for a project. I definitely wasn't looking for one of these. I've had saved search notifications up for one of these for years, and the only ones that have ever come up have been UK or NI reg 3.2 VR6 ones - Living where I live, the price to pay for the tax and fuel economy wasn't enough to make me want one of those, despite the VR6 being another dying breed.
No, I always wanted a diesel one for some strange reason, having been into tuning TDIs and things like that, and the fuel economy made it bearable. If a V10 TDI had come up, I'd have bought it, but the chances of that happening were like Donald Trump resigning from the White House...
I heard from someone that there were only 12 of these registered brand new in Ireland; despite the Celtic Tiger economy, they just didn't have the kudos or the cachet, and so weren't an official import. Look for a W220 or W221 S320 CDI here, and you'll always find one. A quick check on DoneDeal right now shows 17 for sale at the moment. Nice cars, yes, and I've driven them extensively for work, but they don't ever feel in any way special or uncommon.
I've always had an eye for something that everyone else doesn't have. I wanted something just a little different from the norm. So here we are with a sort of accidental purchase. I suppose there's never an ideal time to buy another car - I bought a house last year, and that is a project in itself - but I got a sort of now-or-never feeling coming across this one that I couldn't pin down.
Diesel as a road car fuel is disappearing at a ferocious rate. This is only a 3.0 TDI, hardly a rocket ship, but that size engine is disappearing off our roads at an alarming rate. As time goes on, things like this will disappear altogether unless bought up by the right people, looked after, and used. When I was a teenager, MK2s were everywhere, and good clean ones could still be had. I've only seen 2 on the roads in as many months, and one of those was a show car on its way to a local show.
I got a notification and the pictures looked fantastic - they always do in ads, don't they?! I looked at it. Saved the ad. Every time I checked my saved ads, it was still there. I can't imagine that they would be a particularly easy sell. The €1500pa road tax for 3.0 cars pre-2008 doesn't help matters any. Our exorbitant tax rates mean anything interesting doesn't come here, or comes here for a couple of years and disappears. Only when they reach 30 years old does it become €56pa and values skyrocket accordingly.
This 2005 car had sat in my saved ads for 8 weeks or more, and I kept looking at it, every time thinking how lovely it looked. Eventually, I fell off the wagon and rang the owner. As soon as the phone was down, I knew that it was coming home with me somehow.
It took a month to get to see it. I got a lift up with a wad of cash, a set of trade plates, my diagnostic tool, and a buddy for the drive home. Brave, considering that it ran out of test in 2023.
Pleased to say the 200-mile drive went without a hitch, and the fettling could begin.
The pics I've attached are the ones the seller had on the ad. I'm no photographer, so you'll have to bear with my own potato cam shots! It's not quite as clean as it looked in the ad, but it's not abysmal, and when you're looking for a rare car, beggars certainly can't be choosers.
Sam
The backstory to this car is I've probably wanted one of these for the better part of two decades or maybe even longer. I could never really pinpoint exactly why I wanted one, or why I thought that they were cool; I just did. Maybe it was the Q-Car, the sleeper aspect of them. Maybe it was because to most people it was just a Passat.
I was always a VW guy, since I was a child, and various cars came and went when I was young, but MK2 Golfs stuck in my psyche.
My mother had a Tornado Red G-reg MK2 turbodiesel when I was about 11, and a neighbour's mother had an Oak Green J-plate run-out 16v some time in the late nineties. Things like that tend to have an effect on you, and my first car project when I was 16 was a Terracotta Pearl MK2 diesel, my third legal road car at 18 a Classic Red MK3 1.4, and then by the time I was 19, my Royal Blue MK2 8v, replete with GTi Engineering conversion. As you can see, I've got form with VW.
I remember being a teenager and talking about cars with my buddy, me being the ridiculous VAG fanboy that I was (and to be honest, still am, though my tastes have far expanded), and about the ultimate VW. It stuck with me, always keeping it in the back of my mind, but never really doing anything about it or having the means to do anything about it. I've probably had over 40 VW group products over the last 20 years, but it was always something about these that seemed too ridiculous, unattainable, and silly as an ownership prospect.
