Audi A4, Audi A5, Audi Q5, model years 2008 to 2009. Filed by Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. and reported to NHTSA on 27 May 2016. 8,381 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VW) is recalling certain model year 2008-2009 Audi A4, A5, and Q5 vehicles. In the affected vehicles, the air bag control units may corrode and fail.
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Volkswagen's own number for this recall: 69O1. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 16V376 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 16V376 cover?
- Audi A4, Audi A5, Audi Q5, model years 2008-2009.
- What is wrong with them?
- Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VW) is recalling certain model year 2008-2009 Audi A4, A5, and Q5 vehicles. In the affected vehicles, the air bag control units may corrode and fail.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- If the air bag control unit fails, the air bags may not deploy in the event of a crash, increasing the risk of occupant injury.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Audi will notify owners, and dealers will replace the air bag control unit, free of charge. The recall began October 2016. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 69O1.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Volkswagen calls this recall 69O1, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “If the air bag control unit fails, the air bags may not deploy in the event of a crash, increasing the risk of occupant injury.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 16V376 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
| System at fault | Air Bags |
| Reported to NHTSA | 27 May 2016 |
| Model years | 2008-2009 |
| Vehicles named | AUDI A4, AUDI A5, AUDI Q5 |
What the notice says today
The consequence
If the air bag control unit fails, the air bags may not deploy in the event of a crash, increasing the risk of occupant injury.
The remedy
Audi will notify owners, and dealers will replace the air bag control unit, free of charge. The recall began October 2016. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 69O1.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 846 notices in the record whose component field names air bags. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 46 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2016246, recorded 24 May 2016 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 69O1, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
- Audi A4 recalls: 8 US campaigns
- Audi A5 recalls: 18 US campaigns
- Audi Q5 recalls: 25 US campaigns since 2016
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 16V376, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/16v376/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
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The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 16V376 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
95207bc6 - Consequence
0b8f83eb - Remedy
e11f9511
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 16V376 · how the whole register is watched
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Owners of these cars
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