2000 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA — Complaint #539744
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:BACK UP LIGHTS:SWITCH filed June 15, 2005
NHTSA complaint #539744 (ODI reference 10125444) concerns a 2000 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA and was filed on June 15, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 1, 2005. The vehicle had 80,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Maryland based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting:back up lights:switch, 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 JETTA cohort independently describe similar exterior lighting:back up lights:switch 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 2000 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I WOULD LIKE TO REPORT YET ANOTHER FAILURE OF THE SAFETY/SIGNALLING LIGHT SYSTEM ON MY 2000 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA. RECENTLY, MY REVERSE LIGHTS CEASED TO FUNCTION, REDUCING VISIBILITY WHEN BACKING UP AT NIGHT AND FAILING TO SIGNAL OTHER DRIVERS THAT I WAS BACKING UP. I ATTEMPTED TO CORRECT THIS PROBLEM MYSELF BY CHECKING THE BULB AND FUSE. BOTH OF THESE "WEAR AND TEAR" ITEMS WERE FINE. I THEN TOOK MY CAR TO THE DEALER WHO INFORMED ME THAT THE "REVERSE LIGHT SWITCH" HAD TO BE REPLACED. DEALER REPLACED THE SWITCH FOR ABOUT $100 AND THE PROBLEM IS NOW CORRECTED. I HAVE RECENTLY TAKEN PART IN THE RECALL CAMPAIGNS FOR THE BRAKE LIGHT SWITCH AND HAZARD LIGHT SWITCH ON THIS CAR, AND I STONGLY FEEL THAT THERE IS A COMPREHENSIVE PROBLEM WITH THE SAFETY/SIGNALING LIGHT ELECTRONIC SYSTEM ON THIS CAR.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 539744 |
| ODI Number | 10125444 |
| Date Filed | June 15, 2005 |
| Failure Date | June 1, 2005 |
| VIN | 3VWSE29MXYM |
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.