Model years › Audi A4

2005 Audi A4

Complaints about this year name headlight far more often than the model's other years — 32% of them, about 79× the usual rate of 0.4%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• headlights — 31.5% of this year's complaints, against 4.1% across the model's other years (7.6×). Owners wrote it as: headlights, turn off, off back, bulbs.
• night — 34.7% of this year's complaints, against 8% across the model's other years (4.4×). Owners wrote it as: night, flickering, lights off, driving night.
• dipped — 29.2% of this year's complaints, against 5.1% across the model's other years (5.7×). Owners wrote it as: dipped, message, error, dark.

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

Also unusual this year

• headlights — 28% of complaints, 71× usual
• dipped — 27% of complaints, 67× usual
• flicker — 19% of complaints, 47× usual

What owners wrote

FRONT HEADLIGHTS FLICKER ON EITHER SIDE AND I GET A HEADLIGHT DIPPED ERROR ON MY DASH. AS A RESULT EITHER RIGHT OR LEFT LIGHT GOES OUT COMPLETELY. PROBLEM OCCURS DAILY AND THE ONLY WAY OF TURNING LIGHTS ON BACK AGAIN IS TO COMPLETE TURN LIGHTS OF OFF THEN ON A…

HEADLIGHTS DIP AND CONTINUE TO FLICKER AND TURN OFF DURING MILD DRIVING. THIS BECOMES DANGEROUS WHEN DRIVING AT NIGHT AND THE LIGHTS TURN OFF DUE TO THE FLICKER.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 18V427000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
• 17V032000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
• 16V382000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
• 14E007000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2005 Audi A4? What happened to yours?

Loading comments…

How this was worked out

Every year of the Audi A4 was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

Every year of the Audi A4 →