Volkswagen has arguably been one of the most controversial automakers in the past decade, however, it still has quite the following. Whether you like the brand or not, Volkswagen has increased its sales by over 12% since 2016 and with the release of its new SUVs like the Atlas and Cross Sport, not to mention the roster of electric vehicles they plan on release in the next five years, we’re sure the German will gain more popularity as the years go on. However, that’s not to say that its current SUV lineup is without its faults. Here are the most complained about Volkswagen SUVs as reported on Carcomplaints.com.

Volkswagen Tiguan

The Volkswagen Tiguan debuted for the 2009 model year and is the brand’s five-seat compact crossover that competes with the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. According to Good Car Bad Car, Volkswagen sold 13,902 Tiguan units in 2009 and 20,946 of them in 2010, which means that it was a pretty good hit since its inception. However, when any car proves to be a large success, we tend to see a lot of complaints.

As such, the Tiguan has logged 336 complaints on Car Complaints and the worst model year listed is 2011. The main issue cited is a problem with the timing chain tensioner failing, which can result in cylinder head damage or total engine failure since it has to do with the timing chain. This issue can be seen as early as 2009, which is the year with the most complaints. However, Volkswagen did issue a recall for this issue and will fix it at no cost to the owner.

Volkswagen Touareg

The Volkswagen Touareg was discontinued back in 2018 in favor of the forthcoming Atlas at the time. And while the seven-seat SUV did see a lot of sales success since its debut way back in 2002, however, it’s the success was met with some complaints as well, although not as many as the Tiguan. Carcomplaints.com displays only 74 total complaints about the Touareg, which is great considering sold thousands of them over its 16-year production run.

The worst model year listed is 2007, citing the timing chain tensioner as the fault. However, only the site only shows between two and four complaints per model year, which is much lower than those listed for the Tiguan. It could like be due to the fact that the Touareg was outfitted with the 3.2-liter V6 engine as standard as opposed to the 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine like its smaller stablemate.

Volkswagen Atlas

The Volkswagen Atlas has only been out since 2018, so it comes as no surprise that there are only 57 complaints filed about it. Most of those complaints are for the 2018 model year, which again is to be expected considering many vehicles still need to get the kinks worked out after the first model year. Fortunately, the main issue for the 2018 model doesn’t have anything to do with a timing chain tensioner or timing belt, instead, it has to do with “body problem” as owners reported issues regarding excessive wind noise at highway speeds. There is no reported fix for it, but it’s far less grave than some mechanical issues that pop up on the older Volkswagen models.

Volkswagen SUV complaints

The Volkswagen SUV models listed here are the most complained about on Carcomplaints.com as the values listed are not percentages, but rather just the sheer number of complaints logged by owners of models mentioned. While none of the numbers are extremely high, just note that these three models garnered the most complaints due to their popularity.