2021 Volkswagen ID.4 Speed Control & Cruise Problems

I was slowing down to park the car when it lurched forward in high speed and smashed into the wall. The front collision warning never went off, and the emergency braking never came on. My foot was on the accelerator and lifting off to park at low speed like I do all the time, so it wasn't like I was trying to slam on the brakes and pressed on the accelerator by mistake. The car was serviced at the dealership less than a week ago, but VW pushed out an OTA update 2 days ago. I don't know if the OTA update has anything to do with this scary behavior, but I have not experienced anything like this before.

The center display and the instrument panel on our ID4 reset unexpectedly while driving, even though recall with Campaing ID 24V344000 was performed on our vehicle. This caused both displays to turn off, first the instrument panel followed by the center display - we pulled over as we did not have any information of any kind of the status of the car. After a couple of minutes, it came back up again - restarted. We reported to our local VW dealer, who told us that there is no open recall.

The vehicle randomly gives warnings that road signs are unavailable. This is very distracting while driving. The vehicle software has no option to disable this.

I was pulling into street parking spot behind a parked car at a slow speed and braking to stop. I put my foot on the brake to bring the car to a complete stop but instead of slowing down the car accelerated straight into the vehicle in front of me. The rear end of the car in front of me was substantially damaged.

The vehicle accelerated without control and crashed into the wall between my garage and the adjacent laundry room. That day someone could have easily been seriously hurt or killed. The problem was investigated but could not been reproduced. The vehicle was inspected by a team of investigators from the Manufacturer, VW. No warning signs or abnormal situations prior the the incident. The vehicle was in our possession and driven for 3 years, about 55k miles, no issues ever. The driver at the time is an experienced driver and familiar with the vehicle operation for three years.

Over the past month, the car has provided warnings when driving: 1. Front assist has limited availability, 2. ACC unavailable, and 3. Emergency assist is currently not available. Note: the ACC was not engaged when these messages appeared. On October 1 I was driving on a highway at about 65 MPH with adaptive cruise control engaged. The weather was clear. Suddenly the ACC disengaged and the car began to slow. I re-accelerated the car by pushing the accelerator and continued my trip without ACC. No accident occurred but I was surprised when the car began to slow without warning on a major highway at high speed. When it was safe to do so, I pulled over into the breakdown lane to read the messages. The two messages displayed were Front assist has limited availability and Emergency assist currently not available. The picture on the front of the dashboard also indicated that ACC was not available. Over the next few days while driving locally (without ACC engaged), these three messages would periodically appear on the dashboard. I brought the car into a local VW dealer (Wellesley Volkswagen) to have it looked at by the service department. They indicated on the invoice from the visit that they "performed road test. RAND GFF and performed soft configuration of the 5F, front sensor and cluster. Reset all codes with success." The invoice also listed "Concern: 919A vehicle software open. Correction Not available at this time - customer will get notice via mail". I was told by the VW Wellesley representative when I picked up the car that these error messages will likely re-appear until I get the 919A software update, which is not available. These error messages did re-appear yesterday, October 12, while driving locally without ACC engaged. As a side note, I received a recall 919A in the mail from Volkswagen in July 2024 (more than 3 months ago) telling me that a recall repair is not available.

The first time I was stopped at an intersection. Luckily there was no one in front of me as the car, without warning, accelerated at full throttle. Although my foot was on the brake, and I was braking as hard as I could, the car continued to lunge forward. It finally stopped and I backed up to my original position in the intersection. The second time it happened I was pulling into a parking spot in a busy shopping center. Without warning, the car accelerated out of control, and, although I was braking as hard as I could the car continued to accelerate forward. It jumped the curb, crossed the sidewalk, and hit a large commercial postal mailbox knocking it off of its base in the concrete. There was significant damage to the vehicle but luckily in both cases no one was injured. Had anyone been on the sidewalk in that shopping center they would have been killed. It is a miracle no one was injured or killed.

