2018 Volkswagen Atlas: multiple warning lights

Filed Nov 30, 2023 · Brakes, Electrical · WI

Vehicle displays “Brake booster faulty” and all warning lights trigger. Vehicle auto brakes itself and stops with little ability to steer. No warning/fault codes were stored when brought into the repair shop to address the issue and they could not duplicate it. It is an intermittent problem but looking at online forums it is NOT ISOLATED AND IS DANGEROUS.

Filed Jan 30, 2023 · Driver assistance, Electrical · MI

Car automatically brakes driving down road and all the dash lights come on.

Filed Apr 14, 2021 · Electrical, Engine · 55,400 miles · IN

Vehicle goes into emergency mode for 4th time. Happened twice in 2 days. A total of 4 times in 5 months. With no warning, multiple warning lights come on and the car applies emergency braking until the car is brought to a stop. There is no opportunity to choose a safe place to bring it to a stop. Driver is unable to accelerate until car is parked and restarted. The 4th time this happened, was on an interstate traveling at 75 to 80mph with vehicles around traveling at same speeds or in excess of that speed. Luckily there was an opening on the shoulder that I was able to quickly pull the car into and the car behind me didn't rear end me. This is the 4th time it's happened and could have caused bodily harm. Vw does not care. A software update was performed in february that was supposed to fix the problem. Because it didn't, vw wanted to replace my entire ECM because they thought it was faulty. After threat of buyback did they finally start digging into the car. Techs found a faulty relay switch. They replaced it and said problem couldn't be recreated so it was fixed 'as far as anyone could tell' and didn't need a new ECM.

Filed Apr 10, 2021 · Driver assistance, Electrical · 55,500 miles · IN

This has happened 3 times now. When driving, all emergency notification lights come on without warning and the car applies emergency braking. The driver is unable to accelerate and must come to a stop immediately or the car does it for them. The only way to then drive again, is to park it, turn the car off, and turn it back on. When that is done, almost all warning lights disappear and the car behaves as though nothing ever happened. The only error that the vehicle shows is an error with the start/stop system and says that the engine is on due to system failure. If you manually turn off start/stop, then all warnings are gone. Usually, when the car is turned off and driven a second time after that, no warnings (not even start/stop) appear. This has happened at 65mph on cruise control, at 10mph in a parking lot, and at 50mph. The first time it happened, a stored code for multiple passive mini faults appeared, but dealer could not recreate problem and I was told to drive it and call if it happens again. 3 months later, it happened again with completely different variables in driving prior to it happening. When brought in to the dealer, the same code was thrown in addition to a code about low battery output. Vw warranty engineers determined it needed a software update. After software update was performed, the new code of the battery output level went away. 2 months later, the same thing happened again at a different rate of speed. No check engine light was ever on, nor is it presently on. There is no warning that this is going to happen. The driver has no choice but to stop the car immediately in its tracks and turn it off. The driver is unable to determine a safe place to pull the car over to until they have turned it off and back on and virtually all warning lights have disappeared.

Filed Oct 18, 2019 · Acceleration, Brakes · 18,000 miles · SC

The car stops on its own while driving, all lights on dash illuminate, and car starts again as if nothing happened. Twice going up the driveway and three times while on back roads. No one was in front of or behind us for two of the times. One of the times, it was during traffic so the speed was slow enough not to have an impact. One other time it stopped about half a car length away from the curb when parking the car. While on the highway, going 70, with the blinker on to get over to the center lane, the car jerked me back to the right..I was in the right lane, a car in front of me, a car behind me, no cars in the middle lane, and two in the far left lane coming up. Absolutely no reason for the car to think there was a car to the left of me. The two cars in my original lane and the two cars in the far left lane remained in those lanes. I have taken the car to two different dealerships, a total of three times and they could not recreate the problem, so they are unable to fix the issues. My case was escalated to the se regional case manager, who put the case in for review to buy back the vehicle and was notified today, 10/18/2019, that they are not going to buy it back but they will continue to service the vehicle under the warranty. How can they service the vehicle if they can't find anything wrong with the vehicle. I can't believe they expect to drive this unsafe vehicle until someone dies! I paid extra to buy this vehicle for the safety features, which is what is causing this to be unsafe. It would be unethical to sale the car, but too unsafe for me to drive and put my family at risk of getting in a vehicle accident and dying. Please have a recall issued to address the issues before someone dies and telling consumers to disable these functions is not the right answer either. I have had issues from the beginning, but thought it was hiccups. Date is approximate.

Filed Nov 7, 2018 · Driver assistance, Electrical · 8,800 miles · MA

I was driving my 2018 vw atlas with 8,800 miles on it on 11/5/18. I was stopped at a traffic light and when the light turned green the car's engine did not turn back on from idling and all the lights on the dashboard started going off telling me various things. I do not think having an ecofriendly car is worth it turning off to not turn back on when it's supposed to. I had to have it towed to the dealership, who fixed the car telling me that there were software updates and that the battery was drained. The printout from working on it says that the battery charging system is good but the battery was defective internally, on a car that's a little over a year old. There was absolutely no warning, the car would not recognize my key, would not turn on, and essentially was useless in traffic and extremely unsafe. I am thankful my children were not in the car. Vw claims the problem is fixed but reading others complaints I am doubtful and afraid that it's only a matter of time before this happens, without warning, again. I cannot have this happen due to safety reasons, being a single parent of two young kids, and I had to also miss a day of work to deal with a problem that should never have happened in the first place. I am also wondering if this problem has anything to do with my car having an oil spill after an oil change that the dealership did incorrectly in august. They did not tighten the cap to the extent it should have been tightened and oil spilled all over my garage, stained it, and it's never coming out. Vw fixed that and gave a free oil change in the future? I really hope that did not mess up my new car and cause this new issue to happen. I cannot have any more issues happening with this car and the battery/computer issues need to be fixed so that they don't ever happen again.