1998 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT — Complaint #607688
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC:FOUNDATION COMPONENTS:DIFFERENTIAL PROPORTIONAL VALVE filed December 27, 2006
NHTSA complaint #607688 (ODI reference 10177136) concerns a 1998 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT and was filed on December 27, 2006. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 27, 2004. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as service brakes, hydraulic:foundation components:differential proportional valve, 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. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
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 PASSAT cohort independently describe similar service brakes, hydraulic:foundation components:differential proportional valve 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 1998 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
MANY AUDI AND VW MODELS MANUFACTURED STARTING IN THE LATER '90S AND EALRY '00S, USE THE BOSCH 5.3 ABS CONTROLLER, WHICH IS PRONE TO CATASTROPHIC FAILURE, OSTENSIBLY DUE TO DEFECTIVE DESIGN. THIS MODULE CONTROLS MULTIPLE BRAKE-RELATED FUNCTIONS INCLUDING THE ABS WHICH IS IMPORTANT FOR WINTER DRIVING, BUT THE MOST CRITICAL FUNCTION OF THIS MODULE IS PROBABLY THE ELECTRONIC BRAKE FORCE DISTRIBUTION, OR EBD. THESE VEHICLES ARE DESIGNED SUCH THAT IF THE EBD IS INOPERATIVE, THE PROPORTION OF HYDRAULIC FORCE APPLIED TO THE REAR BRAKES DURING EMERGENCY BRAKING IS AS GREAT AS IT IS DURING MODERATE BRAKING EFFORT WHEN THERE IS MINIMAL TRANSFER OF VEHICLE WEIGHT TO THE FRONT WHEELS. THE EBD IS SUPPOSED TO ADJUST THE FRONT/REAR BRAKING DISTRIBUTION DYNAMICALLY ACCORDING TO THE MEASURE OF THE DECELERATION, SO THAT THE REAR WHEELS WILL NOT LOCK UP DURING EMERGENCY BRAKING. IF THIS MODULE SHOULD FAIL DURING EMERGENCY BRAKING ON DRY PAVEMENT, THE REAR WHEELS COULD LOCK UP AND CAUSE AN ACCIDENT WHICH C
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 607688 |
| ODI Number | 10177136 |
| Date Filed | December 27, 2006 |
| Failure Date | December 27, 2004 |
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.