gavriil

Hehehehe...

soopa

cant argue with that.

i actually LIKE the VW label. but i dont like the service VW dealers bring to the table...

so yep.. both points are on par

Sarlacc

Ok i though the rear seat of the Phaeton were cool when i thought that was a DVD system.

But When i saw this huge console was nothing but climate control...what a waste, and giant annoying eyesore.

srika

Wow after seeing the interior pics... That "VW" symbol just looks sooo....... BIG... sorry but, what are the first images that flash in your head when you see or think about the the "VW" symbol?

The Beetle of course:


But also, the Rabbit:


The Scirocco:


The Fox:


The Jetta:


Ok now, I know these are some pretty crude examples of VW's. But really now. Let's think about this. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all had visions of more upscale, luxurious versions of their cars. And they came up with Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura, respectively. This was definitely necessary before Toyota could price a 4-door sedan at $50,000 in 1989 or whenever. Acura comes by with the Legend, an albeit affordable luxury sedan, but then introduces the $80,000 NSX. It was OK. Infiniti does its thing too. Now, in 2004, VW wants in on that type of market, and wants to do it without changing their name in any way, shape or form. I think that's the issue. I think VW should have created a special new brand, for this car. It would have sold better then.

srika

srika

btw one of my friends had a 2003 MB SL500...... and he complained about its build quality - loose dash panels, suspension not as solid, other things like that. He's had MB's before, and he said he was shocked by the things he noticed in the SL...

srika

Zapata

:sqnteek:

jimcol711

they are discounting these things big time already, this car will be a total bust, who wants to spend 95k for a fucking VW??? give me a break. its a beautiful car but a HORRIBLE desision to make it a VW.


you can get the W-12 version around here for around 80k now, heavy discounting is all over the newspapers. the V8 version is about 65k now in this area

Crazy Bimmer

cuz americans are sheep :o

Zapata

seems like a nice car. If the quality / relability can be held in check then i think that VW COULD sway some people......

I think the biggest reason people are having issues is the looks. The styling is so cookie cutter it's pathetic. 95k, i want that car to look unique, not like a fuggin PASSAT.

Seems like VW dumped all the money and energy into everything except the looks.

Other than that, looks good.

soopa

well i actually think the car is damn fine looking..........


but they took WAYYYYYYY too long to bring it to market. so your right... it looks like all Audis/VWs now


but this was actually the first of this new design theme. just dunno why it took them so damn long to implement

soopa

and whats worse is the new passat is going to be even more look-alike.


yea... phaeton resale is gonna suck.


but if you own the best car ever built.... why would you sell it anyway

soopa

oh and btw... this car was never intended to SELL.

Dr. Piech said EXPLICITLY that there was never ANY intention of this car selling well or turning a profit.

This is an image machine... and I think in a subconcious way it paved ground for acceptence of VW's recent entry's like the Touraeg... a superbly designed luxury SUV that costs more than the competition... but is popular as all hell and selling like mad.



VW had/has a bad image. Meanwhile they make cars like Audi's, design components for Porsche's, Lamborghini's, and Bugatti's.

People are stupid.

VW needed to show the world that they could built the ultimate example of a fine automobile UNDER THE VW MONIKER. They did it.... and they will reap the benefits from it.


Dr. Piech is a genious. Anyone who doubts his brilliance is mad.

Zapata

yea if you can afford a 95k car..........resale value is the least of your worries.....

soopa

very true... even tho this isnt a 95k car.


maybe 95k out the door with taxes for a loaded W12.


but the V8 model is luxuriously equipped and reasonably priced at 65k... a bargain among its ""competition"".

soopa

ya... i think that was an afterthought or some shit. very out of place.

thank god its optional. its a component of the `4-seater` model.... which has a fuckload of goodies for rear passengers. that screen also houses controls for stereo, in-seat massage, heated/cooled seats, 10-way adjustable REAR seats (the CL's front driver is only like 6 way. heh), and 4 zone climate control.

soopa

mama mia!

Crazy Bimmer

VW needs to hire Adam to sell these things

gavriil

Hehehe...Exactly.

gavriil

Hahahahaha....

cusdaddy

I sat in the Phaeton at the car show. I saw it in person. It's damn boring from the outside and inside. Everyone I was with agreed that the A8-W12 was a much more exciting car from both the outside and inside. But again, opinions are like assholes...

1SICKLEX

I need more fingers for all the buttons in the Phaeton....

srika

I thought you drove a Z?

srika

cusdaddy

Where did I saw I didn't drive a Z??? I was talking about my experience seeing both cars at the Detroit Auto show 2 weeks ago...

