Other body or interior problem on the 2000 Volkswagen Passat
1 crash 2 fires 1 injury 4 of the 13 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.
Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other body or interior problem gets reported
There are 13 reports of other body or interior problem on the 2000 Volkswagen Passat, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 100,000 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, 1 a crash, 2 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 $200–$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 18 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1996, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 99; the 2000 has 13. 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.
Drivers seat cushion failed prematurely on bottom of seat. Replaced seat cushion at upholstery shop recommended by dealer at my expense. No warranty service coverage offerred by vw. Old part still on hand. *ak
1. Brought 2000 passat glx to dealer twice to fix 'smoke coming from engine compartment and accompanying burning smell.' dealer charged $430 to replace "in/out transmission cooler lines" the first time in the shop, and "tightened the cams" the second time. 2. Less than 3 weeks after the second service 'tightening the cams', car caught fire while traveling northbound on I-95 at mile marker 8 in ny. After being notified of smoke coming from the car by another motorist, we pulled over. Shortly thereafter, the entire car was engulfed in flames. 3. Nothing was done to correct the failure as the car was totaled. Investigation may or may not be conducted by insurance company to find the cause of the fire. *ak
2000 vw passat has a water leak on drivers side floors and under passengers side floor. This has caused wire damage disabling electric windows, locks, gas cover release and interior lights. I may have even damaged to airbag system. This is a very serious matter and needs to be dealt with through vw. This should be a recall since the problem it causes are very serious. This needs to be dealt with asap. It is costing consumers a lot of money and hurting the reputation of vw. I know for a fact that unless something is done, I will not buy another vw and will not recommend anyone else from buying one either. I will go out of my way to say this. *tr
Also reported on the 2000 Volkswagen Passat
ABS module or sensor failure
Other engine problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 13 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 13 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 body or interior problem happen on the 2000 Volkswagen Passat?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other body or interior problem on the 2000 Volkswagen Passat?
13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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