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Problems with 2018 Volkswagen Atlas ENGINE

On average, the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas starts to “feel” problems with the ENGINE and its various aspects after 14 143 miles.

Recently reported ENGINE problems on 2018 Volkswagen Atlas

Needs new catalytic converter. needs excessive gas. told to just keep driving until back ordered catalytic converter comes in. i don't feel like it's safe to drive especially with my children. check engine light came on. researching the problem and vw definitely has a problem and has not voluntarily recalled the vehicle.

Battery has been dying and was dead this morning. 2 year old car in san diego temperate weather. 18k miles. from forums, it seems this car has faulty stock batteries that cannot sustain the start/stop strain on the batteries. having to take to dealership for replacement. uncertain they will properly cover it.

While driving down a canyon in heavy snow, the grill shutters iced shut. once down, we drove about 20mins across town, then started a long climb up a freeway, about 20mins of constant uphill. on reaching the top i noticed that the engine oil temp, which is normally around 200deg, had reached 230deg, as the oil cooler is behind the grill shutters, and wasn't getting any air flow. there was no warning from the car that the shutters were stuck shut, or that the oil was getting hot.

My vw atlas sel 2018 is shutting off while i'm driving. so far this has happened 3 times. once while i was in reverse at slow speed, second time while i was in traffic and the most recent while i was driving in my neighborhood. it is very scary because i have to put in park, press the brake pedal and start the car again, while in the highway. the screen displays an error in the start-stop, and also en engine error that says: engine on due to system error and one time the check engine light turned on. the unit has spent weeks in the vw dealership and still they can't find what is wrong with it, they return the car and it happens again. i do not feel safe driving this car, i have a son and i need a car i feel safe driving.

Tl* the contact owns a 2018 volkswagen atlas. while driving approximately 50 mph, the vehicle stalled and all the warning indicators illuminated. the vehicle did not restart. the vehicle was towed to j bertolet volkswagen (555 rte 61, orwigsburg, pa 17961) where it had been kept since august 14, 2019. the dealer diagnosed that the vehicle needed a new engine. the contact also mentioned that the vehicle stalled one other time on february 1, 2019 while driving 25 mph. the vehicle was taken to teddy volkswagen (3743 boston rd, bronx, ny 10466) where they kept the vehicle for three months and replaced the catalytic converter. the vehicle was not repaired. the manufacturer was notified of the failures and the contact was offered half off the engine replacement price (without labor). the approximate failure mileage was 72,000.

Fuel distribution rail pressure pipe leaking fuel. smelled fuel when walking past vehicle on 8 may 2019 when stationary and not running. fuel was visible on top of engine below pipe.. was returned by dealer on 17 may19 after they acknowledged leak and reset seals. on 9 jun 2019, smell of fuel was detected when starting vehicle. fuel visible on top of engine below pressure pipe. vehicle was stationary and had again been sitting over night.

While sitting at a red light for about a minute the car turns off due to the cars on/off feature. when the light turned green the car would not start back up. i had to put the atlas in park and rest set to turn it on. it will not turn back on until after a few tries. this has happened to me about 5 different times now. i now drive with that feature turned off until vw can fix this glitch. very unsafe while sitting traffic and car is stalled in the middle of the road.

Battery dies with short idle. waited less than 10 minutes for my husband and warning came on to drive the car to charge the battery. i was in a parking lot with air conditioning on. engine had manually shut off so i went to restart and battery would not turn on. this has happened before.

Tl* the contact owns a 2018 volkswagen atlas. the contact stated that the check coolant indicator illuminated. the vehicle was taken to legend volkswagen (side a, 158 merrick rd, amityville, ny 11701) where they replaced the radiator and added coolant. the following day, the contact smelled coolant outside of the vehicle. the vehicle was taken back to the dealer on five different occasions regarding the coolant. the contact stated that the coolant odor became worse over time and could be smelled inside the vehicle. the manufacturer was contacted. the vehicle was not repaired. the failure mileage was 3,672.

Twice the engine shut off while waiting at a red light. had to put car in park and restart. both times it was in the morning during rush hour on a city street with infant in the car, very scary and stressful! the car usually start/stops to save energy but i didn't realize it turns completely off if you're stopped at a light!

Sitting at a red light and when it turned green, my start/stop function would not turn my car back on. the dash had all sorts of lights flashing and my car would not start. said the 12v battery was drained. had to push my car out of the way and get someone to jump my car.

