The Volkswagen Phaeton W12 Was a $120,000 VW Ultra-Luxury Sedan

you probably know Volkswagen for the Jetta or the golf both of which start under $20,000 but just ten years ago Volkswagen also made this the Phaeton a full-size luxury sedan designed to rival the mercedes-benz s-class this one also has a 12 cylinder engine like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari in the base price when this thing was new in 2004 was $95,000 or roughly a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in today's money that's right a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for a sedan made by Volkswagen the same company that charges you extra for a power passenger seat in the Tiguan so today I've borrowed this Phaeton from a viewer near Allentown Pennsylvania and I am going to take you on a tour I'm going to show you all of the crazy quirks and unusual features of the famous Volkswagen Phaeton w12 then I'm gonna get it out on the road and find out what it's like to drive a mercedes-benz s-class rival with a 12 cylinder engine and a Volkswagen badge on the front and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the Phaeton w12 experience click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also compiled a list of several other twelve cylinder cars that are selling for way less than their original asking price that list is relevant because the Phaeton has fallen a long way since it was originally sold in the u.s. from 2004 to 2006 now I told you the original asking price of this car was $95,000 or 125,000 dollars in today's money well the current average asking price for a used Phaeton on Autotrader is just 8700 bucks with the w12 model holding only a slight premium over the standard v8 I'm sure you can guess why because it's a Volkswagen luxury sedan when the Phaeton came out in 2004 I remember it made no sense to anybody and the 12 cylinder version made even less sense a 12 cylinder six-figure luxury sedan from a company that was making the Jetta the New Beetle the Phaeton came out right when the Toyota Highlander was starting to get popular maybe Volkswagen should have concentrated their efforts and their resources on making a crossover family SUV but they didn't and instead we have the Phaeton and anybody who appreciates weird cars is surely thankful for that now if you've been paying attention you'll notice that I've referred to this engine as a 12 cylinder or a w12 but not a v12 which is how you call most 12 cylinder engines that's because this isn't a v12 it is literally a w12 and Volkswagen created it by putting two v6 engines together to create a w12 now the standard v8 engine in this car was pretty powerful it had 335 horsepower but the w12 was a monster it had 420 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque but beyond the engine I'm gonna start on the inside now remember I told you this was a mercedes-benz s-class competitor but Volkswagen knew they'd be playing at a disadvantage with the Volkswagen brand name against an established rival like the s-class so this car is full of some of the most insane luxury features for a 2004 model you will ever see so get ready to be more impressed by a Volkswagen than you've ever been I will start with a window defogger now in your car you have a windshield defogger fine everybody does in this car there are D foggers for the front side windows you can push a little button and there's a vent right below the windows that keeps them from fogging up and the rear windows have him to the owner of this car told me he has never been able to get the windows to fog up in seven years and 80,000 miles of ownership and since we're on the subject of those rear windows this car has a rear sunshade in the back window and it has sun shades for both windows in the back doors that much is normal in a luxury sedan but Volkswagen again wanted to go above and beyond the s-class so there's even little tiny sun shades in the rear quarter windows you can put on these sun shades and be fully shaded from whatever Sun is coming through these little four-inch windows that is attention to detail and that's not the only crazy feature in the backseat in fact things are just be getting back here starting with this now this car has four zone climate control so there are zones for the driver and passenger and then two more zones in the backseat which means that I can have my air temperature back here in a completely different setting than everyone else in the car now that's not that uncommon for a luxury car but this car has more than that for example it has heated rear seats that's also not that uncommon for a luxury car but check this out it has ventilated rear seats that's really uncommon for a luxury car and it gets even crazier this car has massaging rear seats you've heard of massaging seats in the front this car has it in the back the owner of this car told me he's been thinking about trying to replace it and he's been going to luxury car dealers saying hey what has massaging rear seats and the salespeople look at him like he's crazy even though this thing had it almost 15 years ago massage and of course the rear features aren't done yet how about this each rear door has its own lock and unlock button that's not that uncommon you probably will find that in an s-class what you won't find each rear door has its own ashtray yep that's right there's one for each rear passenger now in the center of course there's a little armrest that you can put down and then you can rest your arms on it again something you'll find in most luxury sedans what you won't find in most luxury stands there's not only a center armrest but there's a center headrest so when you have someone sitting in the middle seat you can put up to the headrest and when you don't you can put it away for better visibility again amazing thinking and this center armrest has cup holders that