VW Phaeton - is this the most UNDERRATED car in the world?

welcome to the car guys well I'm back in the Volkswagen Phaeton for an extended road test this was obviously the car but didn't make it to Portugal but it's still utterly awesome now it's time for me to put some serious miles on this car and let's find out what it's all about [Music] [Music] welcome to this 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton 5 liter v10 diesel you will recognize this car as the challenge car to Portugal that Jason didn't take and so therefore it's been left with me to enjoy in his absence I'm going for a long journey to meet up with car friend Tom he's also bought Phaeton he was so impressed with this car during the search for the portugal road trip car that he's actually gone out bought one as well we're going to directly compare the two cars drive them back to back and just see what an additional 80,000 miles is like on the car itself and also what's it like having the smaller engines and Phaeton so I'm going to set the comfort setting of the suspension to comfortable adjust the seats and I get just the right amount of cooling just so and I'm gonna waft by way along the motorway so what can I tell you about this amazing car it's very understated no one will ever give this a second glance everyone will think it's a Bessette everyone will think you're safe and practical and a bit boring unlike the rs6 with its big shouty body kit and it's bright blue color and its fins and bulges no one will be jealous of it it just goes about its business and it does what it does very very well this is the definition of the Q car something that can go extremely quickly is very very highly engineered but yet no one will even notice it Satan's were made from 2003 until unbelievably 2016 this was a big flop in America in fact it wasn't a resounding success anywhere except Asia the Phaeton shared its platform with the Bentley Flying Spur famously the Phaeton was manufactured in a purpose-built transparent Factory in Dresden the driving force behind the car was the Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand pick he was extremely keen to create a luxury Volkswagen something that would outperform Mercedes and Jaguar and BMW he was very famous for being a hard-nosed boss someone who would fire you if he made the same mistake twice but as with many perfectionists leaders that did also lead to some moments of greatness from Volkswagen geek for example was responsible for the Bugatti Veyron it is still the car by which many others are judged they said about a list of requirements that were so difficult to achieve that many of the team stopped working on the project but they persevered they spent about 1.3 billion pounds and Volkswagen created a car that really did give Mercedes and its s-class a run for its money even the Audi a8 was quaking in his boots and remember us from the same group it was an enormous financial gamble which didn't really pay off until later on in its life but as a result here and now you can be part of the VW Phaeton story for less than 5,000 pounds it is the steel of the century I love interesting cars I love stuff that's got a bit of character I love things I've got a bit a story to them and I love Concorde moments now this is the v10 diesel and I'd forgotten actually that this same engine went into the not only the Tuareg the 4x4 that volkswagen did but also this was the engine that was in the audi a8 that Jeremy Clarkson famously drove from London to Edinburgh and back on one tank of fuel now I highly doubt that you can achieve that feat in a car like this that weighs over two and a half tonnes but it's still pretty cool that this engine is in this car so you're gonna get better fuel economy probably 35 miles to the gallon no problem which for a enormous luxury saloon like this is pretty good there's a lot to like about this car it's got a chestnut interior this was later changed to I think eucalyptus as the standard wood for the later Phaeton it's got a 6-speed automatic transmission which has a sport mode so you press the button on this huge sort of control arm that you select the gears with it's like it lets or think you'd find on a battleship or a starship it's the sort of thing you expect in a car that's got 750 Newton meters of torque it's limited to 155 miles an hour but Jeremy Clarkson once famously said that he'd got it one up to 201 miles an hour and I can totally believe it this is probably one of the most solid cars at speed that I've ever been in it makes the 750 feel like a wispy piece of crap which I never thought would happen it is rock solid it's permanent four-wheel drive so obviously that helps and it weighs a lot so that helps as well if you wanted to do long distances if the roads were predominantly motorway roads or Autoroutes or auto Striders or autobahns this is the vehicle for it because it will just fly along in absolute silence I can literally whisper and you'll arrive at your destination refreshed thanks to the massage seats in fact Jason spotted that I hadn't even noticed it when I bought the car but he went I'll tell you what mate it's got massage seats not a good impression Oh rolling undulation is in the small of your back occupants are cooled using four zone climate control so everyone can individually set the temperature that suits them the ride is sublime remember this is air suspension you'd expect it to be smooth and it is just like a Bentley or a Rolls Royce this five litre v10 diesel gives you a surge of torque when you put your foot down it's like riding a tsunami oh and you get quite a nice NASCAR E Rumble as well which is good liking that you put your foot down and six seconds later you doing 60 before you know it you're doing 155 on an Autobahn obviously there we go there we go look at that is a quick car it doesn't snap your head back like a like a supercar but you just get forces into your seats like in a 747 on takeoff the v10 diesel Phaeton has 308 brake horsepower and a quite colossal 750 Newton meters of torque which in old pounds feet is 553 so this thing will make a good care of an car but it is good for tearing apart planets weighs just over 2,500 kilograms so that's probably why it feels so planted on the road is because it's so flippin heavy if you're a current subscribe to the channel thank you very much for supporting us if you like the content and you haven't yet subscribed please do so now makes a big difference to us we've been growing all the time but it really does give us a morale boost to push on and make even better videos so please please do subscribe and whilst you're at it click that notification bell and leave some comments and likes because we love the feedback we honestly do since I'm stuck in a good old British traffic jam let's talk about what I like about this car I love the luxury the way that the ventilation vents are revealed behind slabs of chestnut let move up when you start the car the analog clock I like the way that the clock has a cut out piece in the dash so when it moves up you can still see the clock the parking sensors and the way that the lights are in the far corners of the dashboard and they gradually increase to show that you're getting closer to an object and the same when you look in the rearview mirror it does the same in the back this huge speaker that's at the front of the car that contributes to one of the best stereos I love the seats the 18 way adjustable seats that have got massage functions it's