• Mammoth boot – seats up or down
• More luggage space than rivals
• Plenty of rear passenger space

How much space is there?

The Volkswagen Passat Estate’s practicality is excellent. There’s masses of room for front- and rear-seat passengers, as you’d expect. The only rival that beats it these days is the Skoda Superb Estate which has a slightly longer wheelbase.

There are loads of cubbies to store valuables away from prying eyes, including a cubby box beneath the front armrest with a USB-C socket, a sunglasses holder up front by the rear-view mirror, a decent-sized glovebox and cup-holders all-round. All the door bins are lined to stop things rattling around and those sat in the rear get pockets on the front seat backs.

Boot space and storage

With the rear seats in place, the loadbay measures a massive 650 litres. This means it fairly demolishes the competition from Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW, with the C-Class, A4 Avant and 3 Series Touring measuring 390-490, 505 and 500 litres respectively. The Skoda Superb Estate squeaks it, though, with 660 litres for the non-hybrid version.

A wide opening boot, flat boot floor and decent width means that whether you have heavy bags of compost, a large single mattress or a substantial haul of flat-pack furniture, you shouldn’t have trouble fitting these in the back of the Passat Estate. If you fold the seats down and fill the boot up to the roof, a huge 1,780 litres is unlocked. This makes the Passat Estate one of the most useful load-lugging cars available.

You may want to spec the optional electric tailgate if you’re worried about practicality. It makes life so much easier when you have a handful of shopping bags or wayward children to keep in check.

Is it easy to park?

The Passat Estate may be a large car, but with large windows and door mirrors, a relatively low window line, plus, front and rear parking sensors and this is one of the easiest large cars to park – especially when compared with high-riding SUVs.

Safety

• Passat Estate has plenty of safety kit
• Not the newest car but lots of driver-assistance tech
• Saloon version is a five-star Euro NCAP car

The Volkswagen Passat is a five-star Euro NCAP car. As you’d expect from a modern executive estate car, there’s a huge amount of safety equipment on offer here. We’d say that Volkswagen Passat Estate safety levels are very high indeed. All models include standard LED headlights, an improved voice control system to let you change settings without having to prod the touchscreen media system, and more sophisticated driver-assistance tech.

The safety equipment installed on even base models includes knee and rear side airbags, post-collision braking system (which holds brakes after an accident to prevent further crashes), mis-fuelling prevention, the Driver Alert System (will alert you if the car detects signs of fatigue) and Bluetooth connectivity for your mobile phone.

There’s also adaptive cruise control – which can maintain a safe distance behind the car in front, predictively slowing the car when approaching slower speed limits and speeding it up when the limit increases. This is thanks to the car being able to read road signs and slowing automatically for bends, roundabouts, junctions and towns, in conjunction with the sat-nav maps. Choose an automatic gearbox and the car can even slow itself to a standstill and set off again in traffic.

Despite being a very large, practical family car, only two Isofix child seat mounting points are available on the VW Passat. That limits its viability for families that need to transport three or more child seats, meaning that other models make more sense for those with multiple small children.

Watch: VW Passat Euro NCAP video