2012 Volkswagen GTI
This year drew an ordinary 40 complaints for a Volkswagen GTI — the model's median is 0. What they were about is the unusual part: 17.5% of them mention during, against 6.6% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 40 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 0 |
| Involving a crash | 2 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| EPA combined | 26 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- during — 17.5% of this year's complaints, against 6.6% across the model's other years (2.7×).
- within — 10% of this year's complaints, against 3.3% across the model's other years (3×).
- causing car — 10% of this year's complaints, against 3.6% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: causing car, slowing.
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
THE CLOCK SPRING IN MY STEERING WHEEL HAS BROKEN/QUIT WORKING, VOLKSWAGEN REFUSES TO REPLACE IT UNDER THE RECALL BECAUSE MY VIN NUMBER WAS NOT FLAGGED DURING THE RECALL, THE AIRBAG LIGHT, ABS LIGHT, BRAKE LIGHT, AND TRACTION CONTROL LIGHT ARE ALL ON, MY MECHAN…
ENGINE STARTED SHAKING / RUNNING ROUGH. SIGNIFICANT POWER LOSS DURING ACCELERATION / TAKEOFF. I WAS NOT FAR FROM THE DEALER WHEN IT HAPPENED - I DROVE IT IN RIGHT AWAY AND THE DIAGNOSIS WAS BAD IGNITION COIL. SINCE THEN, OVER THE NEXT 6 MONTHS, I REPLACED (ON…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V329000 UNKNOWN OR OTHER Fixed free of charge.
- 15V483000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
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 2012 Volkswagen GTI? What happened to yours?
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