Investigations
| NHTSA ID | Manufacturer | Date open | Date close | Subject | Recall campaign | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIR BAGS - SIDE/WINDOW | ||||||
| PE04081 | VOLKSWAGEN OF AMERICA, INC | 12/16/2004 | 04/01/2005 | INADVERTENT SIDE-AIRBAG DEPLOYMENT | ||
| The subject vehicles are equipped with side-thorax and side-head curtain airbags to protect the front and rear outboard occupants in a side-impact crash.this investigation identified a total of 499 reports (482 owners reports and 17 warranty claims).the crash sensing system | ||||||
Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIR BAGS | |||
| 07/17/2009 | 22400 | ||
| Tl*the contact owns a 2003 volkswagen golf. while attempting to park, the contact noticed that the passenger side air bag suddenly deployed. the vehicle was taken to the dealer and they stated that the air bag needed to be replaced. the current and failure mileages were 22,400. | |||
| 12/20/2008 | 80200 | 1 | |
| 2003 vw golf gl-i bought new & am the only driver of it. and just over 80,000 miles, the airbag warning light came on. i had to drive it around for over a couple of weeks before any of the vw dealerships would schedule me an appointment to spend a couple of minutes to connect their hand-held diagnostic tool to find out what the exact cause of turning on this light was. (i went to 3 separate dealerships in 3 different cities.) it turned out to be a defective seatbelt latch sensor. even though the seatbelt light turned off indicating it was latched, the same latch also determines independently on whether or not to enable the airbags. i just had this part replaced today-12/20/08-at a cost of over $430. i found out that when the latch thinks the seatbelt is not connected, that it disables all of the 6 airbags, making the car that i thought i had at least most of the airbags still functioning, completely airbag-less. this is a severe safety issue, by vw's manufacture design to turn off all airbags based on a seatbelt latch, not a malfunctioning airbag. if the latch is giving valid feed back to turn off the seatbelt light, then there is no reason to have a separate contact in this latch for the airbags that disables all of the airbags. safety parts like airbags should also be required to have the extended manufacturer's warranty like the seatbelts themselves & the emission equipment like the catalytic converter, which is around 150000 miles, isn't it? this is an extremely poor & dangerous design, to turn off all airbags even though there is nothing wrong with them. by the time the airbag light comes on to when owners can get it serviced, the owners unknowingly are driving in an unsafe vehicle that had its working airbags completely turned off because of a seatbelt latch switch that was working well enough to tell the seatbelt light on the dashboard to turn off. this alone should be enough to keep all of the working airbags functioning. *tr | |||
| 03/18/2003 | |||
| While driving about 65 mph and without prior warning the consumer swerved to avoid another car. as a result the driver veered of the road into an embankment yet the dual airbags did not deploy. *nlm | |||
| AIR BAGS - SIDE/WINDOW | |||
| 10/28/2005 | 1 | ||
| Dt: the contact stated while driving at 40 mph the driver's side curtain and seat airbag deployed with no collision. this happened where a side street meets a main street. he went to the emergency room and was suffering from frequent headaches and hearing loss in left ear. he has to see a specialist for the hearing loss. the rear passenger's hand was pinched between the window and airbag. this caused swelling in his hand. the insurance company stated it was a manufacturing defect. no corrections have been made at this time. *ak | |||
| 02/04/2005 | 20000 | 1 | |
| Consumer stated when touching the curb with the tires driver's side airbag deployed inadvertently.*ak pe04081.*po...ak | |||
| 10/23/2003 | 10000 | 1 | |
| While proceeding from a light and making a right hand turn at about 25 mph consumer hit a bump, and air bags deployed.*ak | |||
| 06/05/2003 | 6245 | 1 | 03/01/2003 |
| I hit a medium size pothole in the road and my passenger side airbags inflated. dealer says the module says the car was in danger of tipping over and there was no malfunction. my rear tire was damaged as there is a bubble in the sidewall but there was no undercarriage damage and there was no impact. *jb | |||