Recall · 21V198000
Volkswagen Group of America recalled 4 models over air bags
153,152
Vehicles covered
4
Models
19
Model years
March 22, 2021
Filed with NHTSA
AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION:FRONT PASSENGER
- The defect
- Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Audi) is recalling certain 2015-2020 Audi S3 Sedan, A3 Sedan, 2016-2018 A3 Etron, 2017-2020 RS3 Sedan, and 2015-2019 A3 Cabriolet vehicles. The passenger occupant detection system (PODS) may malfunction and switch off the passenger air bag even when the seat is occupied.
- What it can cause
- A deactivated passenger air bag increases the risk of injury during a crash.
- What the dealer does
- Dealers will replace the PODS sensor mat and update the PODS control module, free of charge. Owners letters were mailed December 23, 2021. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Audi's number for this recall is 69BY.
- NHTSA's note
- Owners may also contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or go to www.safercar.gov.
The repair is free, whatever the age or mileage of the vehicle, and whether or not you are the original owner.
Which vehicles
A recall reaches a range of VINs inside these model years, not every car built in them. Yours may not be covered even if it is listed here, and the only way to find out is NHTSA's own VIN lookup .
How this campaign compares
At 153,152 vehicles this is a bigger campaign than 94% of the 19,818 vehicle recalls filed since 1995 whose size NHTSA published. The middle campaign on file covers 472. It covers model years 2015 to 2020, so the oldest vehicles on it were 6 model years old when the defect was reported to NHTSA.
Audi vehicles have been recalled over the air bags 38 times before this, most recently in March 2021 as 21V159000. That is not evidence the earlier repair failed.
This site holds the complaint record for 12 of the 19 model years the campaign names. Their owners have filed 374 complaints with NHTSA, 87 of them before this campaign was filed. 178 of those name the air bags, the system this recall is about — a count of complaints, not of this defect. The earliest of them reached NHTSA in May 2017, 3 years before this filing.
The vehicles on this campaign carry 3 other recalls published here: 24V110000 (fuel system, gasoline), 22V815000 (tires), 22V543000 (air bags).
Check your own car
A VIN check is the only answer for a specific vehicle, and it also shows every other open recall on it, which is usually the reason it is worth doing rather than reading one campaign.
Filed by Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. with NHTSA on March 22, 2021 as campaign 21V198000. Every word of the defect, consequence and remedy above is NHTSA's published record of that filing, not a summary of it.
Compiled and maintained by guarledes . Data last checked 2021-03-22.
Independent developer and analyst