 I bought my Passat as a VW Certified Pre-Owned Car.  It's been a good purchase so far.  If I had driven 12,000 rather than 15,000 miles each year the car would have held its value better, but I can still sell it for more than I owe.  The fuel economy of this car'sV6 engine has been fairly good.  I got 29 to 30 mpg on my last road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles.  The best part is you can use 87 grade (regular gas) and it won't ping.  I don't even notice the performance difference.  The CD changer has been replaced once and is going through errors again.  I would recommend an aftermarket CD player, except VW does diagnostics through the factory tape player so if you ever need maintance, you'd have to put the stock radio back in.