Dangerous E-Golf Shut Downs

I am starting a thread to aggregate and discuss the troubling phenomenon of e-Golf shut downs.

Several e-Golf owners have reported an electrical malfunction that renders the car unable to drive. Some shut-downs have happened while the car was being driven, including some that have been reported on this forum and others have been reported on the Facebook group "VW e-Golf". One has been reported to NHTSA.

The total number of reported incidents is small, but there are enough, and the potential danger for e-Golf drivers and others on the road is sufficiently high, that it seems to warrant a targeted discussion. With luck it will also produce a detailed response from VW, which until now appears not to have addressed the issue directly.

Brief background:

On May 13, 2015 my two-month-old eGolf failed. I had parked it in a public lot, and when I pressed the start button to drive home, the eSound came on and revved as if I had the accelerator pressed to the floor (which I didn't), and stayed that way. Eight alert signals came up on the screen relating to various critical functions, seven of them yellow, one of them red, the latter regarding the brakes. The car would not drive. I had it towed to my local VW servicer. When they started it the following morning it did other, similarly weird things and then the 12v battery drained and died. VW sent a replacement 12v battery (apparently it's non-standard) and the system proceeded to drain it again. The servicer said VW instructed them to pull every electrical connection in the car to see where the problem was. I called VW and said I didn't want the car back. They promptly and politely offered to replace it, or buy it back outright. I weighed the decision for some time and decided to replace. 10 weeks after the initial failure, I got the replacement car.

The VW technicians still have no explanation of what went wrong with the first vehicle. I feel fortunate not to have had the car fail while I was driving it. Others have not been so lucky. Here is a collection of related reports:

http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=369
http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=399
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?7108546-Doh!-Error-electrical-system-Stop!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/vwegolf/search/?query=Tony%20Burnett
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchSafetyIssues (search "golf" and find NHTSA ID Number: 10725422)
http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=325

Please add any additional examples to this thread.

Any information VW servicers or corporate representatives have provided on this problem would also be welcome.

Full disclosure: I am a journalist. I am starting this thread as an e-Golf owner because of my safety concerns and am not working on a story on the issue. However, I don't rule out writing on it in the future, or informing others who do.

And finally, I leased the e-Golf initially, and decided to accept a replacement, in part because it is such an excellent vehicle to drive. However, the shut downs seem to me a major concern and as more reports of them come in (including several since I committed to accepting a replacement) I think owners deserve a full and direct explanation from VW, the sooner the better.

Please post the VIN#'s of any buy-back lemon e-Golfs. Thanks.

I am Tony Burnett, one of the links you had from the Facebook post.
As it stands today there is still no update from VW on my car on the latest failure. All i was told is they need to replace a harness and a connector on the charging system.
To me this has an annoying feeling of electrical failure and something shorting out to cause damage, i am told i will not be able to see the removed failed parts...
This failure happened whilst being charged. Car has 8000 miles

The other failure i have is also posted on the same Facebook page and i am not the only one with this. at around 3500 miles i was driving home, 70+mph and had a total power failure in heavy traffic. I managed to get across 4 lanes (more luck than anything) and get the car to the shoulder. This to me was the major failure as it happened on a major freeway at speed. Again i had no details from VW, just replaced the Battery Control Module...

Now i under stand the car is new, i understand not everyone has problems. The way the car drives is fantastic compared to other electric cars, almost the same to the regular models. I do have the concerns however that somebody else may get the same failure and not be able to handle this safely.

Once i get mine back i will respond back with the findings on the last failure

Tony,

If I were in your situation with multiple major failures, I would give them a deadline to completely fix or replace the car. I don't know where you are located, but in California law, once you accumulate 30 days in the shop the lemon law applies.

For any event where the car loses power while driving, please file a complaint with NHTSA at the site below after it is repaired, giving as much detail as you can.
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/index.xhtml

Miimura, i am in Irvine, CA.
Was not aware of the 30 day part although not quite there yet. Will keep this into consideration as i would do this.
So far i would be at about 14 days, but things change and still no word.

