10.0

really awful
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 1
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
33,625 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.

Get notified about new defects, investigations, recalls & lawsuits for the 2004 Volkswagen Passat:

Unsubscribe any time. We don't sell/share your email.

problem #3

Sep 112007

Passat 6-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 58,000 miles
Sun visor w/homelink causes #5 fuse to blow. Wires are shorting out inside the visor causing smoke. When fuse blows you loose climatronic ac, cruise control, auto dimming mirrors, and steering wheel controls.

- San Diego, CA, USA

problem #2

Jun 192007

Passat 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 35,000 miles
The 2004 Volkswagen Passat 1.8 T car engine caught on fire today while driving the driver barely saved his life from the flames. The car would certainly burn completely if luckily there was no fire extinguisher available at the nearby stores. Although the incident was in istanbul, turkey I happened to learn from the internet that NHTSA was conducting an investigations on the same problem for 19 Volkswagen Passats. Volkswagen dealer in turkey told me that an engineer from Volkswagen germany will come to turkey to perform an inspection on the car. Nobody touched the car yet. Since the incident was today ant the car was still at the Volkswagen authorized dealer service. I thought this information might be usefull for your investigation, and would like to learn your suggestions that you may want to share with me. Please write to my E-mail adress in case you need detailed information or would like to get the photoes of the engine caught on fire. Thanks.

- Istanbul, 00, USA

problem #1

Jul 022004

Passat 4-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 7,875 miles
The brake light switch keeps failing. It causes the electronic stability control to be disabled and keeps the stop lights on, even when the brake pedal is not depressed. I've had the brake like switch replaced 6 times now over the past 2.5 years.

- Canton, GA, USA