Imagine you’re buying a new van. You want something with plenty of seats, and you want it to be roomy and comfortable enough to take on long journeys with your family and friends. You decide on a Volkswagen ID.Buzz, in part because you found the third-row seats to be especially spacious and accomadating. Only then do you find out there’s been a recall for that very reason.
As covered by Road & Track, NHTSA isn’t happy with the US version of the ID.Buzz. The problem with Volkswagen’s electric van is clear: the third row seats are bigger than government regulations allow.
On the face of it, it sounds like nonsense. Surely automakers can make seats as big as they want, right? Well, actually, no. There are strict rules around the size of third-row seats in the US due to expected customer behaviors.
It all comes down to DSPs, an abbreviation for “designated seating positions.” The third row in the ID.Buzz is designed with two designated seating positions, as is obvious by the two seatbelts provided. The problem is that the seat is too wide to have only two designated seating positions. According to the recall notice, “the calculated seating surface width of the third-row rear bench exceeds the maximum value specified in 49 CFR Part 571.10 for two (2) DSPs.” Thus, the ID.Buzz is in violation of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.
Basically, the authorities think the seat is wide enough that you’ll sneakily put three people in the third row, even though there are only two seatbelts. This would mean that the unsecured passenger would be at increased risk of injury in a crash.
To meet the regulations, Volkswagen should have made the seats narrower to avoid this temptation. It doesn’t matter that the owner’s manual states the seating capacity quite clearly, nor that there are only two seatbelts. The physical dimensions still have to be small enough to meet the regulations.
The “cause” of the recall is quite amusing—NHTSA documents list it as an “error in the interpretation of 49 CFR Part 571.10.” That basically means the engineers and designers at Volkswagen read the regulations, but misunderstood their intended meaning.
In this case, the recall might seem a bit frivolous. The third row seating very obviously has two distinct seating positions and is not intended to have a third person sitting in the middle. It’s a back row for children and small-to-medium monogamous couples with no third wheels.
At the same time, it’s easy to understand why this regulation exists. If it didn’t, automakers could fit super-wide bench seats in cars and vans with only one seatbelt, claiming they only counted as one seating position. Obviously, such a design would encourage using the benches without seatbelts, and this would have negative safety implications. Volkswagen’s error is easier to understand as a mistake rather than a genuine attempt to circumvent the rules.
Thankfully, the fix is not too onerous. An additional trim will be fitted into the third-row seating area which will effectively reduce the available seating surface to be in compliance with the regulations. Owners will be hoping the trim doesn’t cut too far into the seating area to the point that it disrupts passenger comfort. Volkswagen is recalling 5,637 examples of the ID.Buzz, which likely covers all examples brought to the US at this stage.
It’s an oddball mistake to make on Volkswagen’s part, that much is certain. Automakers employ huge numbers of engineers and spend many billions on developing new vehicles, and it’s rare that they miss an obvious part of a long-standing regulation. It seems likely that one or more engineers over at headquarters will have bratwurst on their faces after this one.
Image credits: federal regulations, Volkswagen
When’s the last time NHTSA updated the regulation? Are they are accounting for America’s annualized ass-inflation? I’m guessing the answer is no and this is one recall I would ignore.
If the airlines can make it work. Oh, wait. Forget that.
I wonder which insurance company wrote & pushed the rule after losing a lawsuit?
I may just be a simple, country lawyer but these seats are clearly illegal following the 2006 ruling in case of “California vs The Hoover Family”. Lest we risk drivers concealing pornography and a dead grandpa across state lines.
Not to mention the direct correlation the FBI has established between VW buses and Libyan nationalism.
I rest my case.
Some people think we don’t have excess regulation…
I wonder if the third seatbelt in early Porsche 914s was the result of some regulation like this?
That
Is the dumbest car related thing I’ve heard in a whileexplains a lot about 3rd rows have 3 seatbelts even though they really shouldn’t.How dumb is this? Very.
What makes this even more dumb is that it would be LEGAL to sit a 3rd passenger in a 2 seatbelt seat in my state provided all the other seatbelts are taken. At least this was true 15 years ago when a district judge told me this.
I am SO GLAD that “self-driving” cars are roaming our streets uninhibited, but NHTSA is solving the very important problem of comfortable seats for large passengers. Really great decision-making at work, here.
If I had to guess, I’d say they are enforcing things they actually have power to enforce and self-driving cars isn’t one of them. That won’t be changing in the next 4 years at least.
Pretty sure NHTSA cannot inhibit beta testing road based missiles under the new regime,,,
This is almost as dumb as the recall on my 2000 Saab 9-5 that was for the idiotic airbag warning labels on the sunvisors being too easy to remove. The ones that I removed roughly 5 minutes after buying the car. Yeah, that recall did NOT get done on my car.
Fortunately, duct tape comes in the standard Headliner Beige. That’s the first mod I do on all my cars. Not that I hate young children, but because you only have to tell me once.
VW buys $20m in Trump Coin and this little problem just goes away
I’m not sure if you realize just how true that statement is. Pardons are a big seller for them at the moment.
Shades of the rear console and cupholders Saturn coupes got from the S to the ION in the would-be middle rear seat.
If it’s wide enough, could VW have just engineered it for 3-across? Wouldn’t be that comfortable especially being a 50/50 split adds to the discomfort, a 60/40 would be a little better, but still.
