General query concerning VW Polo recalls

[veteran]

Does anybody here know how and where I can access a list of Recall Notices for VW Polos of the 6C type (manufacture years roughly 2014 - 2017)?

At an independent garage, my 2017 6C (1.2 TSI 90 16v) underwent its annual MOT just recently, and on the MOT (Pass) Certificate that was issued was the message:

"This vehicle has an outstanding recall. Contact your nearest Volkswagen dealership for information and to arrange a free repair".

In the aftermath of the manufacture of cars, some recalls are clearly of a critical kind, others can be non-critical and, since my particular vehicle has functioned perfectly well, on the whole, for the last six years, I'm curious to find out what this recall is all about, whilst avoiding an unnecessary level of belligerency that invariably comes from VW dealership personnel.

[RUM4MO]

I think or thought, if you went onto the gov MOT checker website, there is a link to check "for outstanding recalls for this car" - I would hope that any recalls that MOT test centre find being "brought up" or commented on, should also be able to be found on the MOT checker website.

[SRGTD]

Try the following;

1). From VW’s website; input your car’s VIN in the space provided.

https://www.vw.com/en/recalls.html

Not all the recalls considered to be recalls by VW are safety recalls; some will be service campaigns that don’t affect a car’s safety.

2). From the MOT checker on gov.uk website, input your car’s registration number. When your vehicle details are displayed, there’s a ‘check for vehicle recalls’ section at the bottom of the screen.

3). The following (and similar) sources;
https://car-recalls.eu/model/polo/
https://www.vehicle-recall.co.uk/make/VW/POLO

[RUM4MO]

It might just be the "towing eye" - did you every get that replaced officially?

[veteran]

RUM4MO,

Yeh, it could just be about that wretched tow-eye. That was 4 or 5 years ago now. VW produced a replacement tow-eye for the poorly-manufactured one (a weak weld on the eye itself) supplied with the vehicle in 2017, but when I took the original one along to my local VW dealership for a straight swap to be done and gave them my vehicle's VIN no., the staff there refused to do the swap - they wanted to have possession of my Polo for a day or two, which was ridiculous. I refused. Some months later, I found on the Web the name of one of VW's EU manufacturers for their tow-eyes, a company in Latvia. On the company's website I identified one that was designed for the 6C but which was now forged entirely as a one-piece affair, and so I duly ordered it. Unfortunately, the eye that arrived was grossly oversized and clearly not the correct one. I gave up at that point. At odd times since then I've wondered whether to get a contact of mine who owns some welding gear to modify my original one, making the weld far stronger. But with so many other things consuming my time these days, it's not been a priority of mine.

I'll use the links you guys have now given me, and we'll see what's what.

[veteran]

Having now pursued those links that you guys have given me, the only website where my VIN no. or registration no. worked was the 'european' one. That site's quite useful, I found.

The news is not good, however. Yes, the poorly-manufactured tow-eye is indeed listed as a recall instance for my particular Polo 6C, but on the site I came across at least two other recalls that were of a 'serious' or 'critical' kind, these being:-

VW Polo, yrs 2016 - 2018

"The safety-belt buckle for the rear left seat can open unintentionally".
This malfunction affects vehicles from the Uitenhage (S. Africa) and Pamplona (Spain) plants.

VW Polo, yrs 2016 - 2017

"Mixture ratios for the initiation device associated with the passenger airbag or seatbelt pre-tensioner may not activate in the event of an accident".
This issue also affects many other VAG vehicles made between July 2016 and Feb 2017.

Recall 01D7, yrs 2006 - 2018

"Cars initially used for internal purposes of VW AG might not have been correctly modified before they were sold to the general public. There is a possibility that certain safety systems of these cars are not correctly modified for street use".
This issue affects many other VAG vehicles made between Jan 2006 and Dec 2018.

