Misfire or rough idle on the 2003 Volkswagen Passat
6 fires 1 injury 7 of the 32 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 misfire or rough idle gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Volkswagen Passat report misfire or rough idle at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 87,500 miles, from 26 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 27,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 152,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 126,816 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
12% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26,486 miles | 40,875 miles | 74,558 miles | 86,750 miles | 153,302 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, 6 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–$1,600 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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2002, at a median of 12,500 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 123; the 2003 has 32. 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 vehicle contains 4 ignition coils, one of which failed. This part which is installed on many 2002 and 2003 vw's is prone to sudden failure and vw owners have been experiencing multiple and common failures of their ignition coils. Vw has redesigned the part but is only replacing failed parts at this time. When this part fails it causes the engine to stall or misfire badly and makes the car undriveable. This is certainly a safety issue if the problem occurs on a highway, causing the car to stall, or stranding a motorist in a dangerous location. I believe that vw should replace all the defective ignition coils with the redesigned replacement part. Thanks. Scc ***dimsii ivoq entry posted after 12/12/02 cut-over to artemis****770857****
Failure to correct misfire and stalling problem after 3 visits to vw dealer. Engine continues to misfire and vw won't try to replace any obvious parts related to the cause. Told to return the car for repair for the 4th time when problem occurs again. Car has been to 2 vw dealers in 2 weeks and problem continues. *jb
Engine continues to misfire, loses power and starts to stall while driving . Four attempts to correct the problem have failed. Problem presents a significant safety issue for driver and passengers. *la
Also reported on the 2003 Volkswagen Passat
Fuel pump failure
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 32 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 misfire or rough idle happen on the 2003 Volkswagen Passat?
Across 26 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 87,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is misfire or rough idle on the 2003 Volkswagen Passat?
32 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 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