Volkswagen Passat

Which Volkswagen Passat years should you avoid?

Going by 7,850 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Volkswagen Passat years to avoid are 2003, 2002, 2013, 2009 and 1999.

• 2003634 complaints, 3.8× a typical Passat year, most often about the engine; and 4.6× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (94 fires, 14 crashes).
• 2002636 complaints, 3.8× a typical Passat year, most often about the electrical system; and 2.3× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (46 fires, 10 crashes, 2 deaths).
• 2013749 complaints, 4.5× a typical Passat year, most often about the airbags.
• 20094.0× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (12 fires, 5 crashes).
• 1999664 complaints, 4.0× a typical Passat year, most often about the brakes.

7 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2016 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →