# 2018 Tiguan SEL: Water Leak, Fried Airbag Module, EPC Light, Engine Light, Limp Mode, and Not Starting



## AST1002 (Mar 13, 2018)

Hi VW Vortexer's, 

VERY long story semi-short; 2018 Tiguan SEL bought late December 2017 for my wife. Owned VW from my first car until now. 

Picked it up from dealer with a safety recall, come to find out thats not kosher and resulted in a mad dash to get the car back. A week with a loaner until they could replace the reverse light bulds to make them "bright enough". 

Fastforward three weeks: Air bag light comes on with ~1000 ish miles, wierd. Bring the car to the dealer and come to find out the front cowl leaks in the center where the two pieces come together. The resulting water chased something down and driped on the airbag module, fried it and needed to be replaced. Another two weeks with a loaner and a visit from the reigonal tech. to mitigate the problem and makes sure everything is now correct. They made their own new seal with RTV, looks kinda jenky/clunky/racecar type fix, whatever though if it keeps the water out... 

Fastforward to this morning, about a month and a half later ~5000 miles. Car EPC light comes on, dash displays: Max 4000 RPM. My wife shuts the car off and restarts it (if only the fix was that easy). Again EPC light comes on, Max 4000 RPM and now Check engine light as well. She gets to work, plans to take the car to the dealer after work. She goes to start the car, and it wont turn over. It says start the car manually, does the trick holding the key close it starts, runs around 3 seconds then shuts itself off. Had to have a car with 5000 miles towed to the dealership because it would not run, I mean COME ON you have to be kidding me. 

To top it off dealer has been sh*tty to work with, they could care less that we spent 30K+ on a car thats not reliable, they make it seem like they perform an act of god to get us a loaner car every time and the first time tried to tell us that we couldnt get one because VW didn't cover it. Beyond frustrated but trying to remain calm, she loves the car, even after all the problems which is beyond me. 

My question is has anyone else had these problems? Were thinking of trying the Lemon Law due to the fact down the road if the problem persists I dont want to dump time and money into chasing problems forever. Is there anyone with some wisdom in here that maybe could point us in the right direction toward solving this headache. WE JUST WANT A TIGUAN THAT WORKS VW IF YOU STUMBLE UPON THIS POST! haha 

Thanks for you time..


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## smg64ct203 (Jan 26, 2003)

I haven't had any of those problems, but my sel has spent about 12 days at the dealer for other repairs. My dealer has been really good and took really good care of me and fix the issues.


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## AIRider (Aug 7, 2001)

Two months into the ownership, I had a water leak in the trunk, and bad rear and side sensors. Dealer was amazing and fixed everything under warranty, and cut me a $1000 check for my troubles. Could have chased it little more, but felt that they really did all they can do on their end, and were super transparent throughout the process. VW and their quality control is really the ones to blame, not the dealer.


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## samuelrh (Feb 4, 2017)

My Airbag Module is fried as well. I would intermittently have an "airbag error" message and a seatbelt warning. After two visits to the dealer, they finally told me that VW was aware of the issue and that they needed to replace the module & add some sealant. I hope that's the end of my troubles...


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## Lothar1566 (Jan 27, 2018)

where is / was the leak?


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## Passatsquared (Oct 26, 2014)

Before you go down the lemon law route, reach out to vwoa and ask them to get you into another car. I did that with my passat that makes a power steering pump noise thru the a/c vents only when the air is on. I am awaiting an sel premium 4 motion r line for a killer price. 

You gotta play by the rules though. Read up on lemon law for your state.

I stated that I don't want to lemon it and wanted to give them a chance to make things right before it got to that point. 

Good luck


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## [email protected] (Dec 21, 2018)

I had all of these things before 5.000KM except the EPC which happened at 40.000KM
This was my first German car. Will never ever buy another VW.
I had to visit the dealership 10+ times.
I was given very cheap loaners


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## Tigolphun (Apr 13, 2018)

Closing in on 20k now and haven't had any of the above issues.

I did have to go in for 5 recalls, 4 of which applied to my car. Happy with the dealership so far though.


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## Row1Rich (Sep 11, 2001)

[email protected] said:


> I had all of these things before 5.000KM except the EPC which happened at 40.000KM
> This was my first German car. Will never ever buy another VW.
> I had to visit the dealership 10+ times.
> I was given very cheap loaners


Damn! I have over 150 000 miles on brand new VW's in the past 10 years and I've never had one issue. Not one. Never been to a dealer (or my mechanic) after driving them off the lot. This includes 2 ROUTANS!!, a GTi, 3 Passats and Tiguan. I can pick them I guess.


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## TiggyOwnerNOregon (Jul 17, 2019)

Hey All

We have an 18 Tiguan R Line. 18k miles- wife had the 4000 rpm / EPC limp mode event happen last night in rush hour traffic here on I~5 in Portland,OR. So frighting.,
Had to wait 4 hours for a tow..

The why ??
It is not a water leak!!

The engine wiring harness is too short and is getting pinched in the engine compartment. We saw it today at the dealership.
VW is sending a new harness and will need to have engine taken out to be re wired it sounds like.

This is a very scary development..
How many Tiguans are out there that need this fix ?? Major recall .. someone is gonna get hurt bad...
Wife was lucky she was not rear-ended.


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