Anyone like VW Phaeton? or hate it?

Wondering if anyone here owns one or knows someone with one and what their impressions are and how their impressions might be biased one way or another.

I'd like to hear the good and the bad from actual experience.

VW made these pigs for 3 years 04-06. It's similar to an audi a8 and a bentley continental. You can get them with a v8 or a w12. and RWD or AWD.

Thinking about getting one as a Daily cruiser as my Lex has almost 200K on it now.

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Michael LeCompte

on paper they sound fine. But getting them repaired is the problem.

Out of warrenty they will cost a fortune and since they didn't sell a lot of these, even the dealership tech's won't be trained on how to repair them = more collateral damage

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-Jason

true.

If you buy one with less than 40K miles, you can get a factory warranty for an additional 4 years 48K for around $1600. $400 bucks a year is cheap insurance.

I just went and looked at an '04 with 41K. It is much nicer than the A8. $22,700 was the sticker and this is was flawless. Silver w dark grey guts. The seats are heated, air conditioned and massaging and something like 18 way adjustable.

It has a sickening amount of toys. But it's just more to go wrong... So I just can't make up my mind. My SC400 has 192K miles on it and it's starting to need everything.

Do I keep it as a work in progress and fix all the little shit thats seems to be going bad on a weekly basis or stop the bleeding and buy this damn thing which could turn out to be a curse?

Or should I get a subie outback, or something else?

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Michael LeCompte



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 06:45PM by pikespeakgtx.

Get a Passat CC!

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

turoc Wrote:
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> Get a Passat CC!

With either they'll probably also need everything well before the 192K mark.
What's wrong with another Lexus?
I personally would never consider spending more thank $10K on any vehicle, but I'm cheap. I'd also probably just about never buy anything other than a Subaru, but I know how much easier everything is to do on a Subaru compared to everything else and I don't like paying people to do stuff on cars so I have to be able to maintain it easily.

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Grant Hughes

One think I don't get is the VW in the Staes is one of the worst in quality.
In Europe they are the best, beating MB, Lexus and Toyota! Only Porsche is better.
Maybe J.D Power's rating is just made to sell certain cars? They rate only the first year customer satisfaction which can be as silly as if the service writer said: "Good morning!"
PS. These kind of "odd" luxury cars are sometimes the best buy, so go for it! I'm waiting Maybach to get bad rap so I can pick one of them cheap

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- RWD rocks -

Interesting. Maybe it's because my friends run a VW/Audi repair shop so I get to see how much a pain in the ass some of the service items are on them.
But I have to say, I watched the Top Gear clip and the Phaeton is pretty damn cool. I'd rock one of those before any other VW and really, for what it's original retail was, they're pretty affordable. I'd find one with under 40K and definitely spend the extra $1600 though!

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Grant Hughes

Check out this one :



This is 5th gears review and it shows VW's high tech manufacturing facility in Germany where they make the phaeton.

The hood is aluminum, the fenders are plastic, the doors are aluminum, the trunk is aluminum, and the roof and 1/4's are steel. The windows are dual panel!

The thing weighs 5300lbs and still gets 24mpg on the highway.

It's got 4 ride height settings and 4 comfort settings.

Check out the crash test:



w12 with no exhaust :



I went to check this one out.
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?ct=p&car_id=258198358&dealer_id=63790533&car_year=2004&rdm=1238781491743&model=PHAETON&num_records=25&systime=&make2=&highlightFirstMakeModel=&start_year=1981&keywordsfyc=&keywordsfyc=&keywordsrep=&keywordsrep=&engine=&certified=&body_code=0&fuel=&awsp=false&search_type=used&distance=0&marketZipError=false&search_lang=en&showZipError=n&make=VOLKS&keywords_display=&color=&page_location=findacar%3A%3Aispsearchform&min_price=&drive=&default_sort=priceDESC&seller_type=b&max_mileage=&style_flag=1&sort_type=priceDESC&address=90026&advanced=y&end_year=2010&doors=&transmission=&max_price=&cardist=37&standard=false

I'd really like to see what kind of money these things are bringing at Mannheim.

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Michael LeCompte



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 11:54AM by pikespeakgtx.

neat stuff

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Kirk Coughlin
Woodbury, MN and River Falls, WI

Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.

I worked on a VW info film for this thing around the time it was unveiled at Milan. We had the only prototype in the US at the time. It got 6mph on the highway and kept overheating in Ridgecrest. It had lots of cool little gismos, but everyone was skeptical of how long they'd go before they broke. It was a freakin' rocket, though with that W12. Since we had the road closed, the Chippies were using the radar gun on it and it had some pretty impressive 0-100 times. We dared the stunt driver to outrun the Jetranger helicopter (top speed is about 130), but he wouldn't do it because that would require another take.

...Brian...

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
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> Wondering if anyone here owns one or knows someone
> with one and what their impressions are and how
> their impressions might be biased one way or
> another.
>

One of my friends had two of them. (That's a lie. One was his wife's) They seemed to like 'em well enough.

Another friend reviewed one of the cars, leading to one of my favorite lines evar:

"the fit and finish of every panel meet the standards of German perfection that prevented them from effectively mass-producing cheap military equipment during two world wars."

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.