Ironic, really, that my current daily driver is from the Blue Oval, but half of the reasoning behind that decision was to curb my excessive modification of practical daily drivers into compromised machines too low to be used as intended by their dear engineers in Wolfsburg, Kassel, or Emden.
I definitely wasn't looking for a project. I definitely wasn't looking for one of these. I've had saved search notifications up for one of these for years, and the only ones that have ever come up have been UK or NI reg 3.2 VR6 ones - Living where I live, the price to pay for the tax and fuel economy wasn't enough to make me want one of those, despite the VR6 being another dying breed.
No, I always wanted a diesel one for some strange reason, having been into tuning TDIs and things like that, and the fuel economy made it bearable. If a V10 TDI had come up, I'd have bought it, but the chances of that happening were like Donald Trump resigning from the White House...
I heard from someone that there were only 12 of these registered brand new in Ireland; despite the Celtic Tiger economy, they just didn't have the kudos or the cachet, and so weren't an official import. Look for a W220 or W221 S320 CDI here, and you'll always find one. A quick check on DoneDeal right now shows 17 for sale at the moment. Nice cars, yes, and I've driven them extensively for work, but they don't ever feel in any way special or uncommon.
I've always had an eye for something that everyone else doesn't have. I wanted something just a little different from the norm. So here we are with a sort of accidental purchase. I suppose there's never an ideal time to buy another car - I bought a house last year, and that is a project in itself - but I got a sort of now-or-never feeling coming across this one that I couldn't pin down.
Diesel as a road car fuel is disappearing at a ferocious rate. This is only a 3.0 TDI, hardly a rocket ship, but that size engine is disappearing off our roads at an alarming rate. As time goes on, things like this will disappear altogether unless bought up by the right people, looked after, and used. When I was a teenager, MK2s were everywhere, and good clean ones could still be had. I've only seen 2 on the roads in as many months, and one of those was a show car on its way to a local show.
I got a notification and the pictures looked fantastic - they always do in ads, don't they?! I looked at it. Saved the ad. Every time I checked my saved ads, it was still there. I can't imagine that they would be a particularly easy sell. The €1500pa road tax for 3.0 cars pre-2008 doesn't help matters any. Our exorbitant tax rates mean anything interesting doesn't come here, or comes here for a couple of years and disappears. Only when they reach 30 years old does it become €56pa and values skyrocket accordingly.
This 2005 car had sat in my saved ads for 8 weeks or more, and I kept looking at it, every time thinking how lovely it looked. Eventually, I fell off the wagon and rang the owner. As soon as the phone was down, I knew that it was coming home with me somehow.
It took a month to get to see it. I got a lift up with a wad of cash, a set of trade plates, my diagnostic tool, and a buddy for the drive home. Brave, considering that it ran out of test in 2023.
Pleased to say the 200-mile drive went without a hitch, and the fettling could begin.
The pics I've attached are the ones the seller had on the ad. I'm no photographer, so you'll have to bear with my own potato cam shots! It's not quite as clean as it looked in the ad, but it's not abysmal, and when you're looking for a rare car, beggars certainly can't be choosers.
Sam
jamesson said:
Love these! I had a ride in one years ago and thought it was great. That was the 5.0 version and the shove from that engine was comically good.
Here's to many happy miles and low bills (fingers crossed!).
Having driven W220/221/222 S-Classes, I have to say that this car rides head and shoulders better than they do. Maybe the tyre size helps; the 19" Audi replicas in the pics have been replaced with the OEM 18" wheels.Here's to many happy miles and low bills (fingers crossed!).
This was the only diesel one that wasn't essentially scrap or on a UK reg (import and NOx taxes would probably add over €10k to the purchase price), but I was over the moon when I actually looked at it.
It's had fortunes spent on it; the previous owner sent me pics of all the stuff he replaced in the 5 years before it wasn't used, he had it for 15 years.
