Volkswagen Phaeton – An Understated and Compellingly Quiet Luxury Car Experience

Looking at the premiumness of the brand image, most people would choose a Mercedes, Audi or BMW over a Volkswagen anytime. VW just doesn’t ring that well when considering luxury makes. But if you are in the market for a large prestige vehicle that is very quiet, and you want a somewhat lower price tag as well as a more understated ride, I would recommend you to at least give the Volkswagen flagship model – the VW Phaeton – a decent chance.

I have test driven it and found it to be very quiet inside the cabin. A great plus is that the windows are not just reinforced by being laminated, but they are actually of extra thick glass which makes for excellent soundproofing.

When I drove the Phaeton at higher speeds on the extremely rough Swedish roads, the cabin noise did however increase quite a bit. This was most likely due to the wheels having been 19-inch with inadequate rubber between the rims and the road. If you are interested in getting a Phaeton and you value a quiet car, then go for 17-inch wheels – that’s the smalles possible tires on most Phaeton’s.

There is one type of Phaeton for which I discovered that it’s probably possible to mount 16-inch wheels, i.e. on the VW Phaeton V6 3.2 gas/petrol, 2-wheel drive of MY02-04. 16-inch wheels aren’t pretty, but for minimization of noise, the smaller wheels the better. Most drivers, however, will surely be satisfied with the interior noise nevel when using 17-inch wheels.

To show you just how quiet the Phaeton actually is, I retrieved some noise measurements made by the German automotive magazine auto, motor und sport back in 2002-05.

See in the table below a comparison between the VW Phaeton (W12), Mercedes S Class (S500) and Maybach (62). The Phaeton came out as the quietest vehicle out of the three.

The Phaeton stands out as an, in many ways, undervalued car due to its less shiny badge. But give it a shot and see for yourself if it manages to sweep you off your feet.