Other fuel system problem on the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta
1 fire 1 of the 76 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 other fuel system problem gets reported
Owners of the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta report other fuel system problem at a median of 47,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 71 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 122,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 111,040 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.
39% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11,000 miles | 24,172 miles | 47,500 miles | 79,909 miles | 122,040 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, 1 a fire is 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 $300–$2,200 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 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 100; the 2009 has 76. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
2009 jetta with 7100 miles failed to accelerate and then died. This happened intermittently 3 times during a one week period. The car could be re-started after the failure but then died again. It acted as if it was not getting gas. I finally had it towed to vw dealership because I didn't trust that it would not do this while accelerating on the freeway. Vw determined that it had a faulty fuel pressure regulator. *tr
Possible events leading up to the failure is once in a while when the car is off and parked the engine fan will come on running very high and the car smells. This occurred about 4 times in 4 months. Then in the 5th month of ownership, while driving 50 MPH, I heard a beep, looked down at my dash and before I could finish reading the message the car died. The dash indicated something about get to a workshop, then the message disappeared and the coil light came on. I put my foot on the gas pedal and nothing happened. Thankgoodness no one was behind me or we would have been hit, I pushed the car to the shoulder of the road and called a tow truck. I was 80 miles from home and just minutes from getting on the main freeway. I was towed to the nearest vw dealer. It was a weekend so the service dept was closed. Monday I was told the entire fuel system went out and was going to be completely replaced. It was replaced. It's been 4 weeks since it was replaced and today when I drove 25 miles and parked my car, the engine fan came on running very high, and loud with the smell of burnt rubber and smoke coming from the hood. I called the dealer…
Vehicle began leaking diesel fuel after 20,000 mile service at fletcher jones volkswagen in chicago, illinois. I am a former automotive engineer, so fortunately I knew to take the car back quickly. Some owners may have continued to drive the car and it could have resulted in a fire. The dealer claims that the issue was a defective fuel filter. Hopefully vw of america is taking the matter seriously, though they do not really seem to care much about quality based on our experiences so far. *tr
Also reported on the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta
Fuel pump failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
No-start or intermittent start failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 76 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 other fuel system problem happen on the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta?
Across 71 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 47,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other fuel system problem on the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta?
76 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 7.7 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