Is it meant to imply that by driving a Z, I can't have an opinion on other cars??? I guess you can't have an opinion either, as last time I checked, a Supra wasn't in the same category/league as these cars either

Zapata

refine lux is RARELY set your hair on fire exciting....save that for the ENZO to do. YOu want your ultra lux ride to be quiet, unassuming, ultra comfortable, safe, offer state of the art technologies etc.,


phaeton seems to fit those catagories. I think this is home run for VW. I think they need to work on the exterior styling more to set it apart from mass production VW cars.

cusdaddy

Don't get me wrong.. I think the Phaeton is a very nice car in it's class. I just thought that compared to the A8-W12, the Phaeton was boring. I'd personally like a little excitement with my luxury if I was spending that $$

Zapata

i agree the a8 has more of a presence but i think it ends there.

srika

it was kind of just a joking comment, that's why I put the smiley at the end.

srika

Beltfed

Not anymore, the first 300 or so W12s in the U.S. came in under $90k base. Dealers were pissed that only 300 came in, every W12 painted black/ivory interior. So the next wave of W12s will have a base price of $95, 215. VW had to raise the price due to the Euro/$.

cusdaddy

Gotcha... Sorry! My bad!!

I guess after all of the Z bashing threads, I get a little defensive!!

soopa

hrmm.

http://www.vw.com/phaeton/price_us.htm

Beltfed

Weird right, you can't even build a W12 on VWs site because what's here is here for the time being.......guess until the next batch comes along.

SpeedyV6

2004 Volkswagen Phaeton V-8A: People's Car for Wealthy People
By JAMES G. COBB

Published: January 25, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/au...=all&position=



PERHAPS you trailed the Grateful Dead in a paisley-painted Microbus, or crammed the whole family, with luggage, into a Beetle taxi in Mexico. Maybe you and a buddy recreated that da-da-da commercial for the Golf, cruising aimlessly and picking up discarded furniture.

Whatever richly memorable experiences you may have had in a Volkswagen, you probably did not have them in a memorably rich Volkswagen. That may soon change. After decades as an icon of the counterculture and a symbol of sensible chic, VW has elitist aspirations. Its latest model, the 2004 Phaeton, goes where no Jetta dared to tread.

My test car had a sticker price of $73,365 - and this was only the entry-level Phaeton V-8. That tab included $1,000 for Antibes Blue paint and $300 for chestnut interior trim. (For $1,300 you could have once bought an entire new Beetle, with paint.)

Did I mention the gas-guzzler tax?

It is $1,300 for the V-8, which has an economy rating of 15 m.p.g. in town and 22 on the highway. (The more thirsty flagship model, the Phaeton W-12, is rated at 12/19 m.p.g., which earns it a $3,000 surcharge.) Whatever deficiencies your old VW may have had, it was not penalized by the government for poor fuel economy.

That sound you hear is the final nail in the coffin of the Age of Aquarius.

The Phaeton (pronounced FAY-tun) is a large car aimed at the biggest Mercedes-Benz and BMW sedans - and by extension, the new A8 L from Audi, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. This is not a lightweight crowd on any scale, and I must note up front that the Phaeton holds its own on the road against some of the world's best sedans.

The Phaeton is a bit longer than either the Mercedes S-Class or the extended version of the BMW 7 Series. It has the most powerful V-8 in the class. (Borrowed from Audi, that engine produces 335 horsepower in the VW, 5 more than in the A8 L.) The passenger compartment is huge and the appointments are second to none.

The Phaeton W-12 goes further. Its engine, a W-shape 12-cylinder, will show up later this year in the Bentley Continental GT supercoupe, whose twin turbochargers will raise the horsepower to more than 500, from 420 in the Phaeton. The same basic engine, expanded to 16 cylinders, is destined for the $1 million Bugatti Veyron, another future product from the relentlessly upward-striving VW Group.

Compared with the Veyron, the Phaeton is a relative bargain. The flagship W-12 is $98,215 including shipping charges and guzzler penalty. Just a few of the $10,900 in possible options will make it the first six-figure Volkswagen.

If you find this shocking, consider that the company has run advertisements that read, "What were you guys smoking?" In this case, the guys were in the executive suite.

A few years ago, Ferdinand Piëch, the strong-willed chairman of the Volkswagen Group, decided that VW needed to compete head-on with its fellow German automakers. Mr. Piëch, who has since retired, ordered up new vehicles that incorporated a range of technical innovations like VW's exclusive W-shape engine.

