Automatic Emergency Braking problems of the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas

My wife was driving to the store on surface streets at about 9am on a clear morning. At a stop light, waiting for the green. After light turned green she accelerated at a normal rate. Midway through the intersection (at about 10 mph) the vehicles emergency braking system engaged for no reason slamming her to an immediate stop. There were no obstructions in front or to either side of the vehicle. There was another car behind her that almost rear-ended her. My wife's safety was at risk because she could have been involved in a collision which may have resulted in injuries to my wife and or others and she was sitting, shaken in the middle of an intersection thinking that someone had hit her from behind. The vehicle has not been taken to the dealership yet. My wife states that the vehicle displayed many indicator warning lights on the instrument panel after it stopped including the advance warning lights, but instead of just showing a collision warning with the car, 3-double bars and lanes in red, it showed (in red) a car with 4-double bars all around the vehicle, no lanes and the vehicle shut off. The car started again when she took her foot off of the brake.

When the outdoor temperature gets low, below 20 degrees fahrenheit, the vehicle thinks the driver-side front door is open, when it is closed. Because of this, the vehicle does not want to allow itself to be driven and will put on the electric parking brake. Even if released, the parking brake will automatically re-engage any time the vehicle speed drops below a couple of miles-per-hour. In addition, other errors persist with the electrical system, including error messages regarding the hill descent control, parking assist, passenger side airbag detection, internal lighting, etc. Based upon research, it seems this issue is identical to a recall issued for the same make & model, but for the years 2019-2022.

Driving on a single lane road with no other cars on road (in front or behind) and car suddenly brakes to a complete stop and the crash warning sound become audible inside the car. This happened 1 other time about 1 month prior but car did not come to a complete stop that time. That incident there were other vehicles on the road but were at a fair distance away from the car and those vehicles were not braking or slowing down.

While driving about 30mph the automatic forward collision braking gave a malfunction light and screen. The car had nothing in front of it to cause the breaking to happen and forced my car to intermittently hard break as I tried to bring it to a car safely. If I had had a car behind me I surely would have been rear ended. I with all three child under 4 years old. I brought my car to a parking lot. Turned it off then on and turned off the forward collision brakes from the car menu.

Automatic emergency breaking initiated on its own, slamming the car breaks as I was turning left out of a parking lot onto a busy 4 lane street. This stopped the car as we were crossing the first lane of traffic. We were stuck in the lane perpendicular to oncoming traffic as we were turning left. Thank goodness there were no cars close by when I started to turn. This could have ended horrifically. We were sitting ducks and could’ve been t-boned. I had my kids in the car. This was so dangerous. And there were no obstacles in front of my car. The automatic emergency braking system malfunctioned. It has done this a handful of times previously, but never put us in a dangerous situation like it did today. It has initiated in the past at slow speeds while pulling into parking spaces when no obstacles were present.

I have experienced an alert/alarm for a "faulty break booster", "break system failure", as well as other break related alarms go off while driving. Multiple times I have been going over 40 mph and the vehicle has instantly breaked and came to a stop on it's own. I have taken my vehicle to the dealer and was advised there is no issue. This issue seems to happen randomly as I have been unable to recognize any similarities between conditions and frequency.

When braking normally, the aeb alert tone sounded, and the display showed a red brake warning with "brake booster failure" displayed on-screen. The brakes then became extremely sensitive and caused the car to abruptly grind to a stop with full abs action. This occurred in traffic, and the car behind me narrowly avoided a collision due to the uncommanded abrupt halt. I pulled over and the error cleared itself after a few seconds. I pulled the diagnostic error codes from the ecu, and this is the output: 0213 [0x0000d5] archive (inactive) c10a329: vacuum sensor, implausible signal single vacuum pressure sensor sends no valid data status bits: 1 priority: 1 frequency: 1 unlearning index: 84 odometer: 27031 km date, time: 2023. 03. 27 09:34:50 paramteric values: 00 00 80 18 32 00 00 00 cf 47 00 00 02 ff 00 5e 02 40 b0 00 00 00 10 status: confirmed (this is from a previous activation, but the recent one is the same). This is the third time this has happened, but the first to put me in actual danger of a crash. I have previously brought this to the dealer but no fix was applied. They were aware of this happening on other vehicles but they did not have a fix. The model year after was recalled due to wiring issues, but my car has never been recalled for anything related. I believe this is a significant safety issue and should be addressed by the manufacturer before it causes a serious incident.

