2015 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF SPORTWAGEN Complaints

Ever since I purchased the car new, the backup camera goes blank above 5 mph. It is a major annoyance and safety issue to suddenly have to change my rear viewing options. When cold, the car fast idles at 6 or more mph in reverse with the camera offering no assistance. Complaints to the dealership yielded the answer that the factory had no fix. Now I see Honda recall 23V046 about the same condition that I'm experiencing and that appropriately Honda is fixing their problem. Can VW be invited to fix my problem (its problem)? I understand that my son's Toyota camera blanks above 30 mph, more than reasonable.

I backed up my car and upon turning the wheel I heard some crackling from the steering wheel. The airbag and transmission error lights came on and I lost functionality of all the buttons on the steering wheel and the horn. Based on research, this is a clock spring that has been recalled for other model years.

My vehicle has been smoking inside cab and through vent system. After troubleshooting, discovered the brown ground wire and surrounding plastic of the PTC auxiliary heater has been burning. VW said the have no inventory for replacement parts and no date getting these in. I asked if there was a recall for this issue and they said there was not. Once the issue was located, I discovered a recall for the exact same issue on Audi vehicles. I am fortunate a fire did not ignite next to my leg while driving, however I did breath in a large amount of the smoke as the issue intermittently occured and the issue wasn't easily discovered. I am very frustrated VW would allow a fire hazzard to exist next to foot pedals. This should have been fixed long ago with a recall instead of forcing me and my family to breathe in smoke and risk a much larger fire. There were no warning lights and a dealer has not inspected the issue. However, brown cable housing is burnt/blackened.

A defect that meets the definition of a nonconformity in Washington State, and that is covered under warranty, caused the vehicle to stall while driving and caused the vehicle to not accelerate when the accelerator was pressed. My safety was put at risk when this happened on a 50 mph road because vehicles behind me expected my vehicle in front of them to accelerate in a predictable way with the flow of traffic. Another time, a stall happened as I turned onto a highway. I had come to a stop, waited for the traffic light, and then turned right and pressed the accelerator as I normally would to get up to 50 mph. A flashing glow plug light came on, and the car immediately had zero propulsion, and so I turned the steering wheel to roll to the side of the road and turned on my hazard lights. I was fortunate that I was not rear-ended. On another occasion, I came off of the interstate as normal, but when I tried to drive over the overpass at a slight incline, the vehicle was unable to accelerate to 20 mph, and would only go about 5 mph no matter how much the accelerator was pressed. This happened multiple times, but not all of the time, and it was unpredictable when it would happen. It was dangerous to me because I could not time traffic circles with confidence that I would be able to press the accelerator and get up to speed without being struck from the left, or turn out onto busy roads with confidence I wouldn't be t-boned, or merge with traffic on the highway. The mileage on the vehicle at the first attempt to diagnose/repair the defect was 63935 on 10/11/2019 when a VW dealership diagnosed and replaced two glow plugs under warranty. Several more times it was warr. repaired. In November 2021, after the vehicle was repaired and failed on the dealership test drive, an engineer from Volkswagen inspected the vehicle, it was further repaired and released to me. A couple of months later, the vehicle stalled on a highway and a flashing glow plug light came on.

The screen which is for the radio and back up camera has started to "flicker" This looks to be a common problem people are fixing it by having the head unit replaced but clearly it's a safety issue since the backup camera is hard to use. This is a dieselgate car so it wasn't purchased new until 2017 and it seems crazy for this to be happening when the car has only been on the road for 5 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgRQp6E16Rc

The clock spring fails. Causing the airbag light to illuminate. The car is a 2015 and the first clock spring failed in January 2021, with around 155,00 miles (estimate). Second one failed this week with 162,000 miles. I know the car is old, but the part that gets power to the airbag should last more than 2 years. Volkswagen extended the warranty of the part, but we were outside for both repairs now. The dealer tells me this part is fixed on a regular basis to the point he was surprised he was able to get the part. I feel like for the part that supplies power to the airbag, an extended warranty is not sufficient. (For the information below, I was in a parking lot when the clock spring broke, so speed was irrelevant, np accident occurred)

I did a left-U turn- heard a loud sound, and then all the electrical things on my steering wheel failed, like horn, air bag, and controls. The failed airbag light is on, and it has other warning lights as well. I am now not protected in a crash, nor can I use my horn. I believe from a bit of research that my car has what I think is the same clockspring defect that VW has had in a TON of their vehicles- mine has failed- but does not seem to fall into a safety recall. Why is that? This seems to be a serious safety problem they have had- and I believe it should be covered by the manufacturer.

-the failed part is available for inspection -fire hazard, shock hazard and toxic fume hazard - Audi has issued a recall for the same part on their vehicles https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2017/RCONL-17V622-5223.pdf -there were no warning lamps or other symptoms Description of the Issue: The ground terminal on the Auxiliary Heater also sometimes known as the Supplmentary PTC Heater (P/N 5Q0.963.235)began to corrode which caused it to get so hot that the insulation melted, the heater housing melted and live wires became loose in the passenger compartment. The burning plastic also created terrible fumes inside of the car. Here is a picture of a live wire that has melted the housing and come loose. https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?media/aux-heater-1-jpg.140387/ Here is the melted housing where the terminal should normally be. https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?media/aux-heater-2-jpg.140386/ This seems to be a common issue in these vehicles and is well known to the car enthusiast community. Here are some links to forums posts which document this issue https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?threads/burning-smell-from-heat.513304/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnNW-onPK9M&ab_channel=mr-fix https://www.seatcupra.net/forums/threads/ptc-heater-burning-smell.459372/

On starting the car the system monitoring safety features shows first a fault detected in the ABS, then the air bag, then tire pressure and sometimes indicates that the key battery should be replaced. It also turns off the idle control that raises the rpm when the brake peddle is released when stopped, and defeats the roll back when stopped on a hill. This started over six months ago and was intermittent, often turning off (no symbols lighted) and idle controls restored after a few minutes. About 5 weeks ago it became constant. In fact, the tire pressures are within the specifications, the key battery is new and measures 3V as expected. The status of the ABS and airbag cannot be checked by the consumer. This problem was reported to the Dealer, Flow Companies of Asheville, who found that the left rear speed sensor was faulty, but did not have the part. Replacement is now scheduled for October 3. This replacement hopefully will restore the monitoring system. My concern is that a monitoring system designed such that a fault in one system triggers false positive warnings in other safety related functions is dangerous. That it also affects the idle controls should not be acceptable. I have reviewed the TDI Forum and Golf Forums and found that this lighting up of multiple faults is not a rare occurrence. A faulty ABS speed sensor is sometimes the cause, other times is seems that moisture is penetrating a connector or cable. In any case a safety monitoring system providing false information should not be tolerated. I also drive a 2003 VW TDI Jetta, it also monitors the air bag, ABS and other systems, but a fault in one does not trigger a cascade of false positives.

After turning on the vehicle, I turned the steering wheel and heard a click, then the airbag malfunction warning light came on immediately. Horn and all steering wheel buttons have stopped working (radio control, cruise control etc). and airbag warning light remains on. This seems obviously to be the broken clock spring problem. Vehicle has about 105,000 miles on it. I am not sure if the steering area was ever serviced during a previous safety recall, but I have never had any service on the steering wheel or issues in that area.