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1997 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA — Complaint #617359

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NHTSA Complaint about EQUIPMENT:RECREATIONAL VEHICLE/TRAILER:LPG SYSTEMS:WATER HEATER filed March 20, 2007

NHTSA complaint #617359 (ODI reference 10185598) concerns a 1997 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA and was filed on March 20, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on November 1, 2006. The vehicle had 100,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Connecticut based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as equipment:recreational vehicle/trailer:lpg systems:water heater, 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 equipment:recreational vehicle/trailer:lpg systems:water heater 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 1997 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1997 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA
Component
EQUIPMENT:RECREATIONAL VEHICLE/TRAILER:LPG SYSTEMS:WATER HEATER
State
Connecticut
Mileage
100,000 mi

Complaint Description

REPLACED IGNITION COIL FOR THE THIRD TIME IN AS MANY YEARS!! ELECTRIC WATER PUMP REPLACED. EATER CORE EXPLODED A COUPLE MONTHS LATER WHILE I WAS ON THE HIGHWAY AT 65 MPH WITH MY CHILD IN THE CAR! COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING AS CAR FILLED WITH ANTIFREEZE CLOUD. BELT DRIVEN WATER PUMP WENT A WEEK LATER. ENTIRE POWER STEERING RACK NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. WINDOW REGULATOR NEEDED TO BE REPLACED TWICE. DOOR HANDLE BROKE TWICE!. *AK

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 617359
ODI Number 10185598
Date Filed March 20, 2007
Failure Date November 1, 2006
VIN 3VWTD81H4VM

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.