I drove an ID-4 down south and preparing for right turn. Suddenly, the car was accelerating to a very high speed with the accelerator not being pressed (spontaneous acceleration). I tried hard to press the brake, but no effectiveness. Instead of turning a 90-degree angle to the west direction, the car only turned 45 degrees toward southwest, hitting the safety island and jump over the island, then crossing the eastbound road, climbing up the curb and the left side of the car hit the street tree. The car then snaked along the sidewalk and grass toward west before it stopped. The car then is pulled to the body shop (Caliber in San Jose). 1) Accelerator and brake are both failed. The car spontaneously accelerates itself and cannot be stopped even pressing the brake paddle 2) In the collision, my left shoulder and neck got hurts. 3) Not yet. The car is in the body shop. 4) The car is in the body shop. Police has seen the car. 5) No. It happened suddenly.

I had backed in to a parking space in a parking lot. To exit, I shifted the car into Drive, gently touched the accelerator (which should have accelerated the car to 2 MPH) and turned the steering wheel about 90° clockwise with my left hand to straighten the wheels. In doing so, the base of my left thumb inadvertently pushed the Set button on the cruise control, causing it to set to 15 MPH, its minimum setting, and the car to rapidly accelerate. I jammed on the breaks but wasn’t able to stop in time to avoid colliding into the side of a passing car. Because my right knee was locked in my effort to stop my car, the force of the impact was transferred to my hip and, though nothing was broken, I ended up spending two days in the observation unit of my hospital followed by eight days in residential rehabilitation. At the time, I had no idea what had caused the car to suddenly accelerate, seemingly without any input and certainly without my intent. It wasn’t until several months later that a similar acceleration event occurred, fortunately not resulting in an accident, and I was able to determine the cause. This problem is not the result of defective parts but of design. I believe the cruise Set button should not be located so close to the steering wheel rim and should not be raised as it is, but the safety issue could also be resolved in software by not allowing the cruise control to engage at very low speeds.

On [XXX] approximately [XXX], I was in the drive-up line for Starbucks. The drive-up line was very slow so we waited for about 1/2 hour and I ended turning off my engine. I had plenty of room at least between 2-3 feet between myself and the car in the front. Then the line moved so, I put the car in Drive and covered the brake. I tapped the Gas/electric pedal and the car accelerated from 0 to 30 and lunged forward and I hit the car in front of me and they were pushed into the car in front of them. No one was seriously hurt, but police were called and ambulance arrived and found no injury - so there wasn't a police report. I was completely shocked that this happened so fast and I wasn't able to stop my car. So, when I hit the people in front of me. Their car was a Ford Mini-van older model. I dented their bumper, but see attached photos of damage to my car. I went on a VD owner website to see if other volkswagen owners had any acceleration problems and I was surprised to find so many people affected by acceleration issues. I decided to call Volkswagen headquarters and a case was opened. Volkswagen set up a data review with a Volkswagen technician. I dropped off the car at the dealership in Ventura. I was not provided with a report from the Data retrieval. I just received a letter from the case manager, Sarah that they did not find anything unusual. After reviewing the letter, they had the wrong date of my accident. The accident occurred on [XXX], and Sarah said the accident was on April 8, 2024. Of course, they did not find anything??? I will enclose their letter and when I asked about the report or speaking with the technician, I was told that they do not give copies, nor provide information. On the website for Volkswagen ID4 owners, there are many claims of acceleration problems, This vehicle is an self-driving electric car. There is a recall for a software issue, that has not been established yet if it is related to acceleration. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