again is pretty common less common their individual cup holders so you don't have to stare at some ugly empty cup holder if you're sitting back here alone you want to sip your drink oh and speaking of the rear headrests something truly amazing about this car that I've never seen in any other car when you open the back door to climb in this car the headrest automatically whirs into place where you will be most comfortable if the car detects that you've opened the door and then closed it and no one has gotten in the headrest goes automatically back down so the driver has more visibility of course if the car detects that you have gotten in then it keeps the headrest in place so that you can use it that means the headrest is always out of the way when there's no rear passenger and when there is a rear passenger it's in the most comfortable possible position amazing and the other thing I love back here when you go to open the little lid to containing the cigarette lighter power socket you push it and then it sort of glides open gently instead of just popping open because this is a luxury car up front two items do that one is obviously the glovebox pushed a little glove box opener button then it gently opens right up the other is far more impressive the panel below the steering column and the drivers footwell that contains the fuses even that opens gently but back to the glove box you'll find something interesting in there that's the little black zipper leather book that says Phaeton on the outside that contains all of the navigate CDs for all of the regions of the United States back when that was still a thing now interestingly that leather book is unique to the Phaeton it says Fayette and on it and that's not all that surprising but weirdly the discs themselves are unique to the Fayette and they're each labeled for the Fayette and only I guess if you got a Passat you didn't get the same navigation discs as someone in a Phaeton I wonder what the Phaeton's discs have on them that the Passats don't perhaps all the locations of five-star restaurants in banks but that just scratches the surface of the goldmine of corks and features that is the front seat of a Volkswagen Phaeton now I will start with the child locks now a lot of cars have child locks and you can lock the back doors separate from the regular locks so your kids don't randomly open them while you're driving and the Phaeton has those now most cars have just a little lever inside the door itself you click it and then the doors lock nicer cars have a button over on the drivers switch panel by the power windows that you can lock and unlock the child locks this car has individual child locks meaning that you can turn the child locks on on one side rear door and not the other side in case you have a child on one side and an adult on the other I have never seen that before in any luxury car Maybach Rolls Royce never it is truly truly impressive and then we move on to the climate Vince oh the climate vents one of the craziest things about the Phaeton now the entire Phaeton has a ton of wood all over the interior and the climate vents well there just disappeared when the car is off there would to the climate vents don't actually reveal themselves until you turn on the car and turn the climate control to some temperature where they are required and then the wood panels over the climate vents were open and they reveal the climate vent so they can blast whatever air is necessary you will notice that the middle climate vent panel actually has a cutout for the clock so the clock can always be displayed whether the climate vents are up or down now the really crazy thing is when you have the climate control set to auto sometimes those vents will remain closed the car can get to your desired temperature by sending air out of the vents on your theater by the but if you manually turn the climate control so that the air is coming out of the vents on the dashboard or if you're sending a lot of air if you've changed the auto temperature to a very different temperature it needs to get there quickly it will open up those vents they will were open and then all the air will come out until they've reached the desired temperature and then they will close again to give you that beautiful wood look you get when you don't want to see your climate control vents that is a feature you will only find in the highest end luxury cars but the craziness with the climate vents doesn't stop there in fact it only gets crazier now in your car if you want to adjust how much air is flowing through each individual vent you slide a little wheel usually there's an X or a little flowy diagram and you slide the wheel depending on how much air you want to come through in this car that doesn't bother with some pleadian little slider instead it has a switch and there is an electronic and display showing exactly how much air is coming out of each individual climate vent you want more air you push the switch to the right you want less air you push the switch to the left and the little electronic display shows exactly how much air is flowing through each vent and it gets crazier still because they have those switches and the electronic display in back which means the rear seat passengers even use the switch and see the electronic display when they're adjusting their individual climate vents which is something that will basically never happen but it's there and it's high quality and it's amazing also interesting in the infotainment system climate controls you have the ability to change the rear controls from the front seats without having to reach behind you and grab the rear controls instead just adjust it through the infotainment system you can change the temperature to whatever you want it to be not the rear passengers fan speaking of the infotainment system there are a couple of quirks there for