Volkswagen Atlas 2021

I own a 2021 VW Atlas, subject to recall 24V464. I scheduled a recall service appointment weeks in advance at Colonial Volkswagen of Medford, MA (via the VW app for 8:30 AM on Aug 19, 2025). I received multiple confirmations by email and text from VW. When I arrived on time, the Service Advisor (Frank Dasilva) told me the parts were not available and the recall could not be performed. This was never communicated beforehand. I had rearranged my schedule for this appointment, including transporting my daughter to her internship in Boston, and this caused major disruption. When I expressed my frustration, the Service Advisor raised his voice, disclosed a personal health issue, and walked away. I was then told to wait for the Service Manager, who eventually arrived but gave dismissive and contradictory explanations. He claimed that no VW dealer orders recall parts before the customer arrives because they do not know the VIN or parts required. This is false—my VIN and recall number were known when the appointment was scheduled. The Service Manager’s tone suggested that performing the recall was a “favor” since I was not paying for it, which is unprofessional and misleading. Recall work is a federal safety requirement and VW dealers are compensated by the manufacturer. Colonial VW did not prepare for my scheduled appointment, wasted my time, treated me poorly, and failed to comply with the intent of the recall process. I was left without a solution, only told I’d be contacted “when parts arrive.” I am requesting NHTSA to review Colonial VW’s handling of recall 24V464, as this appears to be a failure to ensure timely and professional compliance with a federally mandated safety recall.

I was driving my 2021 Volkswagen Atlas on a Friday evening that has under 55,000 miles and it stopped on me while I was driving. I have NEVER had any problems with this vehicle. This was a HUGE safety issue, as my vehicle stopped at a light while in motion at an intersection and it would not go forward. I attempted to turn my vehicle off and back on, then put the vehicle into park, drive, and reverse and it would not go into any gear and made this loud noise. I had to place my foot on the brakes so the vehicle would not roll until the tow company arrived all while in the middle of the intersection. My vehicle was towed to the Sutherlin Volkswagen of Lithia Springs Georgia on [XXX] and was told by an advisor on [XXX] that my Cv Axle Spline Malfunction causing Cv Axle to back out of the transmission housing, and to repair this will cost me $1355 since I'm now out of the warranty. I have been without a vehicle since 1-8-2024 so I reserved a rental for 1 week paying $255. The dealer states the parts will take a few days to come so I will be down another week and with no vehicle and I can't afford to pay for another and pay for repairs. I'm filing an official compliant because this was a safety hazard that could have ended multi car collision. My vehicle had no warning lights. I also took my vehicle to the dealer on the regular for the oil change and multi-point inspection as preventatives measures with received indication that my cv axle needed replacement. I have included the analysis estimate received from the dealer and rental bill I paid for. I look forward to hearing from you in regard to this matter. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

In May I brought the vehicle to the dealership because the vehicle was turning off at low speeds (exiting a parking lot) or switching from Drive to Reverse. This was in conjunction with the check engine light coming on. The dealership diagnosed it as a fuel sensor failure, which they told me was safe to drive, and they'd order the part. I went back the next week when the sensor had been received and the repair was made. Last week, the low fuel alert flashed when I knew the vehicle was not low on fuel. The alert was not stable for a few days (it turned on and then turned back off, and then on again), and the vehicle started to have the same issue of stopping at low speeds. I had it towed to the dealership because I was too worried to drive it. The dealership diagnosed it with a 'swollen and leaky gas tank'. They sent photos upon request and the gas tank appears to have a tear. It is not due to any accident or road debris. The VW dealership has recommended a complete gas tank replacement, and let me know the gas tanks are on back order and did not have a date it would be available. This is extremely dangerous situation because 1. it was leaking gas and 2. it was coming to a stop. I drive around children (my own and others) and I can't imagine if something had happened while I was in driving around a car of kids. I read on different sites (Reddit and other car sites) and it seems the stopping problem with the Atlas is somewhat common, unfortunately. I am curious if it's due to a bad gas tank or if it is a separate malfunction with the vehicle. I called the Volkswagen Care Line and was told that they were sorry, but my vehicle was no longer under warranty, so they were unable to give me any information or guidance.

