Federal complaint record · Volkswagen Passat · model year 2008

2008 Volkswagen Passat

Owners submitted 168 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 29th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2006 to 2010 midsize sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is fuel system. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Fuel system · 26% · group n = 63Engine · 22% · group n = 53Airbags · 14% · group n = 33Electrical · 9% · group n = 21Other · 6% · group n = 15
168
Complaint records on file
90,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 126 complaints reported mileage
26%
Of classified component reports name fuel system · group n = 63
29th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 50 model years

Fuel system · 3 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Fuel system26%

Fuel system reports

Volkswagen Passat · model year 2008

Reports in this group63
Share of classified reports26%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2007
0.4complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
262 matched incidents
This car
2008
0.4complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
168 matched incidents
2009
0.6complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
146 matched incidents

The line compares submitted complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years, not failures per 1,000 cars. Vehicle-years use compiled US sales, a 0.25 prior-calendar-year plus 0.75 current-calendar-year model-year allocation, and the shipped survival curve. Rates appear only where estimated vehicles in operation are at least 5,000.

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

What recurring complaint clusters describe

How clusters are built
Stalling or shutdown · 28 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 1 of 32008 Volkswagen Passat
Airbag concerns · 19 reports

Reports describe airbag warning or deployment concerns

Cluster 2 of 32008 Volkswagen Passat
Fire or smoke · 11 reports

Reports describe smoke, burning smells, or fire

Cluster 3 of 32008 Volkswagen Passat

Cluster summaries paraphrase recurring symptoms reported to NHTSA. They are aggregate descriptions, not individual verbatim reports.

Records through 2026-07-19Published 2026-08-02 · Updated 2026-07-19

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NHTSA consumer complaint records can reveal recurring patterns across published model years. MotorCensus summarizes those records as one complaint-signal index, with a 95% interval and sample size, updated with each data snapshot.

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