Defective Sensors, Volkswagen Recalls 1,43000 Atlas Sports Utility Vehicles

Volkswagen (VW) recalls 1,43,000 SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) because of a defective sensor on the front passenger seat, in the US. As per CNN Business, this defective sensor can switch off the airbag system under many circumstances.

VW has asked owners to not allow anybody to ride in the front passanger seat, till the time they fix this issue. Volkswagen has filed filed a document with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and has called this issue “sporadic”.

Most vehicles have weight sensors in the front seat to identify whether a kid or a small person is riding in that seat. Airbags that puff up forcefully during any incident can injure children. As per CNN Business, if these sensors find a small person sitting on the front seat, this airbag gets switched off. But defective sensors in some Atlas SUVs can become the reason for the so-called “passenger occupant detection system” to denote a system problem and deactivate the airbag, which could leave front-seat passengers without airbag protection in an accident. 

Although the exact reason for this issue is still not confirmed however VW investigators have discovered that it has occurred in Atlases during two specific durations. As per CNN Business, all the vehicles which were recalled were of model year 2020 Atlas and 2018 to 2021 Atlas Cross Sport SUVs. If this issue happens, an alert will occur inside the vehicle.

As per documents filed by the firm with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Volkswagen has yet to inform us how to get to the cause of the problem. Still, once a solution will be found, a fix will be made available without charging customers anything extra. 

This is issue is likely to be resolved by the end of 2023. Till then let’s not allow anyone to cccpy front passanger seat, in the above mentioned specific models and pray that it does not cause any fatality.