Trading in the Passat for the Eos
I had a love-hate relationship with my Passat W8. I loved the idea of the car: the big engine, the four-wheel drive, the color, the size. But I always felt like an imposter in that car, as I’m not really a sedan/big car person. And while the car never let me down, it had issues and it was a magnet for getting hit and badly scratched.
For some time I’ve been talking about getting rid of it for something new or old, and I just couldn’t figure out what. The Audis are nice, but overpriced. I couldn’t see spending so much on a Porsche. Even if it comes to the U.S., the new Scirocco doesn’t look like my kind of car. And finding well-kept, older (early-mid 90’s) VWs is getting more and more difficult.
The Eos has appealed to me since I first saw it at the L.A. Auto Show a few years back, but I didn’t want any vehicle usurping my Cabrio. However, now that I have cars at opposite ends of the country, there wasn’t any chance of that happening. Plus a convertible in the Bay Area is a nice thing to have. The only question was which engine?
Ultimately, the engine question was resolved by the transmission question. After test-driving both the 6-cylinder automatic and the 4-cylinder turbo manual, I went with the latter. I think that automatics are just boring, and maybe that’s what frustrated me about the Passat — I never felt like I was having the amount of fun that I could be having. Plus there are kits to get the 4-cylinder turbo from 200hp to over 240hp, so I have options if I find the car underpowered. (So far, I haven’t.)
So, here she is… my new Eos, as of yet unnamed — though I have a feeling that Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre influenced my choice of color and I may end up with a car name like “Rio” or something…