There are receipts for about €20k in work in there. Rebuilt gearbox, new torque converter, new turbo. Endless receipts here and in Poland (previous owner was Polish and he used to go home to see family, and get work done on it while he was there - smart move given labour rates in garages these days). Every previous NCT (MOT) cert since he had it, tax discs and all sorts of things, plus an endless number of coolant top-ups at the Audi dealer in North Dublin...
If I get a chance, I'll upload all the pics of things done - he even had the projector bowls for the headlights re-chromed.
It had been sitting for about two years unused, and it needed a good clean out; inside is very tidy and presentable - mileage is high - 245k miles - so the driver's seat is rather worn, but it's comfortable at least.
Mark Turmell said:
Lovely old tank, have you seen Hamza rebuilding one on YouTube?
Yeah, I've been following that since he put it up. I've had my poor Mrs driven demented with talk of Phaetons. She can't get it at all; she thinks it drives like a big boat, but I haven't put it on the road yet. A few small things to finish off, so she hasn't experienced it save for a 3-mile loop by our house. His one is a W12, which takes cojones, though the engine isn't really the worrying part about a Phaeton anyway.
This example has the BMK engine, standard enough V6 TDI that you got in a C6-era A6. No chain rattle (and there are 4 of them), but he did the belt that runs the fuel pump on the front. It's been impeccably maintained, I'll give him that.
I'm glad it's not a W12 - €1800 a year road tax (if you pay in a lump sum - €511 a quarter if you so wish...) and fuel economy in the teens at €1.80-odd a litre...
milu said:
That looks great on those Bentley wheels. Is that the same blue as mine, Luna Blue Pearlescent, or is it the other blue they did? The design is so understated, it's very much an "if you know, you know" sort of machine.The Phaeton is the pinnacle Volkswagen, just like the R8 is for Audi.
Both were simply created as exemplars of what the companies could do. But neither inspired future model teams to live up to that standard, sadly. Instead, the bean counters took over from the engineers, and the rest is history...
Both were simply created as exemplars of what the companies could do. But neither inspired future model teams to live up to that standard, sadly. Instead, the bean counters took over from the engineers, and the rest is history...
A little of the backstory of this car for anyone interested. I know that they are a lot more common in the UK, but here, the words "hens" and "teeth" come to mind.
It was registered brand new in Newcastle on the private registration M13 PVW in March 2005. Rarely do you get a car that way, and no history in the book beyond the PDI. By January 2006, it had the cherished reg taken off and allocated NK05 WAO, and ended up at Belfast VW dealership, Isaac Agnew.
I presume this was something to do with staying out of the Republic until it was 12 months of age (cars <12 months of age or sub 20,000 miles were considered brand new for VAT purposes, and on top of the exorbitant Vehicle Registration Tax of around 38% of a car's Open Market Selling Price, that would have made this car a very expensive prospect indeed)
It shows how good the economy was doing - this car was allocated the registration 05-D-83093 when imported at the start of April 2006 - this means that around 80,000 cars were registered in the small county of Dublin alone in 2005. Until 2012, when import-specific registration sequences were launched, imports received a cumulative registration number allocation. At least this means it only got a 5-digit identifier as opposed to a 6-digit, which makes the plate look ridiculous and hard to fit on in a half-decent font.
As alluded to in my previous posts, this car had been very well maintained over the previous owners' tenure. He had it since 2010. It was bought for continental trips and motorway work, when people had commutes, and this would certainly have been an ideal machine for relaxing motorway cruising. However, in 2020, remote work became a thing, and he started using it less and less - the mileage on the NCT certificates shows this. At one point, it was only doing 1500 miles a year. It was taken off the road and covered over in 2023, and he decided to sell this year.