I will file a complaint on both incidents, but am going to check the site as i did file one official complaint before (never had a response however)

Thanks

eMe said:

Miimura, i am in Irvine, CA.
Was not aware of the 30 day part although not quite there yet. Will keep this into consideration as i would do this.
So far i would be at about 14 days, but things change and still no word.

I will file a complaint on both incidents, but am going to check the site as i did file one official complaint before (never had a response however)

Thanks

Click to expand...

If you previously filed a complaint, you should be able to search and find it under "Complaints". I see only one complaint for "Electrical System Failure: Stop!" and it says Oakland, CA. If you can't find it, file another and make sure to include the VIN number so they will know if it is a duplicate.

I think the charging system failure is not a safety issue like the loss of power while driving is.

Mr. 23--good idea. Here's the VIN of my defunct eGolf, now back in the possession of VW: WVWPP7AU4FW902600
Tony, thanks for posting here. Unsolicited advice: if I were you, I would not take that car back.
Miimura, I agree with your assessment here http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2250#p2250 that VW should "withstand the scrutiny of government regulators looking into safety issues and do the right thing for the safety of their customers."
There are three reports of eGolf shut-downs while driving in this thread at vwvortex: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?7108546-Doh!-Error-electrical-system-Stop. One of them (Michelle00) has been reported to NHTSA, two others still have not.

calabresim said:

Mr. 23--good idea. Here's the VIN of my defunct eGolf, now back in the possession of VW: WVWPP7AU4FW902600
Tony, thanks for posting here. Unsolicited advice: if I were you, I would not take that car back.
Miimura, I agree with your assessment here http://www.myvwegolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2250#p2250 that VW should "withstand the scrutiny of government regulators looking into safety issues and do the right thing for the safety of their customers."
There are three reports of eGolf shut-downs while driving in this thread at vwvortex: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?7108546-Doh!-Error-electrical-system-Stop. One of them (Michelle00) has been reported to NHTSA, two others still have not.

Click to expand...

(ODI Number) is: 10746890 is the report i just submitted for the shut down in March. AS for my current failure... I was supposed to get the car back today, the harness and connector that was ordered were installed but the car is still dead.
All i can get out of the dealer is that they need more parts, possibly a charger control?? either way this will be another week, so will get closer to the 30 days. If i recall it was 5 days for the shutdown failure at speed and will be at least 14-15 days for this repair.
I have already brought up the lemon law to them and advised i want a detailed explanation, which i know they will not know how to give or just will not give

I think the dealer can only handle the things right in front of them like getting the car to work. Any consideration for the time that the car was inoperable - like your lease payments for time it was in the shop - or getting the car replaced outright - would have to come from VW corporate. I would get friendly with your customer service rep and calmly discuss your options and their available remedies.

yah same thing happened to me 3 days earlier when driving at local. I'm in Arcadia, CA. Car is at dealer place for checking since then. I will submit my case later I have a report from them. I do like the e-golf design but somehow we have to consider our safety all the time. Thank you guys for the lemon law info, will keep an eye on it.

seems the facebook group has been closed....

seang002 said:

seems the facebook group has been closed....

Click to expand...

Not this one...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/vwegolf/

You just have to ask to join the "Closed Group". It's just not open to any and all, and you can be kicked out for inappropriate or irrelevant/spammy posts.

seang002 said:

yah same thing happened to me 3 days earlier when driving at local. I'm in Arcadia, CA. Car is at dealer place for checking since then. I will submit my case later I have a report from them. I do like the e-golf design but somehow we have to consider our safety all the time. Thank you guys for the lemon law info, will keep an eye on it.

Click to expand...

A recall shouldn't be TOO much of a huge deal, as there aren't many e-Golfs out there [as compared to the GM recalls]. I hope they make an effort to get to the bottom of this.

