This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
The car stops on its own while driving, all lights on dash illuminate, and car starts again as if nothing happened. Twice going up the driveway and three times while on back roads. No one was in front of or behind us for two of the times. One of the times, it was during traffic so the speed was slow enough not to have an impact. One other time it stopped about half a car length away from the curb when parking the car. While on the highway, going 70, with the blinker on to get over to the center lane, the car jerked me back to the right..I was in the right lane, a car in front of me, a car behind me, no cars in the middle lane, and two in the far left lane coming up. Absolutely no reason for the car to think there was a car to the left of me. The two cars in my original lane and the two cars in the far left lane remained in those lanes. I have taken the car to two different dealerships, a total of three times and they could not recreate the problem, so they are unable to fix the issues. My case was escalated to the SE regional case manager, who put the case in for review to buy back the vehicle and was notified today, 10/18/2019, that they are not going to buy it back but they will continue to service the vehicle under the warranty. How can they service the vehicle if they can't find anything wrong with the vehicle. I can't believe they expect to drive this unsafe vehicle until someone dies! I paid extra to buy this vehicle for the safety features, which is what is causing this to be unsafe. It would be unethical to sale the car, but too unsafe for me to drive and put my family at risk of getting in a vehicle accident and dying. Please have a recall issued to address the issues before someone dies and telling consumers to disable these functions is not the right answer either. I have had issues from the beginning, but thought it was hiccups. Date is approximate.
I was driving on interstate 95 and the car in front of me suddenly braked hard. I also applied the brake and felt confident that it would have stopped on time. The Atlas automatic braking system took over and put my car to a complete stop on the highway and I was unable to apply the gas to keep going until I put car in park, shut off car and restart, put back in drive and got out of there as quickly as possible hoping that no cars behind me would crash into me with 3 children in the back of the vehicle.this is unacceptable and extremely dangerous. I have since turned off the front assist mechanism. However, every time I start the car I must remember to do this because it defaults back to front assist.
While applying brakes to come to a stop at a stop light, the brakes would not work and then made a metal grinding sound. An alert went off and the brake light began blinking. The automatic brakes engaged and slammed on. The brake light went solid and then off, and was replaced by a "brake booster faulty" warning. After this incident, the vehicle returned to normal functioning.
Pulling out of parking lots where there is slight dip crash avoidance system will kick in while turn into traffic and will stop the vehicle almost middle of the road, almost got T bone few time, I have brought up to VW attention, dealer keeps saying nothing wrong with vehicle. To me it is safety concern, definitely for VW, thank you
When exiting a driveway into traffic, if there is a decline or hill, the automatic breaking causes the car to stall in the middle of the road. This has happened several times now in 2 different places. The sensors start beeping and the car will shut down where you have no control. You have to put the car back in gear and restart the engine. This is very dangerous. I let the service department at VW in devon know and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it after running diagnostics.
- Newtown Square, PA, USA
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My 2018 VW Atlas brake sensors that activate when they see something that may cause a crash slamming the brakes on. That would be good if it was reasonable but what happens is the brakes slam on just driving out of a driveway!! I have taken it to VW and they can't do anything because it was within the design settings. It always does it when you least expect it so when pulling out of a driveway it is a crap shoot whether it will activate the brakes or not, and it is going to cause a accident because you don't know when or where it is going to happen. I wrote a complaint at car complaints.com and I saw several other people having the same problem. I worry about the snow and what would happen it is a very unsafe condition please help with getting VW to fix this issue. Thank you, [xxx] information redacted pursuant to the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).
Hi my wife drives a 2018 Atlas as our family car. We have had several incidents where the automatic braking has suddenly engaged when there were no cars near the vehicle. This has happened while parking on flat surfaces in an empty lot, parking in empty lot on a very slightly incline, and while cruising within a highway lane without a car immediately in front or behind us. Unpredictable uncontrolled sudden braking is dangerous and can actually cause collisions. The Atlas is a vehicle which is commonly used to Transport families and their children. I hope a NHTSA recall can be issued to address this problem.
As I was going straight through a busy intersection the car automatic braking turned on and caused the car to stop in the middle of the intersection. I was almost T-boned by another car. There are nothing in front of me. Clear day. 85 degrees. 9 am.
On Monday 6/10/2019 at 18:10, I was driving West on California highway 91 in riverside California. I was on the phone with my wife, the car was on cruise control, going 65 mph. There were no cars in front of me, I was driving in the second lane from the right. My car approached an 18 wheeler truck and it was passing the truck. The truck was on the right lane, my car approached on the next lane to the left. The car was still on cruise control and I was still on the phone with my wife. As the car was passing the truck, the VW Atlas executes an emergency brake as if something was in my way. The car gave no warnings before applying the brakes hard.
As I'm driving and tap my breaks, my steering wheel shakes. I took it in for repair and the dealer tells me my front rotors are warped. I've only driven 20,000 miles and I've got to replace the rotors? they tell me I've got to pay and it's not under warranty, I call the manufacturer and they refuse to help me. Its a low mileage SUV with rotor issues, that tells me VW uses low quality products and won't stand by their product.
Even though my vehicle was not covered by previous recalls I have just had a problem with the brakes. The brake petal went all the way to the floor, and the vehicle did not stop. The vehicle was moving less than 5 mph. Active start stop system (fuel efficiency) was engaged but I do not know if it was active. Vehicle was in stop and go traffic headed downhill. I was exiting a parking garage on a city street.