Automatic emergency braking when driving across a light rail track. The location: an intersection at north san jose, CA area. Google map location and street view attached the issue: 1) only at this location + for more than 3 times, when approaching or over the light trail track, my car dashboard displayed frontal collision imminent warning and the emergency brake was automatically triggered. One time it almost caused the car behind mine to rear me. 2) during all the incidents, there were no light rail train nearby. It didn't matter if there were cars in front of or beside mine. Traffic light were green. All day time; clear weather. 3) reported the issue to volkswagon service station, technician checked but found no defect. 4) my car was purchased 2018. It didn't have this issue until starting from 2021 the workaround: it appears, while approaching the track, don't hit the gas pedal, then it will be fine. It could be there are some train signal system interfered with my car's collision warning system.

While I was driving the automatic braking system engaged on 3 separate occasions last night, thankfully there was no one behind me or it would have caused an accident. A warning light did appear on the dash that read faulty brake system. I am going to contact a dealer to have it looked at.

Random and sudden braking of the Volkswagen Atlas, with the forward anti-collision signal lit on, whereas there was absolutely no cars ahead of the Atlas. It happened twice already, first on an highway driving at 60 miles/hr and a second time in a city at about 30 miles/hr. Fortunately, there was no crash. Our Volkswagen Atlas is still under warranty and we took it to Volkswagen of kirkland, wa, who kept the car for two weeks for evaluation and investigation. After analysis, considering it happened only twice, Volkswagen engineering USA (corporate) directed Volkswagen of kirkland to return the car to us with no actions, asking us to report any future instances. They provided us with 3 complaint forms --> they might be expecting 5 events or crashes before taking it seriously. Prior to the two events of sudden braking, we have had multiple instances where the anti-collision signal and sound went on for no reason, but without braking.

This has happened 3 times now. When driving, all emergency notification lights come on without warning and the car applies emergency braking. The driver is unable to accelerate and must come to a stop immediately or the car does it for them. The only way to then drive again, is to park it, turn the car off, and turn it back on. When that is done, almost all warning lights disappear and the car behaves as though nothing ever happened. The only error that the vehicle shows is an error with the start/stop system and says that the engine is on due to system failure. If you manually turn off start/stop, then all warnings are gone. Usually, when the car is turned off and driven a second time after that, no warnings (not even start/stop) appear. This has happened at 65mph on cruise control, at 10mph in a parking lot, and at 50mph. The first time it happened, a stored code for multiple passive Mini faults appeared, but dealer could not recreate problem and I was told to drive it and call if it happens again. 3 months later, it happened again with completely different variables in driving prior to it happening. When brought in to the dealer, the same code was thrown in addition to a code about low battery output. Vw warranty engineers determined it needed a software update. After software update was performed, the new code of the battery output level went away. 2 months later, the same thing happened again at a different rate of speed. No check engine light was ever on, nor is it presently on. There is no warning that this is going to happen. The driver has no choice but to stop the car immediately in its tracks and turn it off. The driver is unable to determine a safe place to pull the car over to until they have turned it off and back on and virtually all warning lights have disappeared.

Emergency brakes occurred without anyone or anything in front of the car. Braking malfunction warning also came on.

The contact owns a 2018 Volkswagen Atlas. Within weeks of owning the vehicle, there was a failure with the strut mounted system. Furthermore, an abnormal rattling noise was heard on both sides of the front end of the vehicle. In addition, the front assist with autonomous emergency braking system engaged several times without warning. The failure caused the vehicle to seize while in motion with no other vehicle nearby. The dealer (danbury Volkswagen, 29 sugar hollow rd, danbury, CT 06810, (203) 744-5201) had the vehicle for over two months for servicing. The cause of the failures was not determined. The manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was not available.