example you can check out the tire pressure of all four tires or the spare it's that little circle near the trunk of the car there is a tire pressure monitor just for the spare tire and when it's low it lets you know that the spare is low on air also interesting in the infotainment system if you go into settings you can put the wipers in their service position meaning if you need to adjust the wiper blades just push this little button in the infotainment system the wipers pop up on the windshield and that makes it easier to access them so you can change the wiper blades but that's not the craziest mechanical servicing thing you can do from the infotainment system check this out going to service again and you can open the mechanical opening for the headlight adjustment in other words press that and you can more easily adjust the headlights or replace a bulb you do that from your infotainment system you could also do various other things from the infotainment system like view trip data and if you've ever wanted to see Phaeton w12 fuel economy well here's this one's mostly though the infotainment systems just this ancient system that you can barely even use if you've spent a lot of time around modern touchscreens isn't a touchscreen and it's rather cumbersome but it's there and it has a surprisingly high amount of functionality moving on from the infotainment system in fact just underneath it you will find in the Phaeton right above the transmission lever there are two little tiny storage trays but actually they're a sh trays and if you combine them with the ash trays in the back you will quickly realize that the Phaeton has one ash tray for each seat and then there are the cupholders which are one of my favorite Phaeton items now just like the climate vents Volkswagen wanted there to be just wood everywhere and so the cup holders are wood and they're flush with the center console so it just looks like one big wood panel until you actually need to use them then push them down and they become a cup holder again individual in other words when the cup holder isn't in use it's just sort of this unbroken plain of wood in the center console and only when the couple Durr is in use and push down does it break that plane and really reveal that there are cutouts for the cup holders now interestingly if the cup holder is in the down position and you want to get that plane of wood back in sight press a button and then it pops the bottom of the cup holder back up so that it's flush with the center console of course it's a button it's not just some mechanical release because this is the fan next up we've got to talk about the shifter which is one of my favorite shifters in any modern car I can't really put my finger on why I like it so much but it's wide and it's thick and it makes a tee and it almost looks like an airplane thrust lever you know when you shift into gear it feels like you're really making something to happen and I think it's really really cool it also is school that it has a w12 veg on it so you don't confuse this with a regular plebeian Phaeton and I also like the fact that it has a nice little wood strip on it continuing the wood theme that basically dominates this entire cabin and speaking of that wood theme it's worth noting that there is an unbroken line of wood right below the windshield in your line of sight and directly below that line of wood is a giant speaker a few other interesting quirks in the front seats of the Fayette now if you look at the little panel on the side of the seats you can see that you can basically adjust virtually anything related to the seeds but my favorite thing on that little panel are these two little unlabeled arrows up-and-down I had no idea what they adjusted so I started playing with them and I realized they adjust the seat belt now a lot of cars have adjustable seat belts in case you're short or tall and you need the seat belt to go higher or lower but this one has power adjustable seat belts push those arrows up or down and then the seat belt on the b-pillar Rises or lowers depending on where you want it I've never seen that before it's awesome it's also worth noting that the Banton's gauge cluster is basically borrowed straight from the Bentley Flying Spur in fact the Bentley Flying Spur at the Phantom came out right around the same time and they share the same 6-litre w12 although in the Bentley it's twin turbocharged for 550 horsepower it's not turbocharged in this car and only makes 420 horsepower otherwise these cars share some similarities but mostly that gauge cluster it looks basically identical to the Flying Spur and the coolest part was it's configurable it actually has a full-color display in between the tachometer and the speedometer and you can change it using a couple of buttons on the steering wheel now of course this looks ancient by today's standards but back in 2004 this was a huge deal nobody had configurable gauge clusters let alone full color ones and I remember this was a really really big idea back then also interesting with the fate ins parking sensors they don't beep and upset your pleasant experience instead the front ones are at the base of the windshield and they light up this little warning green yellow red depending on how close you are that's not that crazy but check this out the back ones do the same watch this space right above the rear window as I back up and get closer to something they light up so you can look in your mirror and see exactly how close you are to whatever is behind you and then we move on to one of the craziest features in the Fayette and one of the craziest features I've ever seen in any luxury car I truly mean that and that would be the visor mirrors now in most cars you drop the visor you open the mirror and you look at yourself in the Phaeton you drop the visor you open the mirror and you look at yourself but