First to arrive was the Passat W-8, a plush $40,000 version of the midsize sedan, which drew a yawn from customers. Last year brought the Touareg, a respectable sport utility with an inscrutable name (and a price that can top $50,000), developed in conjunction with the Porsche Cayenne. Now the Phaeton, which has sold poorly in Europe, is rolling onto American shores.

There are several reasons to be skeptical about this überwagen. When you think of luxury, VW doesn't spring to mind. Its dealers, who must now pamper demanding luxury-car buyers, rank well below the industry leaders in customer satisfaction.

Nor has VW been scoring high in quality rankings, including Consumer Reports', and the company angered customers last year with its delayed and seemingly disorganized response to a spate of ignition coil failures.

There is also the matter of cannibalism. Americans can already buy a large, powerful, all-wheel-drive sedan from the VW Group, the Audi

A8 L. Like the other upscale new VW's, the Phaeton might be expected to steal sales from Audi. VW officials dispute this, asserting that the two brands appeal to different customers. Audi's target is BMW, with its sporty image, while VW aims at Mercedes, with its reputation for solid, safe, well-engineered automobiles.

One might think the Phaeton is simply a rebadged A8, but this is not the case. While their V-8 engines and all-wheel-drive systems are essentially the same, the A8 is made of aluminum and the Phaeton of steel.

The Phaeton is therefore the chubbiest kid in the class. At 5,194 pounds, the V-8 model weighs 730 pounds more than the BMW 745Li. Some 55 percent of the weight is at the front end, contributing to a tendency toward understeer - that is, a resistance to change direction.

Still, the car is a sweetheart on the open road, as I discovered on a trip from New York to Detroit, and back. Engineered for the autobahn, the Phaeton gobbled up long mountain stretches of Interstate 80 in western Pennsylvania. The 200 m.p.h. speedometer is just for fantasy, since the top speed is electronically limited to 140 m.p.h., but the car feels so unruffled that anything seems possible.

Solid, substantial and stable at any speed, the Phaeton reminds you of the sorts of heavy, understated sedans that Mercedes used to build. An air suspension lets you adjust the shocks from firm to soft, and you can raise or lower the ride height by pressing a button.

While the styling is conservative, the car has presence simply because of its size. Yes, it resembles a Passat that has been stretched and inflated, but you won't mistake the two cars on the road. For one thing, the Phaeton grille carries a tortilla-size VW emblem, and for another, its rear roof pillar has a sharp, elegant rake that gives the car a formal air.

The cabin is especially special. VW's interiors are among the industry's best in terms of design, materials and execution, and the designers outdid themselves on this cost-no-object car. There is just the right amount of wood, richly lustrous without being polished to the point of plasticity. The leather is first rate.

You may drive the car for a while before you realize that something seems to be missing. The dashboard air vents are hidden behind wood panels, which motor out of the way only when you set the climate control to direct air at your body. Otherwise the heat is radiant, emanating from the porous surface atop the instrument panel. Four sets of controls allow occupants, front and rear, to create their own climate zones.

The seats in the test car adjusted 18 ways, with built-in heaters, coolers, massagers and lower-back supporters. A motor shortens or lengthens the bottom cushion at your command, and another tilts the top of the backrest separately from the section below it. The back seats can be adjusted all sorts of ways, too.

Still, while I had no specific complaints about the VW seats, they failed to impress my backside like those in the big Audi.

Every new car in this class gets more electronic gizmos. Aside from power air vents and a power rear sunshade, VW adds a power shade under the power sunroof. The trunk lid raises and lowers by itself, in theory, though it occasionally froze in midair, forcing me (or the hotel bell captain) to try to force it open.

And while I am continually impressed by Teutonic engineering, the Germans still struggle with low-tech things like cup holders. Before I had even left Manhattan, my standard half-liter bottle of water had tumbled onto the floor a half-dozen times; the holders are too shallow and too wide.

Nor have the German automakers embraced the less-is-more philosophy when it comes to electronic controls. While BMW forces you to call up menus with a mouselike device, an approach that Audi adopted and significantly improved upon, VW's approach is closer to that of Mercedes. An array of 12 buttons calls up various functions (including audio system, climate control, navigation aid) on a central dashboard screen. On either side of this screen, eight more buttons correspond to listings on menus that change depending on the system being addressed.

