Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| EQUIPMENT | |||
| 01/20/2008 | 175000 | 1 | 02/15/2003 |
| Am radio not working. fm radio has limited range. *tr | |||
| EQUIPMENT - ELECTRICAL | |||
| 07/15/2003 | 10900 | ||
| I bought my car at the end of november. drove it off the lot with 9 miles on the vehicle. at the time of breakdown on july 25, 2003, the car had 10,900 miles on it. the current mileage on it now is 13,000 july 25th was a very hot day. i believe it was up to 110 degrees that day. i had noticed my car running at a substantial lower power than usual, but i assumed it was because of the heat and that i had my air conditioning on high. i had to do some errands in town then i headed home, which is about 30 minutes away from the tri-cities, at this time i did notice loss of power going up the on-ramp to the interstate, but still did not think too much of the fact. i was half way home when i noticed that my car was losing even more power, the cruise quit and my speedometer went from 75 to 50 mph and that is when i noticed that my heat gauge was extremely high. i also found it odd that the inside of my car had not cooled off, but was getting warmer. i headed towards the off-ramp and as i was down shifting and applying the breaks, my brake pedal made ;puffy-popping noise and then the brake pedal collapsed to the floor. i put the vehicle in neutral and pumped the brakes to get the vehicle to stop, when the vehicle stopped, i smelled heat, or like something burning. i thought it was a fire around town. pulling away from the off-ramp, i could not get any pickup speed with my car. the car felt like it was pushing to go forward and also pulling itself back at the same time, as the vehicle tried to pick up speed, it would pull back and forth. the gas pedal was all the way to the floor and i couldn't get any speed. i could only shift into second gear and the vehicle could only maintain 15 mph. as all of this was happening, i was turning off everything i thought took power, air conditioner was the first thing off when i started noticing the car overheating and losing power, then the radio, these did not help. | |||
| EQUIPMENT - ELECTRICAL - AIR CONDITIONER | |||
| 06/23/2008 | 56000 | 1 | |
| I have a 2003 vw jetta gli vr-6. the air conditioner stopped working after it was nice and cold for about 5 minutes. hot air was blowing out of the vents. engine (coolant) light came on after about a 10 minute drive. the engine (coolant) gauge was almost in the red 260 degrees. i switched off the air, and the gauge went down a little, but didn't really cool off. the guy at the dealership explained if the engine starts overheating, the fail safe for the car is to automatically turn the a/c off in order to save itself from overheating to the point where damage would occur. after all day diagnostics, the dealership says the fuse box is melted due to an electrical problem. this, conveniently, is not covered by my gold plus extended warranty that i spent lots of money on. repairs so far will cost ~$800. they have to fix that before they can test to see if the alternator is damaged. both the dealership and the warranty rep say this is a very common problem with volkswagen cars. if it is common it should be recalled!! *tr | |||
| 03/30/2004 | 1 | 12/01/2002 | |
| Problems with air conditioner on 2003 volkswagen jetta. *mr the air intake duct leaked which caused white smoke to emit from the vehicle when parked after a 75 mile trip. the part had to be ordered. the a/c condenser leaked which caused the a/c not to cool the vehicle properly. the dealer surmised that the damage to the condenser was from an outside source therefore refused to replace it under warranty. *nm | |||
| EQUIPMENT - ELECTRICAL - ANTI-THEFT DEVICES | |||
| 02/09/2003 | 1 | ||
| Failure of door wiring harness. does not allow me to drive the car - the engin will not engage due to the electronic failure of the door wiring harness. there should be some way to override the electronic failure so that i can drive it. | |||
| EQUIPMENT - ELECTRICAL - RADIO/TAPE DECK/CD ETC. | |||
| 01/14/2008 | 67000 | 1 | 02/15/2004 |
| Recently the radio in my 2003 volkswagen jetta wolfsburg edition stopped working. at first the radio station was displayed but i was unable to get any buttons to work except the eject button, the volume knob, and the on/off button. the last radio station i listened to was displayed but no sound could be heard. i started to look for help on the internet, possibly a fuse or something simple but what i found was completely the opposite. according to several websites, the radio has an internal defect which fries the radio when the battery starts to get weak. i work at a cadillac dealership so i tested the battery and it tested marginal. i checked with a couple vw dealerships and they both told me i would have to replace the radio. i just received my aftermarket radio, which i ordered after hearing horror stories of replacing the radio with an oem unit and having them go bad again the next time the battery went dead. i still have the oem radio, and will hang on to it for while. *tr | |||
| 07/27/2006 | 61200 | 1 | 10/19/2005 |
| Out of no where my radio on my 2003 volkswagen jetta wagon stopped working. all i got was static on my radio. after reviewing several vw forums, i found out that my radio antenna had corroded inside. i took it apart and cleaned all the corrosion and found that the main wire on the circuit board was broke. i had to solder a new wire onto it. many vw owners are complaining about this same problem, but volkswagen will not do anything about it. a antenna should not go bad in a three year old car. *jb | |||
| EQUIPMENT - MECHANICAL - JACKS | |||
| 01/29/2004 | 10000 | 1 | |
| While the consumer was jacking up the vehicle to change the right rear tire the jack collapsed and the vehicle fell to the ground. consumer maintained that the jack was made of plastic and the thread stripped.*ak *jb | |||
| 01/14/2004 | 10200 | 1 | |
| While using the lifting jack supplied with the automobile to lift the vehicle to change a tire, the jack collapsed. it collapsed because the jack screw carrier threads failed. the carrier threads nut is plastic. plastic does not have enough strength to support the weight of a 3000 pound automobile.*ak | |||