Gotta post in this one......

I love my B4V (aka Passat TDI wagon).

I'm on my second one, and can think of no car more perfect for my needs at the moment. Space for the kids, dogs, all their accoutrements AND my bikes. Combine that with limo legroom in for the rear passengers and an average of 45 mpg, and what's not to like?

With only about 1500 imported during '96 and '97, they do command a premium on the used market. Anything with under 100K on it in even average condition will fetch over $10K (they were only about $21K new). When I found my second one at Christmas last year, it had 39K, and was a one owner, traded in by the Austrian Embassy here in DC. I could have quite easily turned it around and gotten $13K for it. Just couldn't bring myself to do it though.

They are a bit slow off the line, but like someone else mentioned, you have a 1.9 turbodiesel hauling 3500# of car. On the highway though, they will scoot quite nicely between 60 and 90, in 5th. Add a chip (which hopefully I will be doing very soon), and performance is up to about the same as the VR6 version.

As far as the engine and maintenance goes, yeah you have to do the T-belt at 60K, which sucks. However, an experienced person can do it in under two hours. And while not as roomy as the engine room on a 300d, its remarkably spacious in there compared to most other modern cars.