2019 Volkswagen GTI
This year drew an ordinary 179 complaints for a Volkswagen GTI — the model's median is 0. What they were about is the unusual part: 59.8% of them mention clutch, against 2.5% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 179 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 0 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| EPA combined | 27 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- clutch — 59.8% of this year's complaints, against 2.5% across the model's other years (23.5×).
- depressed — 34.1% of this year's complaints, against 0.6% across the model's other years (52.5×).
- stalls — 38.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the model's other years (23.1×).
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
WHEN COMING TO A STOP THE VEHICLE STALLS OUT. MANUAL TRANSMISSION, CLUTCH FULLY DEPRESSED AND THE CAR STALLS. CAR ALSO STALLS ON RESTART OF THE ENGINE. DEALER HAS NOT FOUND A CAUSE.
STALLS AT LOW SPEEDS, E.G. COMING TO A STOP WITH CLUTCH PEDAL DEPRESSED. HAS HAPPENED 3X (SO FAR) IN THE FIRST 800 MILES OF DRIVING. CAR IS A 6MT. CAR HAS 900 MILES ON IT AS OF 5/24/2019.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V615000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 22V815000 TIRES Fixed free of charge.
- 23V604000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 24V110000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE 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 2019 Volkswagen GTI? What happened to yours?
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