Within seconds of starting the vehicle, error codes started appearing on the dashboard and beeping noise stating to park the car and not drive. The back window will roll down on its on and the parking break will engage if it wasn’t engaged already. I would turn off the car and it would go away But after a few minutes the car would start beeping and all kinds of lights and error code started appearing again. After getting this error message and the constant beeping, the emergency brake turns on and the window from behind driver's door lowers like 5 inches from top. At this point, I cannot lower window and I cannot turn off emergency brake. The code started appearing about a week prior to December 8 which was the final straw. It got to a point that while driving, if I took the foot of the gas pedal, the emergency break will engage automatically as I was going 10-15 miles per hr. Everytime I slowed down and was coming to a stop the car will engage the emergency break. I had to turn off the car and back on in order to keep going. This almost caused me to be hit multiple times until I was able to get to a safe location and away from the main road. I’ve read many others complaint similar and I think this should be a recall. It is a safety hazard when the emergency break engages once you slow down and foot is off the break. This particular car was fixed on Nov.5 for a recall related to coupling rods. I was told that the issue now is called a “driver front door harness” fault which the wires think I’m opening the door while driving so it engages the emergency break. Vehicle is currently at dealership and has been since Dec. 8 with no estimated time of repair due to waiting on parts.vehicle has been in my possession since Jan. 9, 2021.

What component or system failed or malfunctioned, and is it available for inspection upon request? The base to my baby’s car seat. We have the Maxi-Cosí Peri 180 Rotating Car Seat. My husband and I were placing the car seat to clip in to the base. When doing so it span around and would not stay locked I place. Once we clipped the car seat in and turned it to lock it kept spinning even when the lock button symbol showed it was locked. I took my baby out of the car seat and my husband tried to see if maybe the car seat needed to be reinstalled or fixed. But that did not resolve the issue. The car seat kept spinning around and not locking still. I do have doctor appts and many school events for my daughter at school this week. I cannot afford to purchase another car seat right now. I am going to have to use the seat belt to keep the car seat from spinning on its own. I am at all costs trying to my hardest to have to leave home. As it’s is honestly frightening. How was the child’s safety put at risk? My Child’s life was put as risk by the base not staying secure and spinning. As well as not staying locked to keep him safe. Also, this happened to us while we were at a store so we had not choice but to put him back in the car seat and my daughter and I held the car seat in place while my husband drove back home. As we did not want to get into and accident and the car seat not keep our baby safe. This was scary as I’m wondering now how low he this base been this way. So glad I caught it as I do not want to put my baby back in the car seat. We need to get another brand because we are mortified. Has the car seat been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others? No. WE HAVE VIDEO FOOTAGE of the car seat issue. If a link/email be sent to me so I can email this over please.

I purchased new fully loaded VW Atlas for around 50K in March 2021. I choose VW Atlas 4 wheel drive due to brand name and thought my family will be safer in it. On Sun - 03/26/23 afternoon my wife was driving locally with my two kids in the back on local road and all of sudden all side airbags deployed without any reason. My wife and kids got very scarred as airbags deployed all of sudden for no reason. The car got out of control a little and right side tires scratched against the curb before she stopped and everyone go out of vehicle. She drove the car straight to VW Dealership in Sioux City so we can have them look at this once they open on Monday. On Monday 03/27/23 I called VW customer care and gave them all this detail. They asked me to take the car to dealership so they can look at it which I had already done. On 03/29/23 Dealership called and said according to VW Product manager there was an impact and airbags deployed because of this and I have to get the car fixed myself. My wife was going at 35-40 miles and the tires rubbed the curb after airbags deployed all of sudden. VW also has a recall for 2020 and 2021 Atlas as their airbags are going off unexpectedly. My Atlas is 2021.5 model but it is too much of coincide and may be VW needs to add 2021.5 models to recall. The VW service manager showed me another blue Atlas with tire bent inside due to impact and the airbag was not deployed but their product specialist says my car rubbing the curb caused the airbag to deploy. There is no impact anywhere on the body, not even a hair line scratch besides tires rubbing curb. My family does not feel safe in this car anymore. I am glad that this did not happen on highway or sudden malfunction like this on highway could have caused collision impacting mine and other families. I am hoping that VW will step up, take responsibility and do the right by customers instead of giving me run around.

