Are you driving a 2018-2021 Atlas or 2020 Atlas Cross Sport? If so, don’t sit within the entrance passenger seat.
That’s the recommendation of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which issued a recall on 143,000 of these automobiles, or 3% of all Atlas and Atlas Cross Sports on the street at this time, for a probably defective occupant-detection system.
Faulty sensors led to the recall
To keep away from youngsters or smaller adults from being critically harm when an air bag deploys, automakers are required to include sensors that disable entrance passenger air baggage in the event that they detect their presence.
Volkswagen refers back to the detecting sensor as Body Sense, and it’s positioned contained in the seat backside of the passenger seat. Designed to activate a sensor when somebody sits within the seat, the sensor ought to actuate the airbag within the occasion of an accident. But if the sensor shouldn’t be working, a dashboard airbag warning gentle prompts and an error message warning “Passenger Airbag off” comes on.
The recall is because of a wiring situation within the passenger occupant-detection system that might trigger the entrance passenger airbag to not activate regardless that the seat is occupied. This signifies that, in a collision, the airbag gained’t deploy when it’s speculated to.
An answer isn’t accessible
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That stated, Volkswagen doesn’t have an answer. The firm is engaged on a repair, and expects to have it prepared later this 12 months. VW Is not conscious of any crashes or accidents associated to the recall.
The automaker first grew to become conscious of the difficulty in 2019. By 2021, the corporate understood the difficulty was sporadic, and “the warning light is illuminating immediately upon failure,” in keeping with NHTSA.
Once an answer is discovered, the automobiles might be fastened freed from cost.
The newest recall comes one 12 months after the corporate recalled 246,000 Atlases for defective wiring harnesses that triggered the SUVs to brake unpredictably. The recall got here after 47 complaints to NHTSA about the issue, together with some reviews of just about being rear-ended because of this.
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And some 2019-2021 Atlas and 2020-2021 Atlas Cross Sport SUVs had been topic to a recall for defective tire stress monitoring methods that fail to detect low tire stress in all 4 tires. The recall additionally affected 2019 Tiguan, Golf Sportswagen, Golf Alltrack, Golf R and Audi Q3 automobiles in addition to 2019-2020 Jetta, Golf and Audi A3 fashions.
Further info
For the present recall, Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport house owners can contact Volkswagen with any questions at 1-800-893-5298, and point out recall quantity 69FB. Owners may contact NHTSA at 1-888-327-4236.
The Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport SUVs had been designed for the American market and are constructed on the firm’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
According to Automotive News, the corporate offered 416,787 vehicles and vans within the U.S. final 12 months, down 9.8% from the. 462,325 items offered stateside in 2021. The Atlas is the corporate’s second-most fashionable car, outsold solely by the smaller Tiguan SUV.
Source: www.thedetroitbureau.com