See what I mean? According to comments I found on this european site, the 01D7 recall, which has obviously been ongoing for quite a number of years now, grew into a considerable scandal. With myriad numbers of annoying faults being found by drivers of these vehicles, many cite it as bad as, if not worse than, the infamous scandal about VW tweaking their diesel-engined cars to get them over the emissions line. So much so that, apparently, in many cases there were so many recalls and faults found that VW were taking back customers' vehicles and giving them brand new replacement ones!

It rather looks as though I'm going to have to go along to a VW dealership - a sizeable one with an appropriate workshop - to find out exactly what level of dismantling will be required in order to fix the safety-belt and/or airbag problems associated with my Polo, and therefore to find out how long I'll be without the vehicle as a result. Clearly, these are problems with the car that I ought not to ignore. Unfortunately, the VW dealership that I used to have in my area folded some 3 or 4 years ago, and the nearest one to me will likely be around 10 miles away, in an area with poor public transport (though much nearer to me there's still a SEAT dealership in existence). It'll be a total non-starter, though, if the dealership can't supply me a reserve vehicle while mine's being put right.

If readers of this thread haven't already been officially notified of suspected faults on their 2010 - 2023 manufactured Polo, I'd urge that they take a look at that european recalls site, as there are a worrying number of recalls reported there. Speaking generally, it looks like the DVLA (DVSA) has now adopted the MOT Certificate as a reliable way of informing drivers that they have an outstanding recall on their vehicle.

My thanks go to everyone who suggested those various web links. The EU one seems to be the best one to use.

Oh BTW, how does one define the single date (month and year) of manufacture of a car? It's not the same as the date of registration, presumably? I can look at my Polo and determine the month and date of manufacture of individual components such as engine, gearbox, etc but surely there's nowhere on the vehicle or in the vehicle's data where a single 'date of manufacture of the entire vehicle' is given?

[Bepis]

Fairly certain you can get the build date from your vehicle specific information that’s stored on Erwin but you need to pay for access so probably best asking your local dealers service department.

You can get the build year from the VIN, there’s various decoders online.

My VIN also wasn’t recognised by VWs own site so will make my own checks with my local dealers service department.

[veteran]

I googled the matter of the code-letter for the year of manufacture and was able to avoid the use of a 'decoder'. I discovered that, with the 10th character in the VIN being 'H' in my case. the nominal year of manufacture was 2017. Figures.

Unfortunately, this alone doesn't get you very far, because whether or not a particular Polo has one of the manufacturing faults listed on that EU website is down to fine margins, ie. it depends on the month (and in some cases, even the day) that the vehicle came off the production line. I imagine that only the dealerships will have that amount of fine detail.

[RUM4MO]

I’ve always asked for a printout of “CAR DATA” for all our close family’s VW Group cars, that info includes what they class as the production date. So you could get that from any VW dealership parts department.

[Bepis]

Rang my local dealership's service department and have no outstanding recalls, all they needed was my VIN. Mine has a production date of 21.03.2017 FYI.

Also found out I got the higher tax rate by 27 days as it was registered on the 28th of April

[RUM4MO]

Just not proper use of available recall info by MOT - maybe no surprise there as they are just civil servants and probably contract out the "hard stuff" to a 3rd service supplier!

Edit:- or VW's mistake if they never got to swop the towing hook.

[veteran]

It was last week, when the MOT tester handed me my pass Certificate, that he pointed out that VOSA was now including recall messages on the Certificate, ie. if it said there was at least one recall that was outstanding on the vehicle, you were advised to go to your VW dealership to get the matter investigated and the reason for the defect corrected. I was surprised of course, but later thinking about it, this might have been an idea forwarded by car manufacturers to ensure that all the owners of vehicles that have identified manufacturing issues and which are being used on the roads get informed in some assured way that their vehicles are subjects of recalls. That's to say, rather than a manufacturer sending out hundreds of thousands of individual letters to the drivers affected and maybe a good percentage of those letters either not reaching them (due to change of address, for example) or get ignored, instead they're using the MOT, because in theory in the UK everyone who drives needs to have an annual MOT and so drivers will get their recall reminder at least once a year. Recall notices will move with the driver and the vehicle, rather than with the driver's postal address.