While not as maddening as BMW's iDrive, the VW controls are hardly user-friendly, and I found myself browsing menu after menu, trying to find the tire-pressure monitor. Is it embedded behind the Vehicle button? Under Settings? What does Manual mean? I tried the Help button, but it was unhelpful.

You must also push a button to agree, each time you start the car and try to adjust the air flow, that you will not allow these distracting controls to distract you into a crash. The screen also urges you to "obey traffic laws," which is useful if nagging in-laws cannot ride along.

The navigation system deserves special mention, because it is perhaps the poorest I've ever used. It is CD-based, requiring eight discs to cover the United States and Canada (instead of a single DVD) and slow to respond to commands.

Worse, it is exceedingly hard to program, and the map displays are largely uninformative. In many rural areas, the map simply shows an icon, representing your car, on a line, representing the highway. In urban areas, you see a grid of streets without names - even in Manhattan, where it's nice to know that you are merging onto the F.D.R. Drive and not into the Lincoln Tunnel.

In the Cleveland suburbs, the map didn't bother to display the names of towns or intersecting roads, but from time to time an obscure cemetery or golf course would pop up.

While the Phaeton will let you know if the fuel-filler cap is loose, it will not let you fast-forward or reverse a music CD - as you can on many economy cars - so you can catch a passage obscured by the navigation system's voice prompts.

I found I liked the Phaeton much better if I switched off the navigation system. The big VW is easy to drive, comfortable, quiet and classy, and despite its electronic overkill, it manages to feel understated. It may appeal to well-to-do consumers who disdain designer labels.

Still, given the choices in this class, I'd opt for the Audi, which is lighter, better looking, more contemporary feeling and more prestigious, for just $3,000 more.

But in the end, the big sticker may not mean much. VW is already offering subsidized leases - as little as $697.92 a month for three years on the Phaeton V-8 - to counter lower-than-projected demand.

VW has certainly proved that it can build a luxury car. Now it just needs to prove that it can sell one.

phattyCL

Good article...kind of instigates some tension and seems to pose a challenge to VW. Bottom line, I am glad that VW is doing this. I think its a great move for a company to reinvent themselves and try to capture a different part of the market at the same time. Although I am very curious to see how well the Phaeton does in the US.

VW is trying to recapture their customers in a different cost category, one they only currently compete in with their A8L flagship. Its a great thing because by selling the Phaeton and the A8, VW/Audi can compete with Lexus, and MB at their level AND offer a more affordable vehicle with quality features. The introduction of the Phaeton has boosted VW/Audi's sales so much that they are in VERY close running with Lexus and MB. Short of it is that VW made the Phaeton because in that upper level luxury vehicle category, they dont make any money. Nobody buys the A8 in the U.S. which means people all buy the Lexus and the MB and VW/Audi gets to see no profit in that category.

Anyways, I hope it does well and that people can see past their opinions about the Phaeton.

phattyCL

why not compete with everyone? :P

SilverCL225hp

I don't like to be too positive about anything, but this time.......hehe $95k for a VW sedan? Are they out of their mind? The base price for a Lexus LS430 is $55k only, and a fully loaded one wouldn't pass the $75k mark. Even this VW is 12 cylinder so what? It is going to be a failure.

Minch00

I went and looked at a W12 this past weekend, simply because I drove by and was like "What the hell is that?". All I can say is this car is NICE for the money, I think it looks fantastic, with more options than I know what to do with. I wasn't allowed to drive it (90k sticker), but when they opened the engine bay I almost had to buy a new set of pants.


The car is rediculous, without a doubt the most luxurious car I've been in. But then again, I haven't been in many.

cusdaddy

My friend just got back from getting service done on his GTi and he said the dealer had a lease deal on the Phaeton V8 for $655 a month...

That's crazy! I guess they want to get these off the lot

CLpower

same reason teh S2K isn't an Acura I suppose.

They'd sell A LOT more if it was an Acura, sad to say, but it's true.

ItalianStallion

i agree with the posts that say this car is boring. it just doesnt do much for me in any way shape or form. i dunno maybe im weird but it looks just as bland as any american car or any VW. the Audi version makes much more of an impression and dont even try to compare it to the BMW or MB. the 7 Series and the newest facelifted S class are a couple of the best looking cars on the road.

24_karat

S2K is da bomb. Would probly sell better with an Accord V6. Not that there's anything wrong with the 2.0L 4 but V6's have better bragging rights & would prob sell better. Have you ever lifted the hood on an S2000? There's a shitload of room there, prob enough for a small block V8.