2007 Volkswagen GTI
This year drew an ordinary 77 complaints for a Volkswagen GTI — the model's median is 0. What they were about is the unusual part: 40.3% of them mention transmission, against 15.9% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 77 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 0 |
| Involving a crash | 4 |
| Recalls | 1 |
| EPA combined | 24.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 40.3% of this year's complaints, against 15.9% across the model's other years (2.5×).
- dsg — 33.8% of this year's complaints, against 11.6% across the model's other years (2.9×).
- than — 18.2% of this year's complaints, against 6.4% across the model's other years (2.9×).
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.
What owners wrote
THE CONTACT WAS DRIVING 75 MPH WHEN THE VEHICLE SHIFTED INTO NEUTRAL GEAR OWN ITS OWN. THE WARNING LIGHT ILLUMINATED ON THE DASHBOARD. THE VEHICLE LOST POWER AND BEGAN TO MOVE EXTREMELY SLOW WHICH COULD HAVE CAUSED A CRASH TO OCCUR. THE [VIN] WAS NOTIFIED ABOU…
THE TRANSMISSION SHIFTER AUTOMATICALLY PUTS THE CAR IN NEUTRAL AND WONT LET THE CAR MOVE FOWARD, ITS AN ELECTRONIC COMPONENT THAT TELLS THE TRANSMISSION WHAT GEAR THE CAR IS ON.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 07V442000 EXTERIOR LIGHTING
How this was worked out
Every year of the Volkswagen GTI 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.
Own a 2007 Volkswagen GTI? What happened to yours?
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