In city traffic, my vehicle has a violent jerky down-shift when approaching a stop, approximately 25mph to 20 mph. It feels like the bottom of the car is falling out. When these occurrences first happened, they were occasional. On the highway I believe it slips from one gear to another. Today, a few months later the occurrences are more frequent and I am forced to seek professional care for my vehicle. I have regularly maintained my vehicle with care and attention to the maintenance requirements. My online research has indicated that this event is not an isolated event, but this occurrence describes a typical VW Beetle transmission with mileage between 50K and 70K; there are hundreds if not thousands of like complaints. I have found two separate forums online supporting this very complaint. This is very low mileage for a failed transmission, especially when many similar small vehicles are offering warranties for 100K miles or more. The VW customer care has failed to respond to my inquiries. I believe my car has become unsafe to drive and I am fearful that it will break down on the freeway or a potentially dark road or in bad weather. I would ask that the NHTSA please look into these recurrent issues with Volkswagen and make Volkswagen accountable for the failing transmission, or, at the very least look into the valve bodies and whether they are up to standards, standards that would prevent this vehicle from failing on the highway and causing potential hazards to drivers and passengers. Thank you,

- Bellevue, WA, USA

The contact owns a 2004 Volkswagen new Beetle. The contact was driving 60 mph when the contact attempted to shift from second gear but the vehicle would not respond. In addition, the vehicle exhibited an abnormally hard shift. The contact took the vehicle to a local mechanic where the mechanic advised that the valve body in the transmission was defective. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 58,000. The VIN was not available.

- San Diego, CA, USA

At less 60K miles, I've been having transmission problem and was told by 2 repair shops that it need to be replaced. Both repair shops admitted that this is a common problem with VW Beetle. I purchase the car new and maintained and service at suggested times at same place of purchase. I purchased extended warranty and have complained in the past. The problem then was intermittent and shop never found the problem until the warranty expired a month later. I have read similar problem from several owners and some were repaired free while other were turned away. Since the problem is inconsistent with many owners at such low mileage, this problem qualifies under lemon law. I request that NHTSA investigate this mechanical problem and consider a recall based on many complaints. Even repair shops know this problem existed and we need help form this government body to investigate this problem before it continues to compromised safety.

- Cupertino, CA, USA

The contact owns a 2004 Volkswagen Beetle. The contact stated while driving the vehicle it would shift into neutral gear and then the brake pedal had to be engaged in order to shift back into drive. The contact spoke with the dealer who was told that the control valves caused the failure. The current mileage was 64,000. The consumer stated the engine would increase in speed and the transmission shifted down to 5th gear. Updated 12/02/11

- Canon, GA, USA

My car is a certified used VW Beetle. The transmission started slipping a few months ago, along with other parts of the car. This was after the warranty period on the car, and I know it is used, but I now come to find out that the transmission problems have been documented, in fact are blatantly on this wiki for the car (which unfortunately, either was not up when we bought the car, or I did not read it carefully) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/volkswagen_new_beetle "the automatic transmission, for example, is a well-documented issue, often failing after only a relatively short period of use." There are numerous pages where this is noted now across the web: townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.F124D77 www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/vw_beetle.html some incidents noted show the danger of this situation. Luckily this has not happened to me, but now I am looking at replacing a whole transmission (along with failed door motors and such). If this is a known problem, how can VW get away with certifying this car, without at least a warning or a longer warranty on parts they know will fail. I consider this a fraud perpetrated on me. Unfortunately this repair is going to cost more than the car is worth, and yet, we still owe money on it to VW for our loan. I am very frustrated here. Thank you.

- Beverly, MA, USA

Purchased my 2004 convertible Beetle in may of 2011 with 83,000 miles and within a few days the transmission began slipping and jerking. It started getting worse as time went on, so we had a mechanic put in some lucas trans fix, it helped a little but did not fix the problem. The slipping and jerking is a definite safety issue and has to be recalled. Noticed on edmunds.com that there are numerous complaints regarding the transmission slipping and jerking. Also noticed that VW America has not taken responsibility for this issue. So I am documenting my complaint and I am asking all 2004 Beetle owners to do the same in hopes to put pressure on VW to take responsibility. The engineers responsible for the transmission failed this program, I hope you idiots take responsibility for your mistakes.

- Amnaheim, CA, USA

Well it has been nothing but trouble. First thing, the transmission went bad and then right after that there was no brake lights. The top will not come down by it self. The dash lights come on ( air bag, brakes, check engine, emissions). Sounds like there are holes in the muffler. Last but not least the right rear window fell down and they won't 800 to fix, there are several complaints about this and nothing is being done.

- Plainfield, IN, USA

2004 VW Beetle - faulty transmission. The transmission shifts violently into 2nd and 3rd gears causing the car to jolt forward. At other times it becomes stuck in 1st gear so as you accelerate from a stop sign you are not able to increase speed enough to stay out of the way of traffic approaching from behind. A multitude of complaints on line for same problem. VW admits transmission problems and shifting difficulty on 1998 - 2006 automatic's. they have extended the warranty for repairs, but only cover the valve box, which according to the local VW dealer is not the problem.

- Suwanee, GA, USA

My transmission slams between 2nd and 3rd gear to fix it either need a new valve body or a new transmission.

- Oviedo, FL, USA

The problem is regarding my 2004 VW Beetle - transmission. I needed to replace the transmission on my VW at 86,000 miles with no help from VW...the car was running very hard, it would stay in 2 or 3rd gear (though an automatic) and then would go into "neutral"....this happened while driving on highway 95 with high speed traffic. The car was checked by a VW dealer and then tried a few things, but couldn't figure it out...then finally said it needed a new transmission - $6500 without labor! I then brought it to a local aamco and then confirmed the need for a transmission(for a lot less) and they also needed to rebuilt some other parts that were faulty. This is definitely a design issue for VW but they refuse to acknowledge it. This should be a recall and a refund for those of us who have already spent the money.

- Stratham, NH, USA

Transmission failure ----- I bought a 2004 Beetle convertible, it is so cute and I thought it would be a lot of fun. When running cold the car was fine, after warming up, it started jerking and the transmission is slipping. By the way, why transmission is not one of the component in your site? I have to choose unknown/other instead.

- Valley Village, CA, USA

I recently bought a 2004 new Beetle tdi with the dsg transmission for my daughter. The car had approximately 75,000 miles on it when the failure occurred. The car had been maintained at a VW dealer and was in excellent shape. While my daughter was driving to school the dual mass flywheel self destruct and took out the transmission with it. I thought that maybe it was just my bad luck until I googled the problem and found out that many VW's with the dual mass flywheel have suffered from this catastrophic failure. VW of America stated that they were unable to help me with this problem. The VW tdi's are not race cars and this type of failure should not occur on a car that operates at the lower RPM range as these cars do. This is either a design flaw or a manufacturing problem and is leaving people with huge repair bills, $6600 in my case.

- Salem, OR, USA