2024 Volkswagen Taos: What to check before buying

Rear brake pads wear out much faster than the fronts. They often need replacing between 10,000 and 20,000 miles while the front pads are still mostly intact. Some owners say new rear pads wore down again within weeks, with squealing and metal-on-metal grinding. Several say dealers mentioned a warranty extension for the rear brakes, though it did not always apply to their car. One crash report describes sudden unintended acceleration with automatic emergency braking failing to stop the car. A parking brake that engages by itself is also reported.

Most of these reports describe electronic faults that come and go. Adaptive cruise control cuts out at highway speeds, the SOS system goes off by itself, and the touchscreen gets hot, glitches, or shuts off. Steering wheel buttons stop working, and lane keeping is said to bounce the car back and forth in the lane. One owner reports the engine stalling at 65 mph on a freeway after three dealer visits. Brake grinding, a burnt pad smell, and hesitation under acceleration also show up here. Dealers often cannot reproduce the problems.

The car fails to move or lags badly when the driver presses the gas, especially when accelerating hard from a stop or into traffic. Owners describe near misses at red lights and roundabouts. One thinks the transmission briefly acts as if it were in neutral. Another reports an Auto Start/Stop error, a flashing check engine light, and a loss of drive power. Dealers often find no fault codes and cannot make the problem happen. Reports begin within the first 1,600 miles.

These reports cover glass and wipers. In one, a rear side window explodes at highway speed and showers glass onto a child in the back seat, at about 23,000 miles. In the other, the windshield wipers turn on by themselves, cannot be switched off, and later stop on their own. That fault appeared at about 1,605 miles, and the dealer could not reproduce it after several visits.

Stalling and hesitation are the two complaints here. In one, the engine stalls while driving, the coolant warning light comes on, and the car will not restart. The owner blames a coolant reservoir cap left loose after dealer service, at about 24,000 miles. The other describes long hesitation followed by sudden hard acceleration that nearly caused a crash. The dealer called it turbo lag and said it is a known issue with no fix available.

Neither report describes a suspension failure. One covers stuttering under acceleration, as if the engine might cut out, plus dashboard warning lights. The dealer blamed the road sign display, then the front camera, then software, and had no answer after almost a month. The other describes the brake pedal sinking by itself during a stop, the radio suddenly getting very loud, clicking from the dashboard, the A/C temperature rising by itself, and an SOS button that does not work.