2008 Volkswagen GTI
This year drew an ordinary 67 complaints for a Volkswagen GTI — the model's median is 0. What they were about is the unusual part: 43.3% of them mention transmission, against 15.9% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 67 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 0 |
| Involving a crash | 3 |
| Recalls | 1 |
| EPA combined | 24.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 43.3% of this year's complaints, against 15.9% across the model's other years (2.7×).
- hit — 29.9% of this year's complaints, against 11.9% across the model's other years (2.5×). Owners wrote it as: hit, almost, prone, purchased new.
- 2nd — 13.4% of this year's complaints, against 1.2% across the model's other years (10.8×).
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
CAME TO COMPLETE STOP. PRESSED ON GAS PEDAL TO MOVE FORWARD INTO INTERSECTION. AFTER AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION SHIFTED INTO 2ND, THE CAR LOSS ALL ENGAGEMENT AND FELT AS IF IT WAS IN NEUTRAL. I STEPPED ON THE GAS PEDAL FURTHER AND AFTER 5 SECONDS, THE ENGINE RPM"S…
WHILE ATTEMPTING TO DRIVE, THE VEHICLE HESITATED AND MADE AN ABNORMAL NOISE WHEN SHIFTING GEARS. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO A DEALER. THE TECHNICIAN DIAGNOSED THAT THE TRANSMISSION FAILED AND AS A RESULT A FLUSH NEEDED TO PERFORM. THE REMEDY FAILED TO REPAIR THE…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 07V442000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING
How this was worked out
Every year of the Volkswagen GTI 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 GTI? What happened to yours?
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