I knew it was going to be bought after the initial conversation of around an hour, discussing the car and the work that he had done in his ownership. It took 8 weeks before both our schedules aligned, and I was able to go see it (though in reality I was coming home with it, hence the trade plates)
Gratuitous service station shot, it had been washed by the seller, but you can tell it's been sat as the brake discs were all rusty and full of pad transfer and green crap etc, in all the nooks and crannies. Faded polycarbonate headlamps. Rear inner lamps in very poor condition, and a body with more marks than expected, but I wasn't expecting miracles from a car with a quarter of a million on the clock, well into its second decade of existence.
The colour looked lovely and deep, and I knew that there was a very good car hiding in there somewhere with a little work.
It was registered brand new in Newcastle on the private registration M13 PVW in March 2005. Rarely do you get a car that way, and no history in the book beyond the PDI. By January 2006, it had the cherished reg taken off and allocated NK05 WAO, and ended up at Belfast VW dealership, Isaac Agnew.
I presume this was something to do with staying out of the Republic until it was 12 months of age (cars <12 months of age or sub 20,000 miles were considered brand new for VAT purposes, and on top of the exorbitant Vehicle Registration Tax of around 38% of a car's Open Market Selling Price, that would have made this car a very expensive prospect indeed)
It shows how good the economy was doing - this car was allocated the registration 05-D-83093 when imported at the start of April 2006 - this means that around 80,000 cars were registered in the small county of Dublin alone in 2005. Until 2012, when import-specific registration sequences were launched, imports received a cumulative registration number allocation. At least this means it only got a 5-digit identifier as opposed to a 6-digit, which makes the plate look ridiculous and hard to fit on in a half-decent font.
As alluded to in my previous posts, this car had been very well maintained over the previous owners' tenure. He had it since 2010. It was bought for continental trips and motorway work, when people had commutes, and this would certainly have been an ideal machine for relaxing motorway cruising. However, in 2020, remote work became a thing, and he started using it less and less - the mileage on the NCT certificates shows this. At one point, it was only doing 1500 miles a year. It was taken off the road and covered over in 2023, and he decided to sell this year.
I knew it was going to be bought after the initial conversation of around an hour, discussing the car and the work that he had done in his ownership. It took 8 weeks before both our schedules aligned, and I was able to go see it (though in reality I was coming home with it, hence the trade plates)
Gratuitous service station shot, it had been washed by the seller, but you can tell it's been sat as the brake discs were all rusty and full of pad transfer and green crap etc, in all the nooks and crannies. Faded polycarbonate headlamps. Rear inner lamps in very poor condition, and a body with more marks than expected, but I wasn't expecting miracles from a car with a quarter of a million on the clock, well into its second decade of existence.
The colour looked lovely and deep, and I knew that there was a very good car hiding in there somewhere with a little work.
dxg said:
The Phaeton is the pinnacle Volkswagen, just like the R8 is for Audi.
Both were simply created as exemplars of what the companies could do. But neither inspired future model teams to live up to that standard, sadly. Instead, the bean counters took over from the engineers, and the rest is history...
I worked for a VW dealer for a while during and after university, right around the Dieselgate time. Having seen some of the MK6 and MK7 generation stuff, I can see that while the touchy-feely part has been much improved, the actual engineering is certainly far more weight-reducing, economy/"emissions" based rather than producing a quality product with decent longevity. The amount of 1.6 TDI EGR cooler/valves supplied when I worked in parts, which was probably their top seller, and the warranty was footing the bill for it!Both were simply created as exemplars of what the companies could do. But neither inspired future model teams to live up to that standard, sadly. Instead, the bean counters took over from the engineers, and the rest is history...
For me, the entire point of this car is that it carries the VW badge. For those in the know, they understand its significance and quality of engineering, and for those who don't, it blends into the background. It's not a small car. It's the same footprint as my parents' LWB T4 Transporter camper van, yet you don't appreciate how much bigger it is until you actually put it next to a Passat or whatever. I parked it in Lidl on the way home from its NCT retest, and it was sticking out of the space by 2 feet, and that was with the boot lid touching the bushes behind...
Limited100 said:
Lovely, these do have something about them, very classy and full of charisma. After a remap, considering the 3.0 is 250 kg lighter than the V10 it's probably just as fast.
