Owners/service Manual problems of the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas

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.

I have a 2018 vw Atlas se noticed this car does not have the ability to open the trunk or backdoor from within the car. This has to be done from the outside at all times. I called the manufacture vw customer care 1-800-822-8987 and I was informed I need to upgrade to the next trim to get the ability to do so. I thought this was a standard feature in all cars? this is a safety issue should a third row passenger need to use the door for emergency purposes. Upgrading to a lift gate which comes with the next trim is no excuse for vw not to have a basic manual opener.

Front assist with autonomous emergency braking does nothing on my car. I am not receiving any audio/video alerts, nor it's trying to slow or stop vehicle. System not working as described in the manual and advertised in the official vw video. I can't rely on the system at this point, as I know it will not slow down or stop my car as it should.

Engine turns off while running. Display says to turn on engine manually. The problem is that if you are in a highway you have to stop an push the brake and then the start button. It happened in acity street. This is the fifth time it goes to the dealer to solve this problem.

2018 vw Atlas manual, rear temperature control panel has a design oversight which should be considered a safety concern. The vehicle targeted the american family car market which should have assumed rear passengers were too young to reach the manual rear temperature controls from the 2nd row seating and provided a means for the 1st row passengers to control whether the rear vents blow hot or cold. This function was intentionally removed from the front panel manual controls. The upgraded tech package for the Atlas provides front and rear zone automatic temperature controls as well as the ability of 1st row occupants to override the rear settings. The manual controls only allow 1st row occupants to enable or disable the rear controls whereas minivans / family suvs experienced include rear off, rear control, and rear sync to front. The issue here is that if a child strapped in a car seat in the rear says they are cold, the 1st row passengers are going to do something about it. This involves reaching blindly behind the center console to feel around for the appropriate buttons and may even result in the driver having to remove their eyes from the road to peer over the console to see what the settings are. The only change a front row occupant can make to the rear temperature setting from the front panel is to disable it which is an unacceptable solution in most cases. In other words this design flaw encourages a driver to take their eyes off the road or be distracted beyond what holding a cell phone for a voice call does. If most states consider it illegal to drive/ talk non-hands free, this design feature should be corrected with a Volkswagen firmware change. After 9 months of attempting to do exactly that, vw has responded flatly that they will do absolutely nothing to correct the design. Dealers aren't even aware of the behavior in order to warn customers.