While driving 25 MPH in inclement weather consumer applied the brake pedal and the brakes failed. This caused the vehicle to crash into a tree. Upon impact, both frontal air bags failed to deploy. Vehicle was towed to the dealer for inspection.
2003 Volkswagen Jetta brakes complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 22 of 22, newest first, as owners wrote them.
I got my 2003 vw jetta in february of '03. Now not even a year and a half later I have huge problems with my car. My brake lights will randomly stay on even when the car is turned off. My windows do not always work properly. Finally the worst was that I was parked in my drive way, it is steep but the same place I have parked dozens of times, when the emergency brake let go in the middle of the night and my car rolled down the drive way eventually crashing into trees. I read on other complaints that there was one other person who had experienced the failure of the emergency brake and many others who had similar electrical problems. Well I called volkswagen about my brake lights and they said that indeed there was a recall on my car as a result of a failing brake light switch. Turns out they had failed to inform me. I wonder what other recalls they have failed to inform people about.
Vehicle was towed twice because the defect described in the ABS ecu recall 02v03100 occurred while driving. This vehicle was not includedin the recall due to model year and VIN.
While braking 55 MPH vehicle jerked, causing extended stopping distance. Dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem.
When the brake pedal was depressed to disengage the cruise control brakes failed. This resulted in a rear end collision. The insurance was not able to prove that the failure was due to a malfunction in the brake mechanism.
The consumer parked the vehicle on a 2 point grade, set the parking brake, and proceeded into his house. Approximately thirty minutes later, a friend informed consumer that the vehicle had rolled down the street and collided with a tree. *ak *sc
I bought my car at the end of november. Drove it off the lot with 9 miles on the vehicle. At the time of breakdown on july 25, 2003, the car had 10,900 miles on it. The current mileage on it now is 13,000 july 25th was a very hot day. I believe it was up to 110 degrees that day. I had noticed my car running at a substantial lower power than usual, but I assumed it was because of the heat and that I had my air conditioning on high. I had to do some errands in town then I headed home, which is about 30 minutes away from the tri-cities, at this time I did notice loss of power going up the on-ramp to the interstate, but still did not think too much of the fact. I was half way home when I noticed that my car was losing even more power, the cruise quit and my speedometer went from 75 to 50 MPH and that is when I noticed that my heat gauge was extremely high. I also found it odd that the inside of my car had not cooled off, but was getting warmer. I headed towards the off-ramp and as I was down shifting and applying the breaks, my brake pedal made ;puffy-popping noise and then the brake pedal collapsed to the floor. I put the vehicle in neutral and pumped the brakes to get the vehicle to stop, when the vehicle stopped, I smelled heat, or like something burning. I thought it was a fire around town. Pulling away from the off-ramp, I could not get any pickup speed with my car. The car felt like it was pushing to go forward and also pulling itself back at the same time, as the vehicle tried to pick up speed, it would pull back and forth. The gas pedal was all the way to the floor and I couldn't get any speed. I could only shift into second gear and the vehicle could only maintain 15 MPH. As all of this was happening, I was turning off everything I thought took power, air conditioner was the first thing off when I started noticing the car overheating and losing power, then the radio, these did not help.
While driving in heavy ma traffic the front breaks of my 2003 jetta tdi locked up. I had to pull over and it took me 30 minutes to get the brakes to release. I took the car to the dealership and they refused to fix the problem because they could not duplicate it. They have had my car for 11 days and they still refuse to repair the car. Vw customer support is also being unhelpful.
While proceeding to enter the highway, the driver heard a loud bang. The vehicle started to lose power. Took vehicle to mechanic, and he said that the bolts sheared off the from driveshaft to the transmission. *ak the transmission, driveshaft, and the cv joints were replaced due to the incident. The vehicle started to have problems again with the front brakes, where the rotors were replaced again. (the problem returned again) *scc
I recently bought a brand new 2003 vw jetta tdi at the end of november. On the day of the incident my car first started losing power, I noticed the pick-up wasn't as good as normal, secondly I started noticing the heat gauge went up as my car started over heating, thirdly I was almost home going down the off-ramp and when I put my foot on the brake to stop, the brake made a popping noise and then the brake hit the floor. I pumped the brakes and put the car in nuetral and was able to stop, as I began driving the car would not pick up any power and it felt as if the car was pulling against itself, I could not even get my car to go above 15 miles an hour in second gear. I drove the rest of the way home in 2nd, and with no brakes. When I made it home I thought there was a fire under my car because of how hot it was, the smell of burning was awful and as I got out of my vehicle there were chunks of creamy grease dripping from my car. I called roadside asst. And had them come to my house and tow the vehicle to a local dealership (overturf volkswagen). After several days of trying to find what the problems was overturf decided they could not find a problem with my vehicle. My husband and I had to force them to look into the braking system. Overturf explained to us that what happened to me out on the highway was typical and not to be concerned, I knew differently and enforced the fact that they needed to check the braking system. After several hours of debating over the fact that the breaks didn't need checked, they test drove the car again and the car reinacted the problem. In the end, my brake booster and master cylinder had to be replaced. Luckily my car still is under warrenty, but the car only had 10,900 miles on it, something like the whole breaking system should not fail with as little as mileage as the car had. One week later the car gets picked up and the next day my cruise will not set. I now have another appointment to get my cruise control fixed.
Okay, I have had my 03 jetta for one month and two days (I received it on june 29th). It has already been in for service for the following reasons: july 8th: -A/C vent made loud noise like something was stuck/flapping around in it - condensation in drivers side headlight -pulled to the right -made a moaning noise when I turned left, gradually worsened to make the same noise when I turned left. *vw had the car at that time for two days, then called me to tell me that they were stumped about the moaning noise and that they wanted their head tech to look at it. However, he happened to be on vacation so I would need to bring it back in. But they added that they did inspect the car as far as safety was concerned and I was good to go. July 24: -car brought in for the second time for moaning noise when turning *vw called me that afternoon stating that since the last time I had brought it in a service bulletin had been issued for my problem and all they had to do was drain and replace my transmission fluid and the noise would be gone. I picked up my car that evening and 1 1/2 hrs later I heard the noise again, not half as loud or as noticeable but it was still there and it again was pulling to the right. I immediately called and left as message with my service advisor that night and called my salesperson in the morning. I had to wait one more week until they could get it back in again. July 30-present ( they still have my car!) - returned car for the third time for moaning noise when turning -still pulling to the right -paint on hood had a noticeable 3d effect & hairline scratches that were not just caused by a bad detailing job -the night before this my brakes started pumping when I would slow down from 60 MPH to get off onto the on ramp to get home, which I didn't think was normal. T *vw said my rotors were warped so they had to replace them.
June 24th, while I was driving my four month old 2003 jetta tdi on the the highway at a 70mph, the cruise control failed to engage. After the car had stopped and began moving again the cruise functioned properly. Two days later on june 26, 2003, while in lunch hour traffic-with a co-worker in the car the brakes automatically engaged by themselves at 40 MPH. We stopped on a dime and were almost rear ended. This occured over 10 times before we got back to the office (we were less than two miles away). Dealership is replacing brake booster and master cylinder and I have requested full warrenty on new brake system from volkswagen of america. This is a potentially serious flaw that could have eaisly caused bodily injury. I have yet to learn if there is a track record of the brakes failing on the 2003 designs but wanted to begin a documentation record.
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