OK, I thought, that's all very well but what if the VOSA message on the Certificate isn't actually correct? Searches on the Web that I've made about recent VW recalls suggest that VOSA takes a blanket view to recalls. That is, if say you've a VW Polo that's a 2017 model, then as far as VOSA is concerned - and therefore the message on the MOT certificate - you have three things wrong with your vehicle - an issue with the handbrake lever, a towing-eye with a dodgy weld, and a left rear seat buckle that can randomly unfasten when in use. However, judging by information I found at vehicle-recall.co.uk and at regit.cars/recalls/vw-polo, none of those apply if the vehicle's VIN is outside of the range of the VINs that those sites quote alongside each recall. So, certainly in my case, unless those sites' info is just plain wrong or is not fully up to date, the VOSA message issued to me is highly misleading. (It would seem daft that VOSA already has the full VIN no. of vehicles, and yet that no. apparently isn't being used to filter out vehicles that don't apply). The dealerships definitely need to rely on the actual VIN of the vehicle, not on an all-encompassing year date. Indeed, Bepis is reporting that his dealer merely asked for the VIN no. (okay, that no. might give more than just the year and location of manufacture, but I think you get my drift).

Could it be, though, that in the future if an outstanding recall notice appears on your MOT certificate and by the next year you've not had the defect investigated and corrected, you'll not be permitted to renew your Road Fund Licence and insurance?

If an overzealous dealership were to disregard the importance of the VIN, a nightmare of a situation could arise where the vehicle's been half disassembled before it's discovered that the vehicle never had the problem anyway. Some VW Polo recalls that have arisen in recent years have involved the frontal airbags and, to correct those, apparently the entire dashboard has to be removed.

[RUM4MO]

I feel that this is a very useful development as as you wrote, this "still requiring recall action" for safety related issues will follow each vehicle throughout its life.

I'd also expect that the information will get read annually from a live database, each car manufacturer being responsible for submitting updates on completed safety recall records to MOT.

I'd still think that the issue with your car will be the towing hook, once that has been correctly resolved via a VW dealership, then by the next MOT, this notice will have disappeared.

[AlexT99]

I have wondered about safety recalls also. My car was manufactured in 2017 in the Pamplona, Spain factory.
I had a crash in 2020 which I'm surprised didn't set the airbags off. It wasn't a big crash. But I was still surprised they didnt go off.
It was close to being a write-off with £5300 in repairs needed.
I wonder if my car has some issue with the front airbags that OP mentioned.
Or maybe crash impact G forces were not strong enough

see attached for photos

[veteran]

RUM4MO,

Both of the sites vehicle-recalls.co.uk and regit.cars/recalls/vw-polo show that the tow-eye issue is relevant only for South African-made Polos starting with VIN no. WVWZZZ6RZHU084389. Mine, however, has a VIN no. a fair bit earlier than that, so on the face of it my particular Polo does not have the issue. But VOSA, and presumably VW themselves, seem to have my vehicle down as one of the affected cars. This is what I find extremely annoying. It would help if VW were to publish all such recalls in an open and timely fashion, and ensuring that its own recall site works in an unfettered way for drivers visiting it. They're simply not doing that, IMHO. With the kind of attitude struck by some VW dealerships in handling customers' queries on these recalls, it'll take years and years for VW to make the necessary headway to clearing them and rendering reassurance to the car-buying public.

Bepis's March 2017 Polo has escaped the tow-eye problem, but that might be because his Polo's a GTi and was most probably made in Germany or Spain, rather than in South Africa (only he can confirm for us). I see that AlexT99's Polo is the same year and model as mine, but rather than having been made in SA, his was manufactured in Spain apparently. It'd be interesting if he could discover whether his has a number of outstanding recalls and whether one of them is that pesky tow-eye.

Conclusions are tricky to make on this, because a particular recall issue will exist only for certain Polo manufacturing plants around the world, and for quite specific date periods.