AMA About My Phaeton Ownership Experience

Jim Yu
by Jim Yu

Ah, the Volkswagen Phaeton. Everyone has an opinion about it. It epitomized Piech’s hubris. It is an unmarketable $100,000 Passat. It is essentially a Bentley Continental Flying Spur, but without the bling. It is the greatest car man has ever conceived.

Like Alfa Romeo, there’s always a rumor that the Phaeton 2.0 will be returning to the U.S. of A. in “a few years”. Again, this week, there is a lot of talk about it coming back.

There is a lot of conjecture and Monday morning quarterbacking about the Phaeton. But what is it really like to own one? TTAC’s own Jack Baruth had two. I, a new TTAC contributor, also owned one. I thought it would be fun to answer questions you have always had about the Phaeton. So ask away!

Just to give you a little bit of a back story, I bought a pristine 2005 V8 with barely 30,000 miles in 2011. Its previous, and only, owner was a car collector in Arizona. I had a blast owning it. Sure, I worried about catastrophic failure of the transmission or air suspension that would send me to the poor house, but it never happened. I sold it in 2013 to a local car enthusiast. I had no plans of selling it, but the buyer approached me and offered to buy it for pretty much what I bought it for back in 2011. A friendship was formed and he keeps me updated on our baby.

Some Phaeton trivia I picked up along the way include:

  • The HVAC system contains 25 servomotors to create four distinct climate zones in the cabin.
  • The instrument cluster glass reflects just 0.5% of light, compared to 8%, which is typical for regular instrument cluster glass.
  • Phaeton owners are among the most anal retentive. So many complained to Volkswagen about the uneven rate at which its ashtrays popped out, VW issued a Technical Service Bulletin to remedy the “problem”.

What questions do you have about owning a Phaeton?

Jim Yu
Jim Yu

More by Jim Yu

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 158 comments
  • Asterix Asterix on Oct 19, 2014

    As a former W12 Phaeton owner. It was THE car for me and since I sold it to a gentleman in Mid 2010, I went back to owning an A8L (Audi Exclusive Edition.) Inasmuch as I love my A8L, I still miss my W12 Phaeton. It just was such an outstanding car that just happened to be way ahead of its time. It was the perfect stealth luxobarge.

  • Imon_2nd Imon_2nd on May 10, 2015

    Hello, all. I know I'm late to the party but I just saw this article. Previously, I've read Jim's Phaeton stuff on Jalopnik. I bought a 2004 Phaeton V8 with 67K miles last week. $11.8K Have wanted one since Jeremy Clarkson's reviews many years ago. So far, having only driven it about 450 miles, the Phaeton has met my expectations and then some. What a cruiser. And yes, stealthy. Only one other driver made a point of following me, taking pix. My previous DD, a 1993 M-B 300CE Cabriolet got way more attention. Will be interesting to see if this ride is any more expensive to own and operate than my cab was. Cheers, Dave

  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
  • EBFlex The best gift would have been a huge bonfire of all the fak mustangs in inventory and shutting down the factory that makes them.Heck, nobody would even have to risk life and limb starting the fire, just park em close together and wait for the super environmentally friendly EV fire to commence.
  • Varezhka Of all the countries to complain about WTO rules violation, especially that related to battery business…
Next