Bulletins
| Bulletin | Bulletin date | Replacement Bulletin | Item no. | Summary | Added |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| POWER TRAIN - AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION | |||||
| TB-35-11-01 | 06/06/2011 | 10041250 | Ready | 09/21/2011 | |
| TB-35-11-01 | 06/06/2011 | 10041250 | Volkswagen: the gear box has a momentarily delay while accelerating. *rm | 09/21/2011 | |
| VWP-10-06 | 12/03/2010 | 10037805 | Volkswagen: warranty information for th e transmission valve body. *rm | 06/06/2011 | |
| POWER TRAIN - MANUAL TRANSMISSION | |||||
| 0401 | 01/23/2004 | 10006517 | Reverse gear, difficult to engage or disengage. *mr | 05/05/2004 | |
Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| POWER TRAIN | |||
| 06/25/2012 | 89000 | 1 | |
| The transmission is slipping and n flaring. the car hesitates and then lunges forward upon acceleration. i had a mechanic look at it and he said the transmission needs to be replaced. there is a class action lawsuit in process for this vehicle. ## vin passed ## volkswagen beetle 2004 tdi ## *tr | |||
| 11/10/2010 | 58000 | ||
| Tl-the contact owns a 2004 volkswagen new beetle. the contact was driving 60 mph when the contact attempted to shift from second gear but the vehicle would not respond. in addition, the vehicle exhibited an abnormally hard shift. the contact took the vehicle to a local mechanic where the mechanic advised that the valve body in the transmission was defective. the vehicle was not repaired. the failure mileage was 58,000. the vin was not available. kmj | |||
| 11/10/2010 | 58000 | ||
| Tl-the contact owns a 2004 volkswagen new beetle. the contact stated while driving 60 mph the vehicle would not shift out of second gear. the contact also stated while driving the vehicle has a hard shift. the contact took the vehicle to a local mechanic. the mechanic stated the valve body in the transmission was defective. the contact did not replace the valve body. the contact did not take the vehicle to the dealer. the failure mileage was 58,000. jo | |||
| 10/20/2008 | 75000 | 1 | |
| I recently bought a 2004 new beetle tdi with the dsg transmission for my daughter. the car had approximately 75,000 miles on it when the failure occurred. the car had been maintained at a vw dealer and was in excellent shape. while my daughter was driving to school the dual mass flywheel self destruct and took out the transmission with it. i thought that maybe it was just my bad luck until i googled the problem and found out that many vw's with the dual mass flywheel have suffered from this catastrophic failure. vw of america stated that they were unable to help me with this problem. the vw tdi's are not race cars and this type of failure should not occur on a car that operates at the lower rpm range as these cars do. this is either a design flaw or a manufacturing problem and is leaving people with huge repair bills, $6600 in my case. *tr | |||
| POWER TRAIN - AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION | |||
| 10/01/2010 | 113000 | ||
| Tl- the contact owns a 2004 volkswagen newbettle. the contact noticed a scrapping noise intermittently. the failure began two months ago. the vehicle was taken to an authorized mechanic where he inspected the vehicle and noticed a whole in the transmission case caused by the seperation of the dual mass flywheel and stated that they both needed to be replaced. the authorized mexhanic repaired the casing as well as the dual mass flywheel. the dealer nor the manufacture were contacted. the current mileage was approximately 118,000. the failure mileage was approximately 113,000. the vin was unavailable. bw | |||
| 09/22/2010 | 69760 | ||
| The most recent incident occured while i was in traffic driving up the dallas north tollway in stop and go traffic...when i depressed the pedal the transmission slipped and would not accelerate so i finally had an opportunity to pull over and let the car cool down. after about 20 minutes on the side of the road i was again able to drive the car. i contacted the dealer who repaired the transmission and told them i am having the same problem...sad thing is i have had the car at the dealership on 3 other times since late may for them to 1) replace the transmission, 2) replace the computer transmission chip, 3) replace the torque converter in the transmission...all in all i have been out about $7k including rentals and everything. my biggest concern is that in the other cases i have had problems it was when i was getting off the highway after driving a bit then the transmission would slip. this time however could have been a major accident since it occured while i was in major traffic. in total the vw dealer has had my car a total of about 10 weeks since late may...this is terrible. i am not the only consumer with vw beetle issues with the transmission several out there are having problems. can something be done about this instead of the consumer suffering?? or do we have to wait until there are worst cases similar to toyota or ford? | |||
| 08/20/2010 | 55900 | ||
| Tl-the contact owns a 2004 volkswagen new beetle. the automatic transmission does not shift properly. it was clunking, jerking and sometimes it does not shift into gear. the vehicle was driven to a transmission shop where she was told it was the valve body that needs to be replaced. the vehicle was undriveable without repairing the failure. there was no recall or warranty for this failure. the dealer was called and she was told to bring the vehicle in for a diagnostic test so they can determine the problem. the volkswagen manufacturer was not contacted. the failure mileage was 55,900....mw | |||
| 08/20/2010 | 83445 | ||
| 2004 vw new beetle with dsg transmission. car drops into limp mode. happened on expressway resulting in low speed to get to median. happens when pulling away from intersection and goes into neutral. car will not move until engine is stopped and restarted. above issues happened 4 times over a 3 day period. not safe to drive. dsg transmission with the mechatronics unit is rare in 04 beetles. not included in factory recalls of 07 and up. had mechatronics unit replaced for $2250.00 my expense. 80,000 miles on car. 07 and up have warranty extension to 100,000 miles. 04 not included because of low frequency of event. low frequency because not many around. car is dangerous and should be covered by warranty same as o7 vw & audi cars. | |||
