So far so good. It's no ball of fire, but should at least be considerably more economical than my previous Passat. The ride is excellent, even with sports suspension, but I guess that's down to the 17" wheels and the RNS 315 is very intuitive to use. I'm used to everything else as most of it is similar to the Golf, so the new Passat feels reassuringly homely.
I think we're going to get along just fine.
Is it an improvement over the previous one? Well that remains to be seen. It is nearly 9 years old, done 109,000 miles and everything still works. The only think that ever broke was a power steering hose union. I wonder how much of the new car will still be working when it reaches that sort of age?