if you want a closer look at yourself slide that mirror over and there is a magnified mirror so that you can see your imperfections up close and it's not only on the driver side the passenger side has it too there are two different intensities of mirror in the Phaeton Sun visors now of course the Phaeton also has a power closing trunk push a button on the trunk weight and the trunk will just close and latch itself that's not all that uncommon the coolest feature of the trunk is hidden back here and it's something I guarantee you didn't know about the Phaeton unless you owned one or you're a Volkswagen tech or you're one of the crazy people who engineered this car when it was new that feature is this the Volkswagen emblem back here is not just an emblem in fact it is a hidden button you can use to open the trunk if you have the key in your pocket it has a proximity sensor it detects that the key is close by walk up push the logo and the trunk automatically opens right up you'd never know that was a button unless you know take a closer look at the operation of this now a couple of interesting things inside the fans trunk the most interesting of which is that this car has two batteries I'm serious that's two car batteries one is on that side of the trunk and the other one is on this side of the trunk behind this little netting area it has two batteries because this car just has so many electronics and crazy stuff in this giant engine that one basically powers the ignition and the other powers all of the stuff inside this car now trunk mounted batteries are really difficult to get to if you have a dead battery and you need to jump the car so fortunately there's a little jump point under the hood under a little panel that says plus minus you can jump the car from there without actually having to tear apart your trunk lining the other interesting thing inside the trunk that would be the Phaeton literature if you've ever wanted to see what the owners manual of a w12 Phaeton looked like well here it is in all of its glory now you never know what you might find inside the Phaeton literature for example here is a description on page 40 of book 3 about how you can lock all your doors in an emergency by peeling back a little rubber thing on the driver's door to find a hidden keyhole who knew but I went and checked and yes there it is there's the hidden keyhole in the driver's door with the rubber caps still on it ready to be peeled off so you can lock all the doors in an emergency now although most of the Phaeton's quirks and features are on the inside or in the trunk and the exterior styling of this car scene is relatively simple there are a few interesting items of note on the outside for example I love that this little piece of chrome trim running down the side of the car doesn't end on the doors Volkswagen could have just stopped it on the doors and saved money but instead they kept it going on to the front fender and the rear fender because it just looks a little better they had to add this tiny little 2 inch piece of aluminum trim to every Phaeton front and rear on both sides but they did it just because they thought it looked better and that's what you get when you buy a hundred thousand dollar luxury car other interesting Phaeton exterior quirks how about the windows they're double pane they're ultra thick in order to provide better sound insulation the drawback the owner tells me that his e-zpass won't transmit through the windshield he has to hold it out the sunroof or out the front window because the front windshield is so thick to keep the sound out of this car that it can't transmit to the tollbooths I also love the fact that Volkswagen doesn't bother with reflectors on the outside of the door so that cars driving past all that the door is open instead they stick with actual lights to make it even more obvious the doors are open and not only do they do that on the front doors but they have those actual lights on the back doors and that is impressive attention to detail that is something most Phaeton owners will never notice but with that said there are a couple of drawbacks to the styling of this car in fact there's one in particular and that was it was pretty bland most people confused it with the Passat the owner of this car tells me nobody ever recognizes this thing on the road or at a gas station and that was its biggest problem trying to sell a hundred thousand dollar car with relatively anonymous mulk swaggin look-alike styling you never really know you were looking at anything more special than a Passat unless you saw in the back that it said Phaeton and as these things go you'd never even know that you were looking at the ultra special w12 model unless you saw the tiny little w12 bed is on the back that's the only way you can tell this is a w12 and that Phaeton badge in the back is the only way you can tell that it's a Phaeton otherwise to most people to the untrained eye it's just a Volkswagen probably cost 30 $40,000 but those people don't know about the hidden trunk button or the window defogger buttons or the hidden cup holders or the vents that go up and down or the little electronic items okay so those are all the interesting quarks and the cool features of the famous Volkswagen Phaeton w12 now it's time for maybe the most important quirk of all driving around in a Volkswagen sedan that costs 38% more than a Porsche in 911 back in 2004 all right driving the Fayette now I gotta say putting the kind gear is already just a wonderful experience shifting and putting in gear the gear lever is just it just feels like you really are having an effect in the world obviously the seats are tremendously comfortable there's an enormous amount of room here there's like four inches between me and the sunroof which is crazy because I'm six four so I guess this car was designed for someone insanely large