See this: http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2014-nissan-leaf-recalled-for-shut-down-risk.html

Mine is still with the dealer - no idea what they are doing, seems to be all guess work... this is now 2.5 weeks on this return, was a week when it shut down at speed.

I have been given the name of a good lemon law lawyer but if any of you have any recommendations i would appreciate it. I know i will not get a satisfactory response from VW.
It is a nice driving car, but i do not consider them safe anymore.

I have heard of a couple instances where VW provided a new replacement car in a reasonable time. However, if you just want to get rid of it and move on, you may have a harder time.

eMe said:

Mine is still with the dealer - no idea what they are doing, seems to be all guess work... this is now 2.5 weeks on this return, was a week when it shut down at speed.

I have been given the name of a good lemon law lawyer but if any of you have any recommendations i would appreciate it. I know i will not get a satisfactory response from VW.
It is a nice driving car, but i do not consider them safe anymore.

Click to expand...

Really sorry to hear that. I got my car back today. in their report, they stated stated " checked faults in system, found P0C0100 drive motor A current high. Contacted VW helpline. VW helpline advised these faults are related to customer pressing start/stop button while driving" , I'm pretty sure I didn't touch the power button when driving, I asked their Staff ( his name is Ruben) and he told me he told the VW helpline I didn't touch it and all the detail wrote down in the master report which i didn't see. And they " cleared all faults, set basic setting for electric drive and road tested extensively for 90 miles and no malfunction occurred at this time".

I have submitted my complaint on NHTSA, the track number is 10748597. it should be available for search after 72 hrs. I'm thinking to give this car another try. Do really need to pay attention about same thing happens...cross my fingers now.

miimura said:

seang002 said:

seems the facebook group has been closed....

Click to expand...

Not this one...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/vwegolf/

You just have to ask to join the "Closed Group". It's just not open to any and all, and you can be kicked out for inappropriate or irrelevant/spammy posts.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I have joined the group

normf3 said:

seang002 said:

yah same thing happened to me 3 days earlier when driving at local. I'm in Arcadia, CA. Car is at dealer place for checking since then. I will submit my case later I have a report from them. I do like the e-golf design but somehow we have to consider our safety all the time. Thank you guys for the lemon law info, will keep an eye on it.

Click to expand...

A recall shouldn't be TOO much of a huge deal, as there aren't many e-Golfs out there [as compared to the GM recalls]. I hope they make an effort to get to the bottom of this.

See this: http://www.edmunds.com/car-news/2014-nissan-leaf-recalled-for-shut-down-risk.html

Click to expand...

That Nissan recall was for a specific defect that was identified while most of the affected vehicles had not been delivered to dealers. I think the problems that have led to e-Golf shutdowns have not been clearly identified. It will probably take a while for VW to study the failed components and establish new QC and testing specs before they can reduce the frequency of these failures. A recall is only effective and warranted when they understand the failure modes that have occurred in the field and which sub-components contributed to those failures. I can't think of an EV that has not had issues with system shutdown.

Our eGolf shutdown on my wife who was driving (I was riding) on the way to the pool yesterday (it's hot back east!). It happened just as we pulled onto our (quiet) residential street. We were going ~ 10 mph and had driven ~ 300 ft. The car just shut down without warning. I slid it into neutral and we coasted a few feet to the curb. I looked down at the Start/Stop button and she had placed her wallet/purse directly on it. Pretty sure that was the cause. She remembers placing the wallet/purse at roughly the same time as the shutdown, and our daughter in the back seat watching had the same observation. Terrible place for an ignition button. I've started thinking about a retractable cover/guard that I can put over the switch...

Cheers,
Tim

You may find this interesting and possibly relevant to this error:

http://www.copart.com/us/Lot/29819225?searchId=423850929

particularly photo 8

(VIN WVWPP7AU1FW908001)