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Volkswagen Recalls Thousands Of Vehicles In North America Over Rollaway Risk

Approximately 700,000 utility vehicles are under recall in the United States and a little over 110,000 in Canada for a rather peculiar problem. More to the point, “a build-up of silicate” on the shift lever’s micro-switch contacts could enable the key to be removed from the ignition when the transmission isn’t in park.
Volkswagen Beetle 12 photos
Photo: Volkswagen
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That’s right, ladies and gents! Volkswagen has cheapened out on these vital components as well without regard to the General Motors fiasco known as the ignition switch recall. Care to guess which nameplates are being called back for installing an additional switch and circuit board, free of charge?

2012 through 2019 Beetle models lead the list, followed up by 2015 through 2019 Golf and Golf GTI models. The 2011 to 2018 Jetta along with the 2017 to 2019 Golf SportWagen are also affected. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, only vehicles with an automatic transmission, manual handbrake, and keyless entry are prone to this particular condition.

Volkswagen informed the NHTSA that no crashes or injuries have been connected to the problem, but the recall will begin on October 11th as a precaution nevertheless. When an automaker does that, it wants to fix the problem before nasty things happen and customers take action with expensive lawsuits.

As if that wasn’t a problem in its own right, Volkswagen is struggling to make ends meet in the United States and Canada as sales haven’t bounced back as much as expected following the notorious emissions scandal. The build quality of the German behemoth is also going down in North America, and products such as the all-new Passat for North America are simply too uninspiring.

Volkswagen sales in the U.S. topped 354,064 in 2018, a long way off the 438,134 sales in 2012. A market share of 2.04 percent isn’t anything to write home about, and this could get worse because most Golf variants will be discontinued to make room for the ID. family of EVs and Atlas Cross Sport.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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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.
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