1/28/19 car starts fine,drive 15 min, run 3 errands, then can't start car. electronic display has all warning icons flashing. battery test 50% power.jumpstart car,epc and engine icons stay lit. charge battery at home. car runs fine for 2 days.then car won't start again, epc icon lit, run car 20 minutes, then try to drive car but cannot exceed 13 mph. call for tow; truck never arrives ( 3+ hours). attempt to start car, starts fine, no warnings lit; drive to dealer. dealer says battery "defective", replaces under warranty. car has 26600 miles and i have owned for 18 months. dealer says epc not lit while they looked at the car so they cannot address. ridiculous. car fine for 2 days, then epc light back on. i have spent probably 40 hours or more at vw dealership waiting for various repairs over the last 18 months. a google search reveals many vw atlas have epc problems, and if you just google volkswagen and epc you can find hundreds of postings for this issue with almost every vw model. i will be taking the car back in but am not confident i will get a satisfactory repair based on all the other online complaints about this issue

Battery will not turn on, car is only 12 months old, there were no issues for the reasoning for the battery to not work.

Vehicle hesitates excessively under acceleration at times, in both forward and reverse gears. won't back up a mild grade (like a driveway) without excessive acceleration, causing the vehicle to lurch. won't accelerate after slowing behind a turning vehicle without excessive acceleration, causing the vehicle to lurch.

Engine warning light as well as epc warning light came on during normal city driving. power and pick up of the vehicle became greatly reduced making travel over 15-20 mph impossible. upon arriving home and turning car off, vehicle was nearly impossible to restart. car was towed from home to dealership were it was found that electrical mechanism in vehicles high powered fuel pump malfunctioned and quit working. high powered fuel pump had to be replaced.

Vehicle, inside our garage, will not turn on. battery is dead, receive error message that 12v battery is low, lights flash and sounds happen, but will not turn over. our atlas is just over a year old. a couple weeks ago, various lights came on then went away and didn't return until today. also waiting on recall for catalytic converter that was before christmas due to check engine light coming on over and over. been at least 3 weeks waiting for that part. disappointed in an expensive new car having this many problems right from the start. calling the dealer today about the battery issue. for the record, this is the car that is driven on a regular basis for my husband's commute to work and kept in the garage.

Car automatic start/stop function frequently fails to restart engine. this has happened over ten times with two of those almost ending in me being rear ended at high speed. dealer says battery is defective and replaced the battery but issue is happening again. no way to permanently disabled start/stop function. this is a safety hazard.

I was stopped at a red light. when the light turned green the engine turned off and i had to manually turned the car on to proceed. same thing happened when i was waiting to open my garage. the car turned itself off, i had to turn it back on manually.

After stopping at a red light at the traffic the car would not restart, the battery of engine died.

Transmission/motor is making a whispping sound when you accelorate on the gas. have reported multiple times and i am not the only one who has experienced this. it is a terrible sound. car is less than 20,000 miles

My vehicle battery died after refueling. and i had to call for roadside assistance for a jump. vehicle infotainment system showed 2 messages: 1) 12 volt battery low and recharge while driving 2) error start/stop system

The battery died in the intersection suddenly while i was dring waiting for a traffic light. it made me in danger. this is a one year old vehicle. i have driven 6 brand vehicles so far in my life, this is the first time the battery died. i think volkswagen should recall for this problem.

The coolant warning light went on 3 days ago. when i first start the engine in the morning or after hours of parking, the coolant warning light went on. after the engine temperature goes up, i have to turn the engine off and on again to have the coolant warning light disappeared. this is an one year old vehicle which has 10500 miles. i have driven 6 brands of vehicles in my life but this is the very first time to have a coolant problem. i checked that no coolant leaking and shortages.

Tl* the contact owns a 2018 volkswagen atlas. while driving 15 mph, the vehicle stalled without warning. the contact stated that there was an abnormal sweet and musty odor emerging from the vehicle. the contact and occupants sustained headaches and nausea due to the odor. medical attention was not received. the vehicle was towed to winn volkswagen (39695 balentine dr, newark, ca 94560, (510) 344-2013) where it was diagnosed that there was a coolant leak and an engine replacement was needed. the vehicle was not repaired. the manufacturer was contacted and provided case number: 190150480. no further assistance was provided. the contact requested a buyback of the vehcile. the failure mileage was 7,300.

2nd attempt at repairing oil leak occurring from engine bay located around oil filter housing on left side of engine. was not properly torqued from factory on first occurrence housing could be turned with a wrench. the second occurrence took 2 month after oil change to show same symptoms. this occurs under all conditions and vehicle rarely sees dirt roads.

