Tail light, brake light or signal failure on the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta
3 crashes 1 fire 4 of the 65 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When tail light, brake light or signal failure gets reported
Owners of the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta report tail light, brake light or signal failure at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 77,500 miles, from 39 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 102,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 96,311 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
31% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,689 miles | 24,452 miles | 45,500 miles | 76,500 miles | 102,000 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 3 a crash and 1 a fire are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $100–$900 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 40,000 miles, and latest on the 2010 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The turn signals have an intermittent failure. They have turned off, turned of,f and then resumed a few seconds later, or failed to turn on at all.*ak the vehicle is a 2001 jetta gls with 40k miles.
I purchase a 2001 jetta new and in about 3 yrs I have had to replace the brake light switch twice for an average life expectance of 19 months. Talking with the dealer, I was invormed that the brake light switch base no available several months ago and is now starting to become available again. Currently my mechanic has found only 1 brake light switch on the east coast. He has call the local dealers in a 100 mile radius and they do not have any, contacted vw regional and they do not have any. Interested to know if others are having the same problem. To me 19 months between switches is a little excessive to replace. *ak
Consumer complained about a transmission problem. Transmission will not go into reverse. Also, consumer was told that there was a problem with the brake light.*ak water intrusion from the driver's side of the vehicle leaving 1/2" of water on floorboard. Consumer reporting this condition results in slippery pedals and windows fogging up. *mjj
Also reported on the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta
Other body or interior problem
Misfire or rough idle
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other visibility problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 65 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does tail light, brake light or signal failure happen on the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta?
Across 39 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 77,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is tail light, brake light or signal failure on the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta?
65 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed