2015 Volkswagen Beetle
This year drew an ordinary 99 complaints for a Volkswagen Beetle — the model's median is 33. What they were about is the unusual part: 38.4% of them mention time recall, against 13.5% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 99 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 33 |
| Involving a crash | 2 |
| Recalls | 6 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 27 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- time recall — 38.4% of this year's complaints, against 13.5% across the model's other years (2.8×).
- bags however — 36.4% of this year's complaints, against 11.8% across the model's other years (3.1×).
- amount time — 38.4% of this year's complaints, against 14.8% across the model's other years (2.6×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
A NOTIFICATION OF NHTSA CAMPAIGN NUMBER: 15V705000 (ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING, SERVICES BRAKES, HYDRAULIC); HOWEVER, THE PART TO DO THE REPAIR WAS UNAVAILABLE. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE [VIN] EXCEEDED A REASONABLE AMOUNT TIME FOR THE RECALL REPAIR. THE [VIN]…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V615000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 15V705000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING
- 15V028000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 14V658000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
- 20E064000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 22V945000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Volkswagen Beetle was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
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