The most concerning safety issue is the malfunctioning auto start/stop system. on four occasions, it has shut off the vehicle while in motion, pulling into a parking spot, resulting in loss of power steering. on a separate occasion, it shut-off the vehicle while stopping to pay the parking attendant but failed to restart the vehicle when i released the brake and step on the accelerator. i had to put the vehicle in park and manually restart the vehicle. i have also had multiple experiences when i have turned off the auto start/start when i started the vehicle only to have it reactivate itself and shut-off the vehicle when i stopped at an intersection. other issues involve the "infotainment" system and climate control electronics. on multiple occasions, the radio has turned itself on after i have turned it off. as for the climate control system, it periodically deactivates the rear passenger compartment climate control and shuts off airflow to the rear passenger compartment and i have to manually reset the system through the button on the dashboard. these experiences indicate the vehicle electronic and software systems are unstable and the volkswagen dealer has not been able to fix the issues, as they have recurred after the dealer claimed to fix the issues. i am concerned about my family's safety in this malfunctioning vehicle. the date below is the most recent event involving the auto start/stop system. the first occurrence was in mid-february 2018, approximately two weeks after purchasing the vehicle.

Auto stop sensor my atlas just have 1000 miles and it has started with problems

Tl* the contact owns a 2018 volkswagen atlas. the contact stated that the vehicle experienced several failures ever since it was purchased brand new. the contact stated that the automatic cruise control malfunctioned and caused the driver to slam on the brake pedal to avoid a rear collision. the vehicle was taken to gunther volkswagen of coconut creek (4300 fl-7, coconut creek, fl 33073, (954) 590-3750), but they refused to diagnose the vehicle even though the contact had an appointment. several days later, while driving 35 mph, the vehicle shut off. the contact was able to pull the vehicle over to the side of the road. the contact attempted to restart the vehicle, but it shut off again. after a few hours of waiting, the vehicle was able to fully restart and was driven back to the dealer. once at the dealer, the contact discovered that his customer profile had been deleted from their system. the contact had his information re-entered into the system. the dealer kept the vehicle for two days and they performed a software update. afterwards, the failures recurred even more frequently, including multiple times each day. the vehicle was taken back to the dealer for a third time where it was kept for three days, but they could not duplicate the failures. the dealer insisted that the vehicle was functioning normally even though the contact captured many of the failures on video. the manufacturer was contacted, but they refused to buy back the vehicle based on the dealer's information. the manufacturer also refused to look at any of the videos and advised the contact to schedule an appointment with another dealer. the failure mileage was 10.

Purchased vehicle in december 2017. in july, the check engine light came on. fast forward to november and i am still having issues with the vehicle, and it seems that anytime the dealership fixes one issue, another appears. after having my vehicle at the dealership 4 times between july 25th and august 7th, it was finally discovered that i had a bad catalytic converter. after the catalytic converter was finally replaced in september, the check engine light came on again and this time i was told it was a bad oxygen sensor. after that was finally replaced, another error light came on that was identified as something else, and i had to wait for a new part to come in. after waiting several weeks, that part came in, repairs were completed, and another issue came up. my car has now been at the dealership for 21 days straight (this time), and i still have not received an eta on when it should be fixed. problems have mostly been associated with check engine light and front assist (collision detection system) sensors, but now the issues have expanded to most of the car's internal computer system in general. vehicle was in a wreck in may 2018 when another driver pulled out in front of me. front assist errors are being attributed by dealer to the wreck, but the check engine and other computer errors, including issues with abs control module (latest problem) are not and are being covered under warranty

Recall 20ah is completely unnaceptable. there are 8 different possible repairs that fall under this recall. these repairs range from airbag software updates to sunroof repairs. how is it legal for them to combine these repairs? as a mechanic and a consumer it is bad for business as the various parts/ inspections neccessary make it nearly impossible to accomodate the repairs.

Connecting rod bearing failure. new vehicle, 17 days since delivery, 704 miles at time of incident driving vehicle at 30mph on surface street epc light illuminated on dash. this was accompanied by a metal knocking sound that was in time with engine speed. towed to dealer. sound was confirmed to be rod knock. oil pan was removed for inspection. metal found throughout the pan. new long block ordered. block replaced and during testing vacuum pump failed due to contamination. removed and replaced pump.

First the engine light came on couple days called spoke master mechanic stated shouldn't be problem as long as it's not blinking,bring in for check up. engine light turn off . car wouldn't start. car was taken to dealer mechanic for about week. 3weeks later after getting car back. engine turned off while in drive motion on my disable husband that has one leg. thank god my two other adult children's were there. i'm afraid to take a chance traveling with this car. i fear for my family's life and safety as well as mine. my atlas has been towed back to the dealership repairs and has been there for 3 weeks.

Excessive oil consumption. used 1and 1/2 quarts of oil at 3250 miles(which was added by the dealer service dept. today 1/2/18) was bought as a new vehicle 9/17 with only 12 miles on odometer.(12/25/17) first the check engine light lit, they said it was the gas cap.one week later the check oil level alarm lit . they checked it said no external leaks, they added the 1 1/2 quart oil , said to keep an eye on the level. i am scared to take this car on any trips with this car. also the coolant level was at the minimum level, the service open the cap and the level did rise, but why is that?

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