Published on the NHTSA's website in late 2016, recall number 16V-647 concerns the Volkswagen Golf and its Audi-branded sibling. Back then, Wolfsburg's favorite son recalled a grand total of 110,042 compact cars over failing suction pumps.
Located in the fuel tank, said pump is designed to purge dinosaur juice from the EVAP system. The suspect pumps could leak fuel due to damaged seal rings, with said leakage occurring should the EVAP system be flooded with gas. The supplier of the potentially defective suction pumps? That would be Gebhardt Holding-owned Alfmeier Prazision SE.
The supplier changed from automated to manual assembly back in the first quarter of 2016, thus ensuring no damaged seal rings. Be that as it may, the Office of Defects Investigation has received a whopping 79 complaints and several field reports alleging gas leaking through the EVAP system's charcoal canister filter element, fuel odor in the cabin, refueling spit back, and refueling shutoff.
Owners of vehicles produced outside of the suspect period allege that Volkswagen isn't honoring the remedy described earlier. The gentleman who filed complaint number 11434613 with the NHTSA explains that his 2017 model year Volkswagen Golf GTI had experienced a gasoline leak with only 21,000 miles on the clock. The recall covers 2015 and 2016 models, namely the GTI, the regular Golf, the SportWagen, the Audi A3, and the A3 Cabriolet.
A different gentleman was required to replace both the fuel tank and charcoal canister back in April 2020. Weeks prior to purchasing the 2017 model year Volkswagen Golf GTI in question, the selling dealer also replaced the fuel tank and charcoal canister. With the fuel tank located close to the exhaust muffler or exhaust pipe leading to said muffler, it's a miracle that no fires have been reported thus far.
Photo: Volkswagen
What is the Office of Defects Investigation actually investigating? Headed by safety and risk program manager Sean Hays, recall query RQ23007 aims to determine the effectiveness of the remedy and whether Volkswagen has recalled all potentially affected vehicles or not. Rather than the recall's 2015 and 2016 models, the recall query concerns 2015 through 2020 model year Golf and A3 vehicles.
The potentially affected population is estimated at 447,497 examples of the Golf and A3. Also worthy of note, the Office of Defects Investigation highlights that Volkswagen Group of America issued warranty extensions VW-22-12 and AWA-22-12 in October 2022 for the 2015 through 2022 Volkswagen Golf and Audi A3, plus the 2019 to 2020 Jetta GLI.
In case of suction pump failure, the remedy under said warranty extensions is a replacement fuel tank assembly that includes an improved suction pump. But alas, only time will tell whether this investigation will result in a safety recall or not. If so, the German automaker from Wolfsburg will have to pony up a scarcely believable amount of green dollar bills to pay for those replacement fuel tank assemblies.
This recall query also casts doubt on the improved suction pump design. In any case, we'll soon find out if VW has failed its customers yet again.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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