Audi A3 Cabriolet, Audi A4 Allroad, Audi Q3, Audi Q7, Audi Tt Roadster, model years 2015 to 2017. Filed by Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. and reported to NHTSA on 6 September 2016. 79,895 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen) is recalling certain model year 2016 TT roadster, A3 cabriolet, A3 sedan and A3 e-tron, 2016-2017 TT coupe, 2017 A4 sedan and Q7 and 2015-2017 Q3 vehicles. The affected vehicles may have been programmed with new software that inadvertently makes the side marker lights …
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: 97CB. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 16V642 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 16V642 cover?
- Audi A3 Cabriolet, Audi A4 Allroad, Audi Q3, Audi Q7, Audi TT Roadster, model years 2015-2017.
- What is wrong with them?
- Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen) is recalling certain model year 2016 TT roadster, A3 cabriolet, A3 sedan and A3 e-tron, 2016-2017 TT coupe, 2017 A4 sedan and Q7 and 2015-2017 Q3 vehicles.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- If the side marker lights do not illuminate, the vehicle may be less visible at night, increasing the risk of a crash.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Audi will notify owners, and dealers will upload revised software to correct the issue, free of charge. This recall began November 2016. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 97CB.
- 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 97CB, 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 side marker lights do not illuminate, the vehicle may be less visible at night, increasing the risk of a crash.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 16V642 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
| System at fault | Electrical System:Software |
| Reported to NHTSA | 6 September 2016 |
| Model years | 2015-2017 |
| Vehicles named | AUDI A3 CABRIOLET, AUDI A4 ALLROAD, AUDI Q3, AUDI Q7, AUDI TT ROADSTER |
What the notice says today
The consequence
If the side marker lights do not illuminate, the vehicle may be less visible at night, increasing the risk of a crash.
The remedy
Audi will notify owners, and dealers will upload revised software to correct the issue, free of charge. This recall began November 2016. Owners may contact Audi customer service at 1-800-253-2834. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 97CB.
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 1,836 notices in the record whose component field names electrical system. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 41 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 2016427, recorded 2 September 2016 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 97CB, 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 A3 Cabriolet recalls: 11 US campaigns
- Audi A4 Allroad recalls: 12 US campaigns
- Audi Q3 recalls: 18 US campaigns
- Audi Q7 recalls: 25 US campaigns since 2016
- Audi TT Roadster recalls: 3 US campaigns
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 16V642, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/16v642/
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.
Other Volkswagen notices we hold
- 26V473: 2024-2026 Atlas Cross Sport and Atlas
- 26V321: 2024 Tiguan
- 26V258: 2025-2026 Taos
- 26V185: 2025 Jetta and Taos
- 26V138: 2025-2026 Jetta
- 26V030: 2023-2025 ID
- 26V028: 2023-2024 ID
- 25V854: 2025 Tiguan
All 272 Volkswagen campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
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 16V642 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
236a985d - Consequence
4c3485fc - Remedy
81a0c666
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 16V642 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Audi A3 Cabriolet, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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Owners of these cars
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