Federal complaint record · Volkswagen Passat · model year 1998

1998 Volkswagen Passat

Owners submitted 331 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 51th percentile for complaint intensity within its 1996 to 2000 midsize sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is brakes. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Brakes · 22% · group n = 103Suspension · 21% · group n = 99Steering · 12% · group n = 59Engine · 10% · group n = 46Visibility · 7% · group n = 32
331
Complaint records on file
80,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 126 complaints reported mileage
22%
Of classified component reports name brakes · group n = 103
51th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 34 model years

Brakes · 2 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Brakes22%

Brakes reports

Volkswagen Passat · model year 1998

Reports in this group103
Share of classified reports22%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

What recurring complaint clusters describe

How clusters are built
Brake performance · 82 reports

Reports describe braking performance concerns

Cluster 1 of 31998 Volkswagen Passat
Steering effort · 27 reports

Reports describe steering effort or control concerns

Cluster 2 of 31998 Volkswagen Passat
Stalling or shutdown · 11 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 3 of 31998 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.