2021 VOLKSWAGEN ATLAS — Complaint #1970726
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:ADAS:PARKING ASSIST:WARNING filed February 27, 2024
NHTSA complaint #1970726 (ODI reference 11574192) concerns a 2021 VOLKSWAGEN ATLAS and was filed on February 27, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 26, 2024. The report was geocoded to Minnesota based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:adas:parking assist:warning, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same VOLKSWAGEN ATLAS cohort independently describe similar electrical system:adas:parking assist:warning failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2021 VOLKSWAGEN ATLAS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I recently purchased a certified pre-owned 2021 VW Atlas R-line SUV. It came with a warranty of up to 50,000 miles or through 2027. Shortly after I purchased the car (a few weeks in) the side passenger collision sensor would alert me from time to time (not consistently). I brought it in and the VW dealer shared that due to the Minnesota winters and road salt, keeping a clean exterior of the car would help with the sensor issue. I have been washing my car weekly to avoid the noise and frustration of the false alert. It DID NOT resolve the problem. Now (3 months since purchase) the front AND side collision sensors are falsely detecting and alerting that something is present. When brought back to my local certified VW dealer, they "claim" it is due to a rock or "external influence" hitting and damaging the sensors. First, tell me how a side sensor gets hit by a rock. Second, the sensors should not have been made if small debris from regular road travel will cause damage within three yea
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1970726 |
| ODI Number | 11574192 |
| Date Filed | February 27, 2024 |
| Failure Date | February 26, 2024 |
| VIN | 1V2FR2CAXMC |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.