AtWhatMileage
Brakes · 3 owner reports

Other brake problem on the 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 3 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 3 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.

Reports of this failure 3
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 67%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $300–$1,800
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 28th

When other brake problem gets reported

There are 3 reports of other brake problem on the 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan, 3 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 28th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 23,000 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 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 $300–$1,800 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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 1,800 miles, and latest on the 2021 at 65,000 miles.

By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 18; the 2009 has 3. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

On june 13, 2008 I was traveling west bound on a typical south florida day, very hot and humid clear day. Just then a pick-up truck put out very fast in front of me. I slammed on my brakes with plenty of time to stop, but just before I came to a complete stop, the engine roared and I hit the truck very hard. At first I thought my foot slipped off the brake to the gas, but no way, I broke my foot because I hit the brake so hard. My question is this,is there a known problem with this newcar? *tr

1,232 miles NHTSA complaint 682379 filed 2008-08-11

I started to hear a grinding sound from the rear when applying brakes. With only 40 k on car the front brakes should show signs of wear first. The rear brakes have totally worn out first and grinding metal to metal, ruining the rear rotors. *tr

40,000 miles NHTSA complaint 886817 filed 2011-10-22

My wife's vehicle was parked yes she spilled water on that area, thank god it was parked. From what I have read about these particular e brakes they seem a very bad design. I knew when we purchased the car in 2009 just knowing autos this was a terrible design and feature especially the placement. I read enough online after today this has to be a recall I have had previous recalls on both my vw seat belts, misc. Sensors both a couple of times each yes vw took care of it but this situation is far too dangerous. *tr

23,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1005379 filed 2013-08-27

Also reported on the 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan

Other engine problem

25 reports median 69k

Oil leak

19 reports median 73k

Headlight failure or clouding

18 reports median 47k

Other electrical problem

13 reports median 48k

Sunroof failure or glass breakage

8 reports median 122k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 brake problem happen on the 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 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 brake problem on the 2009 Volkswagen Tiguan?

3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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