Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen Beetle Convertible, model years 2015 to 2016. Filed by Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. and reported to NHTSA on 21 December 2022. 37,558 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen) is recalling certain 2015-2016 Beetle and Beetle Convertibles vehicles. The driver's side air bag inflator may explode due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to high absolute humidity, high temperatures, and high temperature cycling.
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: 69EM. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 22V945 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 22V945 cover?
- Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen Beetle Convertible, model years 2015-2016.
- What is wrong with them?
- Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen) is recalling certain 2015-2016 Beetle and Beetle Convertibles vehicles.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will replace the driver's side air bag, free of charge. Owners notification letters were mailed October 26, 2023. Owners may contact Volkswagen's customer service at 1-800-893-5298. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 69EM.
- 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 69EM, 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: “An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 22V945 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. |
| System at fault | Air Bags:Frontal:Driver Side:Inflator Module |
| Reported to NHTSA | 21 December 2022 |
| Model years | 2015-2016 |
| Vehicles named | VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE, VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE CONVERTIBLE |
What the notice says today
The consequence
An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Dealers will replace the driver's side air bag, free of charge. Owners notification letters were mailed October 26, 2023. Owners may contact Volkswagen's customer service at 1-800-893-5298. Volkswagen's number for this recall is 69EM.
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 2022735, recorded 14 December 2022 (7 days before the American filing)
Matched on 69EM, 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
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 22V945, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/22v945/
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 22V945 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
d91d91f0 - Consequence
e19b32de - Remedy
1bdd2cf1
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 22V945 · 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 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible, 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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