2015 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE CONVERTIBLE — Complaint #2055960
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about AIR BAGS:PASSENGER SIDE FRONTAL:CUSHION filed January 15, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2055960 (ODI reference 11636009) concerns a 2015 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE CONVERTIBLE and was filed on January 15, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 15, 2024. The vehicle had 130,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as air bags:passenger side frontal:cushion, 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 BEETLE CONVERTIBLE cohort independently describe similar air bags:passenger side frontal:cushion 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 2015 VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE CONVERTIBLE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2015 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible. The contact stated that the vehicle was previously included in NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V945000 (Air Bags) and was repaired; however, approximately 2 years later the air bag warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, and the passenger seat air bag sensor failed to recognize when an occupant was seated in the seat. The dealer stated that the seat needed to be replaced because the air bag sensor was integrated into the seat cushion. The vehicle had not been repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 130,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2055960 |
| ODI Number | 11636009 |
| Date Filed | January 15, 2025 |
| Failure Date | August 15, 2024 |
| VIN | 3VW517AT3FM |
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.