| 05/18/2007 | 73000 | 1 | |
| The car went into limp mode about 12 miles from home. it dropped into first gear and limped home at 15 mph. next morning it performed normally. that night started into town, it dumped again down to limp mode, then refused to move at all. had to dolly it home. dollied it to dealer a week later. they did the computer scan and said it was the valve body on the transmission. wanted $1700 to replace it. dollied it back home. tried to get someone to look at it for a second opinion. no one would touch it. a german in the german air force who worked for vw in germany agreed to work on it. scan he did indicated valve body, so he removed that and we tried to order one from the same dealer. the dealer now tells us the part is not available and a new valve body won't fix it anyway. that tells us they have other beetles with the same problem and they couldn't fix those either. talked to vw of america several times. they were not helpful at all and basically would not cooperate in any way. not under warranty and they won't do anything. we have since learned that it has a unique transmission used only during 2004 and almost everyone who has a beetle with that transmission has had the same problem. can't get parts. no one will work on it. vw of america is aware of these problems and make no effort to help. we would like to find out how to start a class action lawsuit! basically, we have a $16,000 piece of junk that we drove for about a year and it is now completely worthless! recently they told us there were no parts available to fix the transmission. *tr | |||
| 10/15/2005 | 26000 | 1 | 10/15/2004 |
| Dt*: the contact stated while placing a cup of coffee into the cup holder, coffee was spilled into the transmission. the cup holder is located right above the clutch. since this incident, the transmission has progressively worsened. other than going into the park, drive and reverse mode, the transmission does not operate. the console and check engine lights intermittently illuminate. the vehicle was taken to the dealer where they determined that the problem with the vehicle is due to external factors, not a manufacturers defect. the contact expressed concerns of the location of the cup holder and the transmission playing a significant role in the current transmission problems.. | |||
| 08/04/2004 | 18000 | 4 | 08/04/2004 |
| Dt: consumer complained about electrical problems; the speakers didn't work/windows kept going up and down, and transmission failed. the car was not even a one year old. *ak the replaced transmission still performs poorly. the air bag light came on at least 3-4 times. *tt *nm | |||
| 10/06/2004 | 98000 | 1 | |
| Intermittently vehicle would hesitate before accelerating forward. dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem.*ak | |||
| 09/08/2004 | 143 | 4 | 08/19/2004 |
| 2004 vw beetle buy 8-19-04. ransmission failure 4 since 9-8, letter 9-18 sent certified *vw tech hotline gave no case # service mgr gave customer two 800#s & customer spoke w/3 men but no case #s & said they would call back in 10-15 days. a/o 9-29, no return call & car back in shop for 4th time same thing. dealer wants customer to drive around, leave service ticket open in case happens again. customer requested full refund under lemon law, but no responses to request. incidents: 1. 9-8 tried different gears and moved into first gear only, check engine light on and gear shift indicator light would not light up. salesman advised to drive to service department, which took over 45 minutes at a top speed of 10 mph. work order #87669 indicates possible electrical contact and reads: hook-up vas 5051 codes po1626 data-bus power-train missing message from tcm, codes 01315 and 01315 inst cluster and data bus gearbox control unit no communication. performed all test with vas 5051 and per tech hotline, no faults found advise to clear codes and test drive. if no further problem or codes, return vehicle to customer. vw tech help contact no case #. further overnite road test-all ok on test. discrepancy-mileage wo #87669 reads 143 miles in, but mileage changed to 561 in and 602 out when car picked up. 2. 9-16 september 16 same happened around lunch, drove to dealer salesman said it was fine 3. 9-16 eve out of gear-towed, service ordered cluster to install 4. 9-27 vehicle wouldn't engage. still at shop. they say they replaced more stuff, customer doesn't trust afraid of safety-self, family, others on the road. *ak | |||
| POWER TRAIN - MANUAL TRANSMISSION | |||
| 08/30/2010 | 37000 | ||
| Tl- the contact owns a 2004 volkswagen new beetle. while traveling 45 mph the contact noticed that the vehicle would suddenly increase in rpms when while traveling up a incline. the vehicle was taken to a local mechanic where the fly wheel and clutch were replaced. there were no prior warnings. the current and failure mileages were 37000. bml | |||
| 10/13/2006 | 37221 | 1 | 09/13/2003 |
| Car was in for a recall on september 13, 2006 for the egr cooler. the dealer informed me that the flywheel was going bad. i told them that i thought it might be the master cylinder. they said that it was the flywheel and not the master cylinder. a month later the flywheel went bad causing the clutch to go bad. this was in the middle of traffic and made the car impossible to drive. dealer was aware the flywheel was going bad but did not offer to repair it for me or inform me it was a warranty item. when the car was repaired the flywheel and the clutch were replaced. the dealer said they would cover the cost of the flywheel (parts only) because they had noticed it was going bad before this incident. but they did not cover the labor. in order to get to the flywheel, you have to get to the clutch. they should have been responsible for the labor and the flywheel. i have seen numerous complaints online in regards to this flywheel problem. i don't know if the old part is available. the dealer would probably know this. | |||