Yesterday, April 26th, 2023 the above vehicle was involved in a serious accident, possibly related to the safety recall for the high voltage cell module. My wife was driving the vehicle on her way to work, as she did for the past 2 years. Sometimes she gets coffee for herself and a coworker, so that day she turned into a parking lot of the last MacDonalds before her job. She pulled up to the drive thru lane as she did many times before. She was not distracted by the phone, and her radio was turned off. There was nobody else in her vehicle, and her thought was on the coffee order. As she was pulling up to the 2 vehicles in front of her, something horrible happened in the next 3 or 4 seconds. Her vehicle accelerated suddenly, hit the car in front of her, bounced off to the right, and kept accelerating for the next 50 feet before hitting a semi truck with such a force that the front end of her vehicle is completely obliterated and the semi truck frame was broken. Thankfully, nobody got hurt seriously, and there was no fire. The first question from the Police officer was whether she hit the accelerator pedal by mistake. She responded that she did not hit the accelerator pedal, and does not understand what happened. She was shocked by the sudden fury of her vehicle, and stated that she was unable to stop it. I believe what she is saying, because there was no reason for her to stomp hard on either pedal as she was coasting slowly, and with the vehicle's regenerative braking you only have to tap the brakes gently. If she tapped the wrong pedal by mistake, the acceleration would not be so violent. To do what the vehicle did in such a short distance, the driver would have to stomp forcefully on the pedal and keep it floored all the time. There was no need to do that, and she never even attempted to do such violent acceleration anywhere. There is a real possibility that the vehicle did an unintended full force acceleration caused by defect in the recalled module. GEICO has it

My vehicle was in Travel Assist mode (i.e. Adaptive Cruise Control) traveling at around 65 MPH. A vehicle has cut into my lane and I felt that the car wouldn't slow quick enough to avoid a collision. I have applied breaks effectively taking the vehicle into my control and taking the vehicle off Travel Assist mode. When driver takes over by applying the breaks in this scenario, irrespective of how hard the breaks are applied, vehicle suddenly moves faster than expected for first few seconds. I had to apply the break harder than I would have applied if I was driving the car in manual mode to get the car to slow down.The expectation was that the vehicle slows down while applying the breaks. This would have caused a collision if I was not quick to react. There were no warning lights or messages on the dashboard prior to or during this incident. This could be a software issue which probably is conflicting between the breaks travel assist is applying and the breaking that the driver is applying. This has happened multiple time to me and on date mentioned on this my wife had same experience confirming that this is in deed an issue that needs some investigating into before it cause any accident(s).

My vehicle's stability control system will activate in error to slow the vehicle when traversing moderate corners at speeds of approximately 25 to 35 mph. When this happens the vehicle experiences no actual loss of traction but the ESC warning light will flash on the dash and the vehicle will cut power and slow the vehicle with pulsing applications of the brakes by 5 to 10 mph. This is an unsafe scenario because I am unable to accelerate during these episodes even if needed and the vehicle slows to a speed well below the normal traffic traveling speed. In long sections of winding road I have had to disable the system to be able to drive normally, without interference in my ability to accelerate, and even then the stability/abs system will activate if I touch the brake pedal at all, still with no true traction loss. I am confident that it is a system failure because it occurs very predictably on certain sections of twisty road. I have experimented and the system will inappropriately activate when I drive 30 mph on the curves but provide no interference when I drive the same section at 40 mph. This issue has been reported by numerous owners on the idtalk.com forum, seeming to be specific to the AWD models, with one owner reporting he was told it is a software related issue with no imeadiate fix after having his car inspected for an extended period of time. I have reported the issue to my local dealer.

After receiving a service on the vehicle, I pulled out of the dealership and went left to go up a slight hill, I got half way out and the accelerator pedal would not work. I pushed down to the ground and the car would not go. There was a car coming towards me and swerved to avoid me after a second it kicked back in. This hasn’t happened since, and I have heard of this happening after a service appointment from another owner. Note this has not happened since. No warning lamps or other messages. I scanned the car with OBD device and no warnings found. Car is available for inspection upon request. This impacts safety as after service the car should not have any acceleration issues, in this scenario if the car will not go, there is a potential of a crash.