and tall and the seat is very comfortable plush leather it's not like that hard Japanese leather from the 90s it's very nice feels great obviously the car is tremendously quiet there's no I don't haven't heard any engine noise yet although I'm sure the engine is there I saw it before I had somebody give it some gas Wow it's much quicker than it should be given what this vehicle is and what its size is it is decidedly not as quick as the Bentley I'm driven the Flying Spur as many of them and having the twin turbochargers even though it's only 130 more horsepower it has an effect that Flying Spur is really feel like sports cars this feels like a fast luxury sedan and that is definitely different so a lot of people say oh the Phaeton is just a Bentley well there are some differences and that's that's certainly one of them the handling is far from athletic you can tell the steering is is is not vague but it is very light you are the goal was luxury here they weren't intending to make a sports car and they knew that there's body roll and the steering is not incredibly precise but that's not really the goal of this car the goal of this cars are sort of waft down the street and it does that magically this car doesn't feel tremendously far behind the really crazy luxury cars I've done there's no more road noise or interior noise the ride claw is not quite there you don't quite feel like you're in as much of a cocoon but honestly it's it's not that far behind driver than Phaeton w12 is is like a childhood dream come true I can now check off f40 Phaeton w12 Mercedes over 63 AMG those are those are the three big one I like to hear when you push the accelerator you like to hear there's you don't hear the engine sound as if it's obtrusive or annoying but you sort of hear it just building ultimately one of the problems in this car though is by being 13 15 years old it doesn't have you know any of the modern tech it has all this cool features that we all think are insane like massaging seats in blah blah but it doesn't have adaptive cruise it doesn't have the 360 camera all this stuff that you get in a you know a basically any modern luxury car that's the one thing that would prevent you from making this you know experience similar to a modern mercedes-benz like the other problem of course would be the potential maintenance and repair bills this car could generate train tracks are always a good measure yeah this car is just so it's just so composed at every level and the the sound is very done you do hear a little bit of noise from the engine but it's it's for me as an enthusiast I kind of like that the Bentley's and stuff keep even that little bit of noise out it's not a sports car the goal is not service 60 performance with this type of car it's to make it's to get you where you need to go as as quickly as you need to but but you don't have nothing excessive and even on backroads and stuff this isn't made for that and that's what I'm on I'm on these great country roads in this car that made that but I could imagine cross country in this thing just sitting back in this comfortable seat and just hanging out and so that's the world-famous Volkswagen Phaeton w12 it's a ridiculous absurd car but it's a ridiculous absurd car that every enthusiast has lusted after at one point or another mostly to be turned away by pricey maintenance costs and potentially high repair bills this car was sold in Europe all the way through 2016 but it only lasted in the United States for three model years and frankly it's easy to see why most luxury sedan shoppers want the status symbol of a luxury badge to go along with their luxury car that's understandable nonetheless I'm glad I had the opportunity to get up close with the famed Phaeton w12 and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the Phaeton looked fine but that was one of its biggest problems its design was nice but it wasn't a standout and it gets a 5 out of 10 acceleration the w12 does 0 to 60 in 5 point 8 seconds and according to the Doug score acceleration chart that gives it a 4 out of 10 handling is OK like I said it's not designed to be a sports car and it gets a 4 out of 10 cool factor is a tough one in certain audiences this thing gets a 10 my friends and I send each other photos whenever we see one of these on the road but to 99% of people it's just a Volkswagen so it can't score too highly and it gets a 6 out of 10 finally there's importance and I just can't pretend this car has some grand significance to the car world it's more significant than a cheap economy car but it's no exotic and it gets just a 5 out of 10 bringing the total weekends just 24 out of 50 which frankly seems about right as for the daily categories starting with equipment the Phaeton is loaded with cool stuff but since I'm judging these cars by modern standards it's low on all the tech we've come to appreciate and the infotainment system looks way behind so I can only give it a 6 out of 10 comfort is highly impressive falling only just short of the best luxury cars and it gets an 8 out of 10 quality is a mixed bag the interior is very nice and it's aged very well but maintenance and repairs is the opposite it's quite troublesome and that means no matter how nice it is inside this car can't break a 6 out of 10 as for practicality the trunk is surprisingly small with just 13.2 cubic feet of cargo space which should earn at only a four but the back seat is so large and spacious I'll bump that up to a 5 out of 10 finally there's value this car may be a nightmare to own but you can't deny it's an enormous amount of car for 10 grand and it gets a 7 out of 10 bringing the total daily score to a relatively high 32 out of 50 a figure it deserves and it all up in the total dug score is a respectable 56 out of 100 not bad for a used Volkswagen you can buy for like nine thousand bucks on auto trader