The contact owns a 2018 Volkswagen Atlas. The contact stated that the brake booster failure indicator illuminated. Shortly after, the brake pedal went up and down on its own and had to be depressed with full force in order to stop the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to neftin westlake Volkswagen (3550 auto mall dr, thousand oaks, ca 91362) on two different occasions where they replaced the low pressure sensor for the brake booster and the vacuum hose. The manufacturer was contacted. The vehicle was repaired. The failure mileage was 13,039.
While driving yesterday I was exiting a shopping plaza on a city street and turned right and my car completely stopped in the middle of traffic. Many cars were coming and had to slam on their breaks thankfully avoiding a collision. This is because of the maneuver breaking sensors. I drive and constantly hear beep beep beep from them sensing something, when in fact nothing is even near my car. This is a serious flaw. Please do a recall asap to fix this.
Was driving down my driveway and the electronic brake all of a sudden malfunctioned and turned on, and locked up all movement. The system was screaming electronic brake malfunction, do not drive, brake is activated. I was able to eventually put it back up near my house in the parking portion of the driveway. This is not the first time that the brake has malfunctioned however it is the first time that it has done it while I was driving, normally I can turn off the car wait about 5 minutes or so and then it'll stop malfunctioning however this time the brakes locked up and the car would not move. I could not get the brake to turn off. Had the car towed to the dealership (still showing a malfunction after vehicle was off all day). At the dealer for several days, they said they could not replicate the incident and the car does not keep a log of malfunctions internally so there was nothing to be done. I have a long list of problems with sensors, camera systems, and other electronic failures going back through August 2018
2/20/2019 at 16:19 pst - I was driving on a cloudy afternoon, approaching a railroad crossing, about 100 ft away. My Atlas' radar was tripped by something and the car slammed the brakes to avoid a crash. Except there was nothing on the road. I am glad there were no cars around me otherwise I would have been involved in a crash.
The automatic emergency braking system keeps activating without reason, slamming on the brakes, when there are no obstacles in front of the vehicle. This happens even when 'front assist' and 'lane assist' are switched off. During our trip from Texas to Arizona and back, this has happened more than 10 times. It always occurs when the cruise control is switched on, while in the left lane, passing a semi truck. Each time, the Atlas was clearly in our lane and the truck was definitely in its lane, not wandering over the lane divider. It has happened when on a straight away and also when passing a truck on a left curve. This is a significant safety hazard. If any vehicle had been close behind us when it activated, it would have slammed into the back of us.
Transmission/motor is making a whispping sound when you accelorate on the gas. Have reported multiple times and I am not the only one who has experienced this. It is a terrible sound. Car is less than 20,000 miles
There have been seven recalls on the 2018 Atlas launch edition. Cook VW in fallston has refused to repair at least 5 recalls. It's been months and they haven't repaired anything. We took faith in these people and they could care less for my family's safety. Today we got a recall letter about the ignition. That makes 6 recalls they will not fix. Multiple occasions. Don't have dates but they should be in the database at this dealership. They all happened in 2018.
2018 Volkswagen Atlas sel has a safety system called maneuver braking. The function of the braking is 'maneuver braking protects the driver from a collision. It prevents unpleasant damage to the bumper, and to any objects near the vehicle, ' says developer lynn brennecke. I was exiting a parking lot making a left hand turn across 4 lanes of traffic. It was nighttime, my headlights were on, clear weather, around 70 degrees. The area was a residential/industrial mix. The parking lot exit had a slight slope. When the traffic was clear I accelerated to enter the travel lanes and the Atlas activated the "maneuver braking" therefore bringing the car to a complete stop and the engine turned off. I was well into the second travel lane when this occurred. There were no obstacles such as other vehicles, traffic cones, animals, branches etc. This could have been a deadly, what if the break in traffic was not large enough for the vehicle to stop completely and restart before traffic arrived. I have no idea when the Atlas will suddenly decide it is time for a "maneuver braking" episode. This is a huge safety issue.
The vehicle was purchased 10/31/18 and on 11/4/18 we arrived at a relative's home in westchester. This area has no sidewalks or parking lane. We pulled onto the shoulder of the street to park. The street is a slight hill and the shoulder was very uneven. The front of the car was uphill. My husband had cut the wheels to the road when pulling in. Once in park and the car off, he exited and walked behind the car to come round and help me get out on the rough shoulder. Before he made it to the front passenger door, the car started rolling backwards downhill into the street. I instictively went for the shift. The shift was already in the park position but the car was moving! because it was not a very steep hill, the elevation change at the transition from the dirt shoulder to the asphalt road stopped the car when the rear passenger wheel met the asphalt edge. This road is narrow and winding. We were fortunate noone was coming round the bend. The car came to a stop 30-40% into the car lane with no driver behind the wheel. In its simplest state it appears that the transmission park gear did not engage, yet it was definitely in the park position. This car does not have a manuel parking brake. To be honest, the hill would not have seemed to warrant the need for a parking brake if the parking gear were engaging properly. We have just contacted the dealer who claimed ignorance of any such problems ever existing. He suggested we make a service appointment & have the auto checked out. I suspect so they can formally tell us it is our imagination. After reading the complaints on file, I am sorry we did not look here before we purchased the vehicle. It doesn't seem that VW or any other car manufacturer seems anxious to correct design flaws until there are sufficient deaths.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Chapin, SC, USA