3rd row hiproom is 48.2″ in the VW vs 48.8″ for a Sienna, although much less shoulder room (52.8″ vs. 58.5″). But I’m sure there are other factors potentially at play like weight capacities.
Oh man, I never made that connection. I always wondered why my SC2 had 6 cupholders and 4 seats.
Yeah, I never thought of it that way either. I assumed it was just because it would be obviously uncomfortable, not that there might be a regulation around it. In the first-gen interior those were the only factory cupholders!
And then the ION might have just been sort of tradition, since the related Chevy/Pontiac coupes followed with 3-across in back.
How about this, because VW could put Team Doorhandle on it. They make some type of seatbelt contraption such that you could have 2 wider seats, or 3 narrow seats by sliding a seat belt out of the way if it wasn’t needed.
“But your honor, that third-row seat was just asking for another passenger, just look at the way it was designed. I mean, come on, right? THICC!”
I find these both equally stupid defenses.
I had a VW CC for a while, and those have two rear seats and a center console between them. Cool in theory…but there were a few times that necessitated someone riding on top of that center console for short distances. For such a large car, it was a little frustrating to only have four seats.
I also remember growing up, when parents would remove a seat or two from their minivans so they could cram more of us in there. I’m 31, so it wasn’t even that long ago. I doubt people do that now though.
The CC always bugged me because, for most of its life, it was just a Passat with a less useful body and interior. I’m not a big fan of “styling for styling’s sake” especially when it means removing a seat.
No offense intended to you, they dropped the “Passat” from the CC name after a year or two (in the US) so most people thought they were separate cars.
People who think your way are why we can’t buy any coupes anymore.
More the opposite — all the 4-door coupes bug me. Pick a lane. These 4-door coupes fundamentally don’t do anything a sedan can’t do. Make a coupe a 2-door with the commensurate smaller size and weight, and improved handling. Cars like the A5 Sportback, as cool as they look, are just a less useful A4 (ignoring the functionality of the liftback storage, but there are too many other compromises)
You had to know this was coming when you called out the A5.
This is a spicy take.
Below from C&D comparing 2025 models:
Audi A4:
Front Head Room (inches) – 37.3
Front Leg Room (inches) – 41.3
Front Shoulder Room (inches) – 55.9
Second Row Head Room (inches) – 37.4
Second Row Leg Room (inches) – 35.7
Second Row Shoulder Room (inches) – 54.5
Trunk Space (cubic feet) – 12
Audi A5:
Front Head Room (inches) – 40
Front Leg Room (inches) – 41.3
Front Shoulder Room (inches) – 57.3
Second Row Head Room (inches) – 37.2
Second Row Leg Room (inches) – 36.1
Second Row Shoulder Room (inches) – 55.1
Cargo Space/Area with Rear Seat Down – 36.6
Cargo Space/Area with Rear Seat Up – 22.6
The only place the A4 has a leg up on the A5 is in second row head room, and it’s by two tenths of an inch. I’m not sure what compromises you’re seeing, but the liftback alone adds a huge amount of flexibility to the cargo area.
The A4 is just a less useful A5.
I got quite a lot of compliments on that car, even from non-car people. I’m a little perplexed as to why a three row rear seat wasn’t at least an option, but ah well. It ended up losing all compression on cylinder 1 in 2020 and I traded it on my current ’14 Sportwagen TDI. Cool as it was to look at, I have never once missed that car.
I also appear to have forgotten my own age, I turned 32 last month.
I think the lack of center rear seat was an intentional differentiator from the Passat, tbh. They basically took a page from the Mercedes playbook on it (the CLS) because that really was the tail end of the era where VW was pitching themselves as the Budget Mercedes. I still have my 2001.5 Passat, and despite all of its flaws, I’m still amazed how smooth and quiet it is, even compared to modern cars in higher segments. It’s no wonder they won almost every comparison test from ’98-’02 or so. Too bad about the reliability, though…
The CC was still a good car, my comment was more about VW and their somewhat strange marketing (being a mostly-niche brand until more recently).
I loveeeee the B5/5.5 Passats! Comfortable, smooth, handled well, with a general feeling of being heavy and planted, in a good way, if that makes sense. Similar to the 2001 Volvo V70 my family had for years. They’ve aged really well too, at least in my opinion.
My ex has a 2005 Passat wagon, I did a ton of preventative maintenance on it while we were together, and even got it chipped. We split in 2017 and he daily drove it till last year when he got a Tiguan. But he still has the Passat and wants to fix it up one day. Clocked well over 200k and apparently it was reliable most of that time.
The CC looked sharp but beyond that it really was just a Passat wearing a fancy hat lol. Mine was a stick, the novelty of that was one of the reasons I ended up with one in the first place. My biggest complaints were lack of visibility, and lack of a backup camera to compensate for that. I miss when VW did things a little differently than everyone else.
My guess would be the seat belt in the center wanted to live in the middle of the convertible top mechanism, so….
Besides most companies expect convertibles to be occasional use cars so the cost to reengineer the rear for the belt wasn’t worth it.
I believe you’re thinking of the Eos!
“I also remember growing up, when parents would remove a seat or two from their minivans so they could cram more of us in there. I’m 31, so it wasn’t even that long ago. I doubt people do that now though.”
I’m 33 and recall lots of similar experiences. I remember sitting on the rear floor of my grