Upon stopping at an intersection, one of the bench seats quickly shot forward and slammed a child in a car seat into the rear passenger seat. Thankfully there were no injuries, but this required the driver to pull over and investigate what happened with the seat. There appeared to be nothing that would have caused the seat to move forward.

- Fort Smith, AR, USA

I am reporting a design defect in the VW Atlas second row bench. There is no sensor or warning for the driver when the bench seat is not secure. When the car came to a stop from a low speed, the bench fell forward with enough force to fracture my child's leg who was sitting secure in a child's car seat. We reported the design problem to the manufacturer. The vehicle manufacturer inspected the vehicle for a manufacturing defect, not a design defect. When asked to pursue an inspection on design defect, the manufacturer noted they would and did not. This problem is replicable. Our concern is that the car does not alert the driver that the bench is not secure. Our incident could have been avoided if there was a driver warning.

- Hohokus, NJ, USA

The captain seats lurches forward at a high speed without any warning as well as without any precipitating event. This has occurred three times, once with the driver side captain seat and two times with the passenger seat. The indicator on the top of the seat was down before each event so the assumption was the seat was securely locked in position. A child was in a car seat on the passenger side captain seat during the last unlatching event resulting in the child hitting the back of the passenger seat knocking her front teeth loose and bruising her nose (pic attached). The driver stopped in traffic and put the car in park to get out and assist the child as this was the only way to get the seat back in position. The car is to be inspected by the dealer today.

- Cincinnati, OH, USA

We have a 2021.5 Volkswagen Atlas with captain-€™s chairs in the 2nd row. Our 4 year old was riding in a forward-facing car seat installed with lower anchors + tether strap in the 2nd row driver-€™s side and a friend-€™s 8 year old was riding in the 3rd row driver-€™s side in a backless booster. I was in the front passenger seat and my husband was driving. While my husband was braking, the 8 year old lifted up on the 3rd row access lever, located on the upper left side of the 2nd row driver-€™s side captain-€™s chair. The 2nd row captain-€™s chair lifted up, slid forward, and SLAMMED my 4 year old son into the driver-€™s seat. The 8 year old immediately panicked, which caused me to turn around. My 4 year old was not making any noise - almost certainly because his nose and mouth were pressed tightly into the back of the driver-€™s seat, preventing him from making a sound. While in the front passenger seat, I tried to push the captain-€™s chair back into place - but it was way too heavy. Luckily, we were on a road where my husband was able to quickly pull over and jump out to put the captain-€™s chair back into place. As soon as my husband started to move the captain-€™s chair away from the driver-€™s seat, my 4 year old started screaming. After this incident, our 4 year old showed us that while buckled into his forward-facing car seat in the 3rd row of the Atlas he was able to use his foot to lift up on the 3rd row access lever, causing the captain's chair to slam into the back of the front seat exactly as happened when the 8 year old lifted the lever during our trip.

- Allentown, PA, USA

Rear passenger seat belts can become caught in over-shoulder seat release lever (affects all rear seats, except middle bench seat). This can prevent seat belts from retracting properly. This happens frequently when middle row seats are returned to seating position from fold-down position. This slightly has the potential to cause T to be seat to release while the vehicle is in motion.

- Bensenville, IL, USA