VW Phaeton facelift

With its combination of cut-price Bentley Continental technology and elegantly discrete looks, perhaps the Volkswagen Phaeton should be attracting more buyers than it does?

Things certainly didn’t go well in North America, where the car was withdrawn after only a few years on sale. European retails continue at a trickle, but China is now the biggest remaining market for the Phaeton. That no doubt influenced Volkswagen’s decision to reveal the 2011 facelift at the Beijing Auto Show.

The changes are fairly mild, and have been concentrated around the front to bring the Phaeton’s look in line with the latest Polo, Golf and Sharan. So that means redesigned lights, a new grille and a revised bumper which even uses the now ubiquitous LEDs for the fog lights. Around the back, the only significant change is new light clusters.

On the inside, the centre console has an 8” touchscreen which on some versions can now incorporate Google Maps into the satellite navigation. The other ‘enhancement’ that Volkswagen seems very excited by is the road sign recognition function.

This system works by a camera integrated in the Phaeton’s rear-view mirror detecting road signs. The relevant information is then shown on the touchscreen and / or the multifunction display between speedometer and rev counter.

It will tell the driver, who is presumably too busy looking at all of the various displays to bother looking outside of the car, information such as the maximum permitted speed and whether there are any overtaking restrictions in force. These are probably the sort of things that should have been noticed anyway, especially if considering an overtake. So, unless you’re myopic or just too dopey to be driving, what’s the point?

The Phaeton will continue to be offered with V6, V8 and W12 petrol engines, as well as a V6 turbocharged common rail diesel.  However, expect the choice in the UK to be limited to the 444 bhp 6.0 litre W12 and 237 bhp 3.0 litre diesel, as it is now.

Prices have yet to be announced, although it’s worth noting the V6 diesel is currently down from £45,910 to £40,340 in the UK until the end of June. That offer is most likely in place to clear any remaining pre-facelift stocks.

However, even with such a discount, eye-watering depreciation makes buying a brand new Phaeton a very tough decision. The situation isn’t helped by a tempting choice of used cars. For example, there are currently 24 used Phaetons listed on Auto Trader that are under a year old, with prices ranging from £26,989 to £39,995. Most are listed at £29,995, which is not much more than a Volkswagen Golf GTI costs new.