NHTSA complaint: 2011 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA — POWER TRAIN
Was driving about 25-30mph when we heard a pop sound and the car started to become very hard to control. Everytime I would press the brakes the car would become even harder to control. I tried to turn into a driveway to see what happened and the car jerked and caused us to go into a deep ditch. The front passenger tire hit a concrete water drain and the car stopped abruptly. Impact caused the rim to completely break in half and also snapped the front axel in half. The tow truck driver informed us that the drivers rear axle trailing arm was broke in half and he had never seen anything like that before. That night we learned of the recall for that exact part. Over the weekend I've had a chance to go out and look a little better under the rear of the car and it appears to have the steel inlay piece that was supposed to fix the recalled part. The welding is terrible and most of it is rusty so it's been broken for a while it seems. I pulled a car fax on the vehicle and it has went in several times for maintenance at various car dealerships but it doesn't seem that anyone put the fix in the system for it. It has definitely been repaired but nothing shows that. We are waiting on insurance to look at the car. It is available as of right now to be seen. No warning lamps were on in the car. This accident could have resulted in major injuries or even death if they wouldn't have hit the ditch. I have a ton of pictures if you need more. The police did come but didn't file a report because
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — Office of Defects Investigation