Stalling while driving on the 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan
3 crashes 3 of the 12 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 stalling while driving gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan report stalling while driving at a median of 35,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 88,500 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.
58% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9,000 miles | 9,000 miles | 34,250 miles | 61,875 miles | 97,500 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, 3 a crash 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–$2,500 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 10 miles, and latest on the 2010 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 volkswagen tiguan. The contact was driving approximately 40 MPH when the engine stalled with the illumination of the epc and alternator warning indicators. The engine restarted after ten minutes. Once the vehicle was in operation, the failure recurred. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer who advised the contact that the fuel pressure senor was faulty. The vehicle was repaired however, the failure recurred ten days later. The vehicle was taken back to the dealer who was unable to determine the problem. The manufacturer was notified of the defect. The approximate failure mileage was 5,870. The VIN was unavailable.
After stopping at a traffic control device, driver accelerated into an intersection, at which time the vehicle's engine stalled. The vehicle had to be placed into park, and was then able to be restarted. The dealership's service center performed a fuel pump pressure test, resulting in a failure. It was determined that the fuel pump had failed, and needed to be replaced. Owner has two of these vehicles (exact model and model year), and the same incident/equipment failure took place with both vehicles during the span of a month. The same part was replaced on the other vehicle which had less than 10,000 miles at the time of incident. If the incidents had transpired on a highway, or other heavily traveled roadway, this failure could have resulted in a serious crash. *tr
I was pulling out onto a major road. The car had been running for at least 30+ minutes. I attempted to make a left turn into the middle lane. The car died and I was halfway into the lane. I was unable to get it restarted for a few mins. It eventually started again. There was no warning signs. The car just stopped running and came to an abrupt stop. I took the vehicle to oakland ca vw service and I was told that the fuel filter was changed. "sorry, we don't know what is wrong with it, there are no faults showing but if it keeps happening bring it back." again, I was driving down a road at approximately 35 MPH. The car shut off without any warning. There was no sputtering, no warning lights - nothing. Again the car came to an abrupt stop. I was kind of expecting another occurrence so I luckily was able to pull off to the right to avoid a traffic accident. I will be taking the car back into vw of oakland. I am due to leave the state for vancouver, washington and then drive to pennsylvania. At this point the problem is a cause for major concern over the safety of my family and myself. I am too worried that the car will shut off while…
Also reported on the 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan
Timing chain, belt or tensioner failure
Other engine problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Fuel pump failure
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Sunroof failure or glass breakage
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 stalling while driving happen on the 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is stalling while driving on the 2012 Volkswagen Tiguan?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 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