2010 Volkswagen Passat problems
NHTSA has received 226 complaints about the 2010 Volkswagen Passat, and 20% of them involve air bags. After that come engine (18%) and fuel system (15%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 226 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 20% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 7 and 1
- Injuries and deaths
- 6 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 72,000 miles 146 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 22 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 10 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 21 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 28 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 22 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 26 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 6 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 6 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 2 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 3 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Among the 146 complaints that report mileage, the typical (median) problem appeared at about 72,000 miles. For air bags specifically, the median reported mileage is about 62,000 miles (16 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 7 complaints mention a crash; 1 complaint mentions a fire; 6 injuries reported. Its complaints are less severe on average than those of 85% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2010 ranks 20th most-complained-about out of 31 model years of the Volkswagen Passat with enough data (56 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 4 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Tl* the contact owned a 2010 volkswagen passat. The contact stated when driving at approximately 25-30 MPH the engine stalled. The contact stated that the fire emitted from under the hood and within a moment the engine was on fire. The quincy fire department was present and was able to extinguish the fire. The contact stated that the fire department advised that the fire started in the fuel line. The vehicle was towed. The contact's insurance company destroyed the vehicle.
"takata recall" bought passat 2010 finance thru VW credit paid off. 52 thousands miles recall: !st recall 4/20/16. 2nd recall notice december 1 2016 with threat to notify ins. Co. Of unsafe car.takata sdi driver frontal airbag inflator. Computer is old no printer or scanner I can mail documents. When it was wrecked a deer ran out on inter 1-26 took the front off . My insurance fixed it. $10,000.00 geico. October 2013 turned it in to stokes VW. Charleston south carolina where I purchased it. Lost my car and equity.
I had a wreck on oct. 28 2013 on 1-26 in USA south carolina. A deer ran into my car(2010 passat) passenger side and right front of car. No airbags came out. My insurance coming fixed car at VW garage. They told me at that time my airbag part was not on hand they had to order it and they would call me when it came in. Never heard from VW again. I got a recall notice after that,stateing that my car needed to be brought to the dealership it was not safe and then did not have a part to fix it yet.
While driving home (approx 50 mile trip) I heard a loud screeching noise from the engine area. I was traveling on a highway at about 60mpg. I pulled over, turned off the car and saw smoke and smelled burning from under the hood. I opened the hood and smoke billowed out of the back of the engine bay. I looked under the car to see if it was leaking anything and found a large amount of what seemed to be oil dripping from the car. I then noticed a trail of oil from before I stopped the car.
Vehicle was recalled for air bag/clock spring reason twice in just over a year. Now, shortly after both of these repairs, we had a noise in the steering wheel, as well as an air bag failure indicator illuminate. We cannot help but feel this is related to the work that has been performed on these recent recalls and feel VW should be responsible for the cost of these repairs. This happened while driving on a city street while making a turn. Attached is a copy of the service record.