2008 Volkswagen Eos
This year drew an ordinary 47 complaints for a Volkswagen Eos — the model's median is 40. What they were about is the unusual part: 29.8% of them mention stop, against 7.1% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 47 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 40 |
| Involving a crash | 2 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 0 |
| EPA combined | 24 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- stop — 29.8% of this year's complaints, against 7.1% across the model's other years (4.2×).
- transmission — 31.9% of this year's complaints, against 12.5% across the model's other years (2.6×).
- first — 17% of this year's complaints, against 6% across the model's other years (2.9×).
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
I WAS DRIVING MY CAR ON A LOCAL CITY STREET AND HALFWAY THROUGH A TURN ALL OF A SUDDEN IT WENT INTO NEUTRAL ON IT'S OWN, ALL THE GEARS ON THE DASH STARTED FLASHING (THE PARK, REVERSE, AND DRIVE) THEY STARTED FLASHING ON AND OFF AS MY TRANSMISSION WENT HAYWIRE.…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Volkswagen Eos 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.
Own a 2008 Volkswagen Eos? What happened to yours?
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