got a dark setting as well on the dash so when you're traveling at night very much like a Saab you can press that button and it turns off all of the sort of glaring center console display I love the fact that the seats are not only heated but also cooled the dials very clear and quite classy if you at a Bentley Continental of the same vintage you'll notice that it's identical just to remind you what car you're driving it says Phaeton on a little plaque just in front of you and what I don't like about the VW Phaeton it's got to be the looks isn't it looks is number one there's not really any Flair at all to the outside you could sort of persuade yourself that it's a bit elegant and a bit timeless that's about as much as you can get out of the design of this car I'm not sure about the combination of the chestnut and the gray interior and the grey plastics that's a bit lexus e and it's a bit 90s they've thought of everything these Phaeton engineers they've looked at every single function of a car and they've asked the same question how can we make it better and then they did the sort of central computer and entertainment system is something to behold now adays it looks incredibly clunky and a bit commodore 64 but back in 2003 this must have been like a space shuttle there's so many features you've obviously got detailed air-conditioning and climate control in auto mode you can ask it to set the car to exactly the right temperature and it will maintain it automatically without you ever need them to touch it you've got a phone it's an old Nokia if you can find a sin for that then obviously can make phone calls the navigation does still work it's a little bit basic but it's perfectly fine even now one of the things that isn't working on this car is the tire pressure monitor system one of the interesting things about that is it monitors the spare wheel as well you've never seen that ever on a car there's nothing more satisfying than seeing in a car watching television trust me on that one now you have to remember this is a big car it's two and a half tons it's two meters wide it's five meters long so you're not gonna be in a hustling through the corners like a hot hatch yes you've got sports suspension you can firm that up you've got sports gear changes you can just quicken that up but this is in no way a sports saloon and if you try and hustle it into anything it's like trying to power slides and Paul's Cathedral it's just not gonna be happy doing that tree with a bit of respect and just relax back into these luxurious seats and enjoy the view that's how you drive a Phaeton not like a panther on fire car friend tom has arrived with his v6 diesel Phaeton his has done one hundred and forty seven thousand miles versus my 67,000 miles so we thought it'd be interesting to compare the two this is my 2006 v6 diesel 3 litre basically I wanted a big car to cruise around summer with take the family along and we get all the luggage in and relative comfort and the wife goes to sleep really easy and something that's comfortable so here it is so let's have a look through both cars and see what the differences are a secret way of opening the rear of your VW Phaeton is the special button that's in the Volkswagen logo not many people know about it but here it is the boots of both cars open electronically but only this car closes electronically physically inside there's not a lot of difference except his is in a quite disgusting Larry Grayson great rouser material control wise options wise is pretty similar the biggest difference between the two cars really is how they've been kept over the years so Tom's dark blue car is scratched all over so the outside is quite faded generally one of the front body panels looks like he's handsome damaged and been repaired quite badly there's lots of scratches on it particular around the doors where some with either big rings or bracelets or a watch or a bunch of keys has repeatedly scraped it trying to get in so immediately this 3 litre diesel feels a lot lighter on its feet that the five litre v10 the controls seem lighter strangely the steering feels lighter he hadn't done like corners desert this one biggest indicator of the mileage is the condition of the bodywork so your one is shocking yeah mines definitely been following the yellow submarine at the Mersey it's been abused for a lovely father's life yes it's only two owners and I think that's what makes him feel one of them was Robert Mugabe yeah I think I just found a big difference well yeah when you accelerate in this car nothing happens nothing there was a noise that sort of weedy noise when you want to get on it this thing really has no power whatsoever I mean we were foot to the floor then and nothing was happening you said risk pushing a speedboat it's okay once you're up at speed and it's okay at low speed but when you need to motor when you put your foot down you can feel this huge surge of power from the v10 whereas this one can't compete it's a lot less and it is noticeable I was expecting this to feel tired I was expecting it to film loose as hell and actually it still feels tight so they still they really did engineer the out of these cars and even with that excessive mileage this still feels pretty good quick word about the unspoken side of fate on ownership and that's not just appreciation and that is ongoing maintenance there it's no secret that Volkswagen dealers had to have a specially trained Phaeton technician in their service department and actually not all dealers have them so the first thing you got to do if you own one of these things is find a dealer close by that's actually authorized to work on them and then make that person your very best friend because you're going to need him they're coming up to 15 years old and that's 15 years old plus loads of electrical plus complexity equals potential big bills so you've got to make sure that you don't get caught out by that make sure you buy a good one to start with make sure it's fully serviced main dealer authorized as this one is because they are so highly engineered the chances of things going wrong is obviously a lot less but when they do it could be a bit of a problem don't spend all your money buying one and then have no money in case something goes wrong I'd hate to think how much a headlight washer is on one of these for example but apart from that there's not a huge downside of ownership all the depreciation has happened and some other poor sod has already swallowed that so you just have to worry about ongoing maintenance everything else should be fine and let's face it you're getting a super luxury limousine a Bentley with a different badge and you're paying pennies for it he might have been a bit bonkers Ferdinand P but he did at least inspire his engineers to create something wonderful thanks for watching the video guys I hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at the Volkswagen Phaeton a very unusual but a very beguiling car that's got an interesting story behind it and ultimately is incredibly good value for money at the moment let us know in the comments what you think let us know in the comments if you want to buy it and I'll see you soon for another video [Music]

Channel: TheCarGuys.TV

Views: 254,273

Rating: 4.8522215 out of 5

Keywords: Volkswagen, VW, Phaeton, VW Phaeton, Phaeton 5.0 V10, V10, Diesel, TDI, Luxury, Luxobarge, Ferdinand Piech, Dresden

Id: ji-Dj9NkTNM

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 31 2018