NHTSA Complaint #11469028 — 2016 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA

The problem happens when the car is on, and when attempting to accelerate the car will feel like it was put into neutral and you cannot do anything other than coast. The car has done this a few times while driving. Also, when trying to accelerate from a stop at a signal light, the car can suddenly stall, and you won't be able to do anything. From a safety standpoint, this is very bad since if you had to quickly accelerate to avoid a collision or other possible scenario and the car won't move, or accelerate, to reach speeds on a freeway or highway. Problem occurred last night when attempting to accelerate and merge onto the highway, felt like the car was in neutral ('D' light was blinking as well as the 'Hybrid' light). What is concerning is that VW did know about this problem and they only did a recall for very small number of vehicles. We called VW and they said no recalls on our 2016 Jetta Hybrid for this problem. I'm reporting the problem here because we have experienced the same problem multiple times and the dealer said to replace the Mechatronic J743 unit, this was very cost prohibited for us at the time.