Consumer Complaint Detail
VOLKSWAGEN / JETTA / 2004
0 Injured
0 Death
No Fire
| Components - Details | |
|---|---|
| NHTSA Complaint Number: 006067412 | Incident Date: Jun, 05 2006 |
| Consumer's City: ROUND HILL | Consumer's State: VA |
| Vehicle Transmission Type: MAN | Manufacturers Name: Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
| Model Name: JETTA | Model Year: 2004 |
| Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No | Component's Description: Power train:clutch assembly |
| Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No | Persons Injured: 0 |
| Vehicle's VIN#: | Date added to File: May, 23 2021 |
| Date Complaint Received: Jun, 06 2006 | Complaint Type: IVOQ |
| Incident Reported To Police: No | Purchase Date: - |
| Was Original Owner: Yes | Anti-lock Brakes: Yes |
| Number of Cylinders: 6 | Date of Manufacturer: - |
| Was Vehicle Towed: - | Description of the Complaints: I am the original owner of a 2004 vw jetta gli (vr6), purchased in fall '04. the car was delivered off the truck at the time of purchase (never driven by other customers). it currently has 37,100 highway miles on it. i am a previous owner of a '03 vw jetta gli and traded it in (47k mi.) for my current car. both vehicles have a manual transmission. on 6/6/06, i experienced serious problems shifting gears. the car started to rev, even though i was methodically letting the clutch out, shifting accordingly, to see if i could troubleshoot. unfortunately after 4 mi., each subsequent gear started breaking-i could no longer shift into 2nd, then 3rd, up to 6th. then reverse failed. smoke also came up from under the hood with a fuel smell. i took my car to an authorized vw dealer (still under warranty) & the original diagnosis (without removing the transmission) was the clutch had completely failed. it is clear there is a manufacturing issue with the vw clutches. they should not fail at 37k mi. the dealership stated that it could be from normal wear-tear or "user error". i'm not new to driving manual; i have been driving stick shift for about 10 years. to have a car that is driven primarily (80% of travel) on the highway have clutch failure is unfathomable. additionally, i had the 30k maintenance completed & there was no indication of clutch problems. while waiting for final diagnosis for the failure, i conducted research & found this is not an usual problem with vws or vw corporation. according to vw owners, the clutches are failing starting at 19k mi., even after not driving the car hard. this is unacceptable & for the company to know this is a common issue, costing owners thousands in repairs & subsequent bills, endangering people who are driving during failure (without any warning lights from the car), to not cover such issues under warranty, & automatically default the problem being "user error" is unethical & unsafe. *nm |