This has had a remap of some description - it's had a DPF delete, sort of unfortunately but as it's pre-DPF legislation here still fully legal.What the lack of DPF does is not help to cut down the slight blue smoke when cold from aged injector nozzles, something I believe the Gen 1 3.0 TDI suffered with and plan to replace the full set at some point when I've recovered financially from putting it on the road and sorting all the other small bits and pieces - idle is slightly lumpy when cold but clears quickly and car is absolutely fine when warm.
I haven't really pushed it hard, but it feels as fast as a 265bhp W222 LWB but with more ride comfort. I believe that these SWB ones are around 2250kg...
The plan is to get it to my mapper buddy and have the map checked and see if it's just a bare delete map or has it had power added - if not, then it'll get a map at that point, as he does really, really good custom maps for TDIs.
I put it in for NCT at the start of July and it passed the opacimeter emissions test at 0.51 - right on the top level emissions number on the data plate for when it was new - very happy with that, considering that's for a EU4 DPF-equipped car (and that it was tested at the pre-2006 smoke levels of 3.0...
The drive home was almost as serene a drive as I've ever taken.
The brakes weren't happy about being pressed into service after a two-year slumber, the headlamp lenses faded with that awful yellow crud which, when mixed with the blue of the Xenon headlights gave a strange green glare.
But the (expensive option at the time) 18-way adjustable, heated, cooled, and massaging seats soothed us for the long drive. No funny noises, vibrations, nothing to worry about, really. 200 miles of almost empty motorway, except for a few people slowing right down while overtaking to take a photo of the car, giving me the thumbs up. I even got this off some chap with a brand spanking new MK8.5 Golf GTI, this is something I'm certainly not used to in the slightest!
The morning after the 200-mile drive home in the dark, on a completely untested car (the seller had told me I should be taking it home on a recovery truck), I went out and took a look at what I had just bought. I was wondering if I had made a big mistake and if this was just going to be a big disappointment. The paint looked flat and lifeless, the alloy wheels the previous owner had fitted were certainly not to my taste, and I knew there were more than a few marks on the body. I had given the car a full inspection outside his house, but you always see something else when you see it in the sunshine outside your own front door.
As you can see in these *top-notch* quality photos
It has a couple of cosmetic issues. The rear rub strip lets it down - NLA for a long time now from VW, unfortunately, and the only Phaeton for breaking in this country, the strip was in worse shape, as the clips break when trying to remove them. The passenger side mirror has taken a knock, the cover is loose, and the indicator, though it still works, has a stone chip hole in the lens. They are available in the aftermarket, at (gulp) €130. I plan to just touch up the scabs, etc, this is going to be a driver and I won't obsess about perfection as I won't enjoy it then. It's also wide, and the country lanes where I live may take a liking to the sides. Not ideal for show-quality glass paint jobs!
The brakes weren't happy about being pressed into service after a two-year slumber, the headlamp lenses faded with that awful yellow crud which, when mixed with the blue of the Xenon headlights gave a strange green glare.
But the (expensive option at the time) 18-way adjustable, heated, cooled, and massaging seats soothed us for the long drive. No funny noises, vibrations, nothing to worry about, really. 200 miles of almost empty motorway, except for a few people slowing right down while overtaking to take a photo of the car, giving me the thumbs up. I even got this off some chap with a brand spanking new MK8.5 Golf GTI, this is something I'm certainly not used to in the slightest!
The morning after the 200-mile drive home in the dark, on a completely untested car (the seller had told me I should be taking it home on a recovery truck), I went out and took a look at what I had just bought. I was wondering if I had made a big mistake and if this was just going to be a big disappointment. The paint looked flat and lifeless, the alloy wheels the previous owner had fitted were certainly not to my taste, and I knew there were more than a few marks on the body. I had given the car a full inspection outside his house, but you always see something else when you see it in the sunshine outside your own front door.
