Volkswagen has suffered a lot of flack for the Dieselgate scandal, to put it mildly. The damage to its reputation has been devastating, causing many people to understandably lose confidence in the brand. The situation has rapidly escalated with recent arrests and lawsuits. And as if things couldn’t get much worse for the troubled German manufacturer, a major recall has been actioned affecting over 130,000 VW models in the US. Not the best timing in the world.
According to the recall notice by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the ABS computer can potentially fail when ABS or ESC electronic aids are activated, “possibly causing a loss of vehicle control.” This obviously isn’t ideal in an emergency braking situation, so VW is recalling specific 2009 and 2010 models from its range, including certain 2009-10 Volkswagen Jetta A5 sedans, 2009 Jetta SportWagen, Eos, GTI, Rabbit and Audi A3 vehicles and 2010 Volkswagen Golf A6 vehicles. 135,683 vehicles are being recalled in total.
VW hasn’t issued a time frame for the recalls yet, but has said that owners will be notified and repairs will be offered for free, which will require testing and, if necessary, the ABS control module software to be updated. This isn’t the first time a recall for Volkswagen cars of this scale has been issued, either. Back in October, the manufacturer had to recall over 200,000 Audi A3s and VW Golfs in an issue unrelated to Dieselgate for once. In this case, fuel leaks were to blame, which could have had fatal consequences.
