Other electrical problem on the 2016 Volkswagen Jetta
1 fire 1 injury 2 of the 21 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 electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Volkswagen Jetta report other electrical problem at a median of 35,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 45,000 miles, from 15 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 70,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 64,815 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.
53% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,720 miles | 13,000 miles | 34,000 miles | 45,230 miles | 69,535 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 and 1 an injury 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 $250–$2,000 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 25 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2023 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 120; the 2016 has 21. 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.
This is the base model s automatic transmission 1.4 tsi. This vehicle doesn't have a gauge for measuring the temperature. Unable to make a decision promptly if the car starts to heat is a safety problem. The car apparently has a mechanism to lower the rpms if the car starts heating and has a light indicating that something is wrong with the cooling system but it is unacceptable that in 2016 you can't see the engine temerature. I didn't notice this while testing the car before doing the purchase and thought it was a matter of configuration but confirmed this with the manual. This car has 85 miles and when running through a slope in rural area if it decides to down shift theres a bump or a knock in the transmutation as if you were abusing the car and the motor or transmission mounts can't hold its force. It really feels awful when this happens. This should happen smoothly but it doesn't. I understand that it will make its own decision of what is the best gear in order to provide enough torque to manage the slope but this is not normal. This could be a sing of future failure and of course an accident can occur. Would like this two…
At any time, day or night, any time of the year, when accelerating from a stop or attempting to pass another vehicle, this car will fail to accelerate when pressing down on the gas pedal. The delay can be as long as 5 seconds and since I never know when it will happen, I feel the vehicle is very unsafe. It can fail to accelerate in the middle of an intersection with traffic coming at you from both directions and you will not be able to get out of their way. I feel I take my life in my hands every time I step into this vehicle and recommend that on one ever buy one of these death traps!!!!
The original vw battery leaked and corroded rthe cables shorting out the car requiring a tow. It would not take a jump and after taking it to a vw dealership, the battery, cables and starter had to be replaced. The vehicle was stationary when this happened. This also happened to my previous vw.
Also reported on the 2016 Volkswagen Jetta
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Other brake problem
Other powertrain problem
Fuel leak or fuel odor
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 21 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 electrical problem happen on the 2016 Volkswagen Jetta?
Across 15 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 45,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2016 Volkswagen Jetta?
21 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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