The car began revving at lights when I was in drive and stopped at red lights. The normal at rest rev is 0.75 however I have seen it as high as 1.5 and had to put the car into park to reset the acceleration. This had been consistently happening over the past month. The first visit to the dealer, I needed a new battery... that didn't fix the issue. The tech said that after the battery was replaced that the scan showed no error codes. The only codes before the battery replacement were low voltage indicators throughout the car. The next day the same issue happened again. The second scam showed no faults however I asked them to clean the throttle body (which they never suggested) and they did. They said that they recalibrated the new clean throttle body measurement to the computer. For the following 10 days, when I stopped at a light, the tachometer was perfectly stable at 0.75 and there was no "jumping" around like before. Until this day, the acceleration happened at a "stop". However on day 11 after the throttle cleaning, I was SLOWING DOWN to approach a red light and the tachometer revved to 3.0 and I needed to stop immediately and throw it into park. This is so dangerous. I may cause an accident by either lurching forward or needing to hit the breaks to stop the acceleration. There are no error or warning lights that show on the dashboard!!! After the battery was changed, the dealership said they had someone drive it for 10 miles to recreate the issue but found none yet it started up the next day. GROK has been helpful. It suggested first the throttle cleaning which did help, and three other repairs. I'm planning to pay a shop that deals with German cars specifically to scan and evaluate. The car has 43,000 miles on it. This is a testament to German engineering? No longer. I have never seen this in any other of my vehicles. All three uploads failed even though I got them to the most minimum of info.

I was driving between 25-30 mph at dusk. Suddenly a loud red warning appeared on the dashboard, and the car came to a screeching halt. I did not touch the brakes - it happened all on its own. There was nothing in front of me, such as a collision. It was not raining. The only factor that changed, which might be completely coincidental, is that I was just going over top of a large metal plate on the street that is used to cover road construction. The plate was just like any other, and stuck up maybe an inch. By the brakes slamming on, I was hit by the car behind me, who was also going 25-30 mph. This caused my passenger to be thrashed around - luckily neither of us were hurt. The driver of the other vehicle was not hurt but his car's hood was badly damaged. He had two kids in the back seat. I see this article, but when discussing it with the dealer, they claimed to have no knowledge of the issue or recall, even though it says the issue has been happening since 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/19/vw-recalls-246000-atlas-suvs-due-to-issue-with-airbags-brakes.html If this had occurred when a car was not just right behind me, but maybe 20 car lengths back, they would have plowed into me going 30 mph. This could have been extremely bad, and someone could die from such a situation. This is not the first time the loud warning light has come on for no reason. Every so often it will come on, even though there is nothing close to the vehicle. However, it is the first time it has braked like this. I have also found the software to be very glitchy at other times. Suddenly the radio might turn off, the navigation system goes very wrong, and so forth. When mentioning this to the dealer, they blamed Apple due to CarPlay. When I explained that these have nothing to do with CarPlay, they had no response. A software update did just occur maybe a week or two ago. I don't know if this is related to the brake issue.

The car stalls and turns off when operating at a slow speed, both in forward or reverse. This is a serious and potentially deadly problem. With my two young children in the car, I was turning left across three lanes of oncoming traffic. When I began to accelerate, my car stalled in the middle of the first lane. I had to figure out what happened, put it in park, restart the car and finish my turn before being hit by oncoming traffic. This has happened 2-3 times each day since this started last week. This has nothing to do with Eco mode or automatic start/stop feature. I am familiar with both of those and disengage them when I start the car. The car has approx 28k miles and is well maintained. It is still well within warranty. The check engine light came on and the code it throws is P0496 for a bad EVAP system. I took it to VW dealer and they re-created and diagnosed the problem. Essentially, the EVAP system has faulty parts and it is causing the gas tank to collapse. The EVAP canister, the purge valve and the gas tank all need to be replaced. The problem is they do not have the parts to replace the gas tank. And they have no idea when they are going to get them. Literally, no time horizon. The VW service advisor admitted that they’ve seen ‘some frequency’ with this problem lately, mainly on 2019-2023 models. It’s a parts issue, not a wear & tear nor maintenance issue. If you look this up online, you’ll see hundreds of posts about this issue with similar scary situations like mine. Couple this with the active recall already in place (passenger airbag may not deploy in an accident) and there’s no solution for that recall, either. My family feels in jeopardy every time we drive our family car. Why is there not a recall for the gas tank collapse? How can we compel VW to produce a remedy in a timely manner? This is going to be a fatal issue for some family. Please help. I am happy to document and share photos/ videos of the situation.

