Volkswagen CC 130TDI 2013 Review

Price Guide (recommended price before statutory & delivery charges): $55,490
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Metallic paint $700; Active climate control front seats with massage function $750; Dynaudio 600W premium audio system $2000; Driver Assistance Package $3300
Crash rating: Five-star (ANCAP)
Fuel: Diesel
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 5.4
CO2 emissions (g/km): 143
Also consider: Audi A5 Sportback 2.0 TDI ($68,700); BMW 320d ($60,900); Mercedes-Benz C200 CDI ($60,100); Peugeot 508 GT Luxury HDI ($59,590)

The Volkswagen CC is a great example of niche marketing.

Take a perfectly good but dowdy car, the Passat for instance, drop a sexier body over the entirely acceptable mechanicals, add equipment, bump up the price and voila… hundreds of thousands of sales globally, most likely to a bunch of people who would never have considered buying a Passat.

So for the CC’s midlife update Volkswagen has elected not to mess with a successful formula; the Passat part of the name has been dropped, there are minor changes to interior and exterior styling including a more formal grille, a significant amount of new equipment and every little change to the mechanicals.

Mind you, that very little change is in the right direction, because fuel economy and emissions cleanliness is improved. As launched in mid-2012, the 125TDI (that’s four-cylinder 2.0-litre turbo-diesel producing 125kW) dropped its combined fuel consumption average from 6.3L/100km to 5.7L/100km, which also meant CO2 emissions dropped to 150g/km.

But since then the engine has been quietly upgraded with an extra five kilowatts (and $500 added to the price) and fuel economy dropped to 5.4L/100km and 143g CO2/km.

It does that with the help of some of Volkswagen’s Bluemotion-branded economy aids – idle stop-start, battery regeneration, and a coasting function which de-clutches the engine when the driver’s foot lifts from the accelerator.

These are new features for the midlife update, as is Driver Fatigue Detection (which actively monitors the driver’s alertness via steering wheel movements and other measures and warns if it thinks there’s an issue), an upgraded audio system with sat-nav, stainless steel door sills, front headrests that adjust fore-aft as well by height, and bi-xenon headlights that have static and cornering functions.

These are on-top of carry-over standard items including 18-inch alloy wheels, tyre pressure monitoring, dual-zone climate control, cruise control, reversing camera, Bluetooth connectivity with audio streaming, analogue and digital clocks, electrochromatic mirror, electrically-heated/adjustable external mirrors, electric windows, 12-way electrically adjustable front seats with three-position memory for driver's seat, heated front and rear seats, trip computer and rain-sensing wipers.

There’s also a whole new bunch of safety features that are optional, including a Driver Assistance Package that was fitted to our test car. For $3300 you get:
Side Assist, which uses radar sensors to watch out for and warn the driver of vehicles located in the car’s blind spot or approaching from the rear; Lane Assist, which uses a camera to judge whether the driver is deviating from his lane without indicating, and counter-steers. Together the two systems can detect a car in a blind spot, warn the driver and steer away. Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with Front Assist and City Emergency Braking, which uses a radar sensor to maintain a safe gap to the car in-front and then initiates – or boosts – braking when a gap to a car in-front is closing too fast.

The effect of all this stuff is to get a taste of our driving future. It is possible with the ACC set to pretty much let the car take care of most of the driving chores – even the steering if you wander a little! It’s not glitch-free though, as the Lane Assist’s camera occasionally saw lines where they didn’t exist and counter-steered.

Disable the doo-dads and gizmos and take full control and you’ll find a competent rather than ground-breaking drive.

The CC rolls on relatively low profile 235/40 18-inch rubber, working with three-mode adaptive dampers that are quite stiff even in comfort mode. Normal mode is liveable but we wouldn’t recommend sport for Aussie roads, especially when loaded up with passengers.

The tyres are puncture resistant (but there is a full-size spare under the boot) and they feel stiff and harsh when you hit a pothole or jagged road edge. There’s also some noise transmission into the cabin on coarse surfaces. While Volkswagen says it has made a big effort with this update to quell such things it’s not at luxury levels.

Flicking the sport mode also heavies up the electromechanical steering, which actually makes it less pleasant to pilot on tighter, windier roads. Not that at any stage the power steering is particularly communicative or incisive. In essence then, like the front-wheel drive version of the Passat upon which it is based, CC is reliable rather than real fun.

The drivetrain delivers that little bit more zing. While the diesel engine isn’t a big gun – for that opt for the 3.6-litre V6 FSI (petrol) 4MOTION (VW speak for all-wheel drive) and damn the fuel bills – it is flexible, quiet for an oil-burner and mated standard to a six-speed dual-clutch (DSG) transmission that is slick at speed in manual or auto mode.

There is still a touch of lag and hesitation at slow speeds out of corners, but it is more co-operative doing the shopping centre trawl than some earlier iterations of this gearbox. However, idle start-stop can get confused and therefore annoying, occasionally shutting down the engine inappropriately.

But there’s more of an issue in car parks seeing your way round, as side vision is limited and rear vision is poor. The reversing camera – which nattily pops up from underneath the VW logo on the bootlid – is very helpful – as are parking sensors.

While the exterior is bold and has upmarket features including frameless doors, the interior design opts for clean and simple, backed up by high quality materials.

Front seat passengers get commodious and supportive seating (optional in the test car and recommended) and the driver grasps a compact steering wheel. Instruments are clear and legible, even if most of the speedo is devoted to numbers above and beyond our mandated limits, all the way to 280km/h.

The centre stack controls are also classy and relatively simple, especially the revised dual-zone climate control adjusters. Little things like spring-loaded cupholders and rubber mats in bins are appreciated details. However, a vibration in the left-front door of the test car wasn’t so impressive…

It’s less spacious in the back, especially for the middle-rear passenger – which makes you wonder why VW bothered swapping from the old CC’s two-seat bench. Headroom, given the sloping roofline is tighter for taller passengers, but knee and foot room is good. There is also an acceptable amount of interior stowage space, although there are no rear door pockets.

The 532-litre boot is long and quite narrow, has side pockets and grows substantially once the bench is split-folded, something easily achievable via boot-mounted levers. The bootlid can also be opened by waving your foot under the rear of the car – handy if your arms are full.

That’s yet another appealing new CC feature and underlines the tack VW has taken with this update – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it just add more stuff. And in this case it seems to work.

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