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 4,610,525

Rating: 4.8021307 out of 5

Keywords: volkswagen phaeton, vw phaeton, phaeton, phaeton w12, vw phaeton w12, vw phaeton sedan, volkswagen w12, vw w12, w12 engine, phaeton w12 vw, doug demuro, demuro

Id: 1kIbRwNopWw

Length: 27min 44sec (1664 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/syndmn]

An interesting quirk he missed (my grandpa has one) - the scroll wheel that controls the infotainment actually stops when you reach either end of the volume/climate control, as in you can't turn it anymore.

[u/rsmtirish]

Why am I not surprised there's Book of Mormon in the glove box?

[u/bk335]

Contrary to popular belief and like Doug says, a W12 isn't actually shaped like a W, it's really 2 VR6s put together, making it much more of a V. Pic of block

[u/EatSleepJeep]

Repair costs for something this expensive and production-limited must be absurd.

[u/TheKittenConspiracy]

Random anecdote but I almost got run over by one of these. All I could think was wow out of all the cars to almost kill me of course it would be a Phaeton. Getting killed by a W12 VW would've been a heck of a way to go.

[u/Bendrick92]

It seems like almost all of Doug's videos are making it to 1 million+ views nowadays. As someone who followed him back when he was the funniest guy on Jalopnik, this is a strange thing to comprehend. Especially considering his format and style hasn't changed!

[u/StaniX]

This car is so tempting, its a Bentley for 10k. It even tricks you into thinking maintenance is cheap because its a VW.

[u/FuckCazadors]

Have you driven a V10 diesel Phaeton Doug? Although the V6 TDI is the only sensible engine for a secondhand buyer the V10 TDI always seemed like the best engine choice to me.

One of the test criteria for the Phaeton was that it ought to be able to do 300kph/186mph through a 50C/122F outdoor heat while the air-con kept the interior at 22C/71F, which just speaks perfectly to the depth of engineering which runs through the car.

[u/ExplosiveMachine]

The Regular Car reviews really touched on the styling well by describing it as "stealth wealth".

I can imagine someone reasonably young just making it in some bitcoin business or inheriting some wealth and buying the flashiest lambo or fully speccing out an S class and riding around in style, but this car, this car is for the guy in the highest level executive position in some or other Uberhauptsgesteckwerke GMBH, that just wants to go to his job in extreme luxury, go home to his wife and 2 kids and quiet country home in extreme luxury, and wants everyone else to mind their own business.