Malfunctioning Component/System: The vehicle is experiencing two separate, severe safety malfunctions: Issue 1 (Engine Stalling): The engine completely shuts off while the vehicle is actively in "Drive." Issue 2 (Unintended Lockout): The vehicle automatically locks all doors with the keys inside, even when the engine is off and doors are being actively used. Safety Risk to Others: Issue 1: The sudden engine shutoffs occur while waiting at stoplights, stop signs, or in moving school student drop-off zones. This creates an immediate risk of a rear-end collision or being stranded in active traffic. Issue 2: This defect creates a critical life-safety hazard for children. While the car was parked and turned off, I placed my purse (containing the keys) on the passenger side and buckled my children into their car seats. Upon closing the rear door, the vehicle instantly locked itself, trapping my young children inside a completely turned-off, locked vehicle while leaving me stranded outside. This presents a severe risk of child entrapment, extreme cabin heat, or delayed rescue in an emergency. 3. Dealer Confirmation & Reproduction: Because both issues occur intermittently, they are difficult to reproduce on command. The vehicle will be scheduled to be brought to an authorized Volkswagen dealership to scan for historical fault codes alongside an open PODS recall repair. However, please note the dealership says this takes 4 hours, which makes it very difficult to schedule. 4. External Inspections: The vehicle has not yet been formally inspected regarding these specific failures by the manufacturer, police, or insurance representatives prior to this filing. Warning Lamps, Messages, and Symptoms: Issue 1 (Stalling): The vehicle shuts down without any prior shuddering or mechanical warning signs. Issue 2 (Lockout): The central locking system gives no audible warning or delay This has been ongoing since late 2024, with most recent occurrence today.

2021 volkswagon Atlas, needed new oil pan after few months due to major oil leak. had to pay out of pocket for rental 1 week. Wipers came flying off on driver's side hitting side window scratching car. Dealership said nothing wrong (my dad tightened bolts they were loose) heater in back started making horrible noise, said nothing was wrong. Needed new breaks, rotors numerous times. When backing up makes horrible noise, to this day. 10/7/23 driving down road at 28 mph my car stalled out. Did this numerous times w/in 3 weeks, brought to dealership said they couldn't find anything wrong. Kept happening brought it back. They change emission module & oil. Car started sounding like a tractor. Brought it to different dealership. Going down road at 45 mph with 4 kids in car. Car stalls out. No steering no breaks. Super scary. Car keeps stalling out, going down road at 58mph car stalls out, no steering no breaks again everything locks up. 18 wheeler behind me, 3 kids in car. Brought to another dealership, they stated never heard of car stalling out before. They stated other dealership put wrong oil in, they did another oil change and said my car was safe to drive. Car still kept stalling out almost every time I slowed down or came to a stop, or even when starting it before leaving had to restart numerous times. Fast forward car been in shop since 2/1/24. Said metal shavings in oil filter now needs new motor & theres bearings missing. (they told me car was safe to drive) we asked about safety issue, they said what safety issue? Whycar keeps stalling? Said never heard of this issue with the cars before. they want 9k for a rebuilt motor w/ way more miles than my car has now, Ive been in rental for 3 weeks out of pocket pay. Dealership can't promise me this will fix car. Car is a death trap and I have precious cargo, I don't feel safe driving it. Research says lots of people having same issues. VW Rep says never heard of this. Called lawyers yup its a common lawsuit, lemon car.

We bought a 2021.5 Volkswagen Atlas that, starting around 15,000 miles, began having computer-related issues that were reported but never truly repaired. Over time, those issues escalated into serious drivability and safety problems. Beginning in mid-2025, the car started driving poorly. It had hesitation, dragging, poor fuel economy, and then began stalling, sometimes at idle and sometimes while driving. At first, repairs like a battery replacement were tried, but they did not fix the problem. In August 2025, the car stalled on the interstate in Nashville with flashing EPC and check engine lights and would not restart. Our family, including our children, was stranded in an unsafe situation. The car had to be towed, and a fuel pump was replaced. Even after that repair, the stalling and warning lights continued. Later in August, when the car continued to stall, Don Jacobs Volkswagen told us the problem was a warranty-covered EVAP (carbon) canister and that repairing it should resolve the issue. It did not. In December 2025, the car stalled again with flashing warnings and was deemed unsafe to drive. It was towed back to Don Jacobs, where a second fuel pump replacement was performed. In January 2026, the check engine light came on again and the car was returned to the dealership. At that time, we were told the EVAP canister had been left unattached from prior testing, not from the most recent repair. Since then, the vehicle has continued to drive poorly, with ongoing hesitation and dragging. In total, the vehicle has been in the shop four times, including three visits to the same dealership, and no one has been able to diagnose or permanently repair it. The dealership has told us they cannot proceed unless specific fault codes appear, even though the vehicle continues to malfunction and send diagnostic alerts through the Volkswagen app. Because of the repeated stalling, unresolved repairs, and lack of a clear path to fix the problem, we do not feel the vehicle