As you can see in these *top-notch* quality photos
It has a couple of cosmetic issues. The rear rub strip lets it down - NLA for a long time now from VW, unfortunately, and the only Phaeton for breaking in this country, the strip was in worse shape, as the clips break when trying to remove them. The passenger side mirror has taken a knock, the cover is loose, and the indicator, though it still works, has a stone chip hole in the lens. They are available in the aftermarket, at (gulp) €130. I plan to just touch up the scabs, etc, this is going to be a driver and I won't obsess about perfection as I won't enjoy it then. It's also wide, and the country lanes where I live may take a liking to the sides. Not ideal for show-quality glass paint jobs!mercedeslimos said:
milu said:
That looks great on those Bentley wheels. Is that the same blue as mine, Luna Blue Pearlescent, or is it the other blue they did? The design is so understated, it's very much an "if you know, you know" sort of machine.Not metallic but just plain gloss. Kinda nightmare blue in the trade. But it suited the car I think. Sort of stately.
Anyway, enjoy your car.
milu said:
Mine wasn’t Luna blue but moonlight blue.( I think)
Not metallic but just plain gloss. Kinda nightmare blue in the trade. But it suited the car I think. Sort of stately.
Anyway, enjoy your car.
I came across one last year that colour, it really suited it. I can imagine that if it gets marked, it's eons easier to match than a pearlescent. I know on Fords the nickname is Doom Blue, and I don't know why. That car looks mint, pictures definitely flatter this one - very much a mint from 30 feet and 30mph car!Not metallic but just plain gloss. Kinda nightmare blue in the trade. But it suited the car I think. Sort of stately.
Anyway, enjoy your car.
Dave Hedgehog said:
I never understood the logic of making a highly premium car and making it look identical to a basic 15k passat
And you're right, the W12 SWB was £65,000 in 2003...One thing I've noticed, though, is that it's a common thing to do. Look at all the modern Mercs. Save for the size, they've so much bling, etc, if you don't know cars, you wouldn't really know so much. The CLA, C, E, and S are very similar design-wise wise just for size.
That is part of the reason I like it so much. I've always been into VW, and this is like a Passat but bigger, more luxurious, and incredibly well built. I've had 12 Passats over the years. While decent for the money, this is very much a cut above, especially with the material quality inside. The double glazing alone...
I’m not sure a Phaeton is something I would personally go for… but I do have a lot of respect for them.
Just like the Continental GT and Veyron; proper Piech era cars. May have been mentioned already but pretty sure the Continental GT and Phaeton share some of their underpinnings.
In that context the Phaeton starts to look like a bit of a bargain.
Just like the Continental GT and Veyron; proper Piech era cars. May have been mentioned already but pretty sure the Continental GT and Phaeton share some of their underpinnings.
In that context the Phaeton starts to look like a bit of a bargain.
Tommie38 said:
I’m not sure a Phaeton is something I would personally go for… but I do have a lot of respect for them.
Just like the Continental GT and Veyron; proper Piech era cars. May have been mentioned already but pretty sure the Continental GT and Phaeton share some of their underpinnings.
In that context the Phaeton starts to look like a bit of a bargain.
Here in this country, they are vastly rarer to find than in the UK. On the continent, while not common, I reckon 90% of examples were sold there. The US got them for 2 years only, the 05 and 06 model years, and with the Audi 4.2 V8 and W12 engines only.Just like the Continental GT and Veyron; proper Piech era cars. May have been mentioned already but pretty sure the Continental GT and Phaeton share some of their underpinnings.
In that context the Phaeton starts to look like a bit of a bargain.
Underneath it is shared with the Bentley cars (and luckily for me) the Audi A8 D3 shape. Unfortunately, it means things like airbags, adaptive dampers, and other things are very expensive to buy, but then the front arms are all shared with the C6 A6 and are peanuts to buy. Swings and roundabouts.
There is only one Phaeton I have seen on my travels (and I travel around the country a lot for work) in South Dublin, a silver 3.0 and that lives under a cover half the time and is a high days and holidays car (which this will probably end up being as I can't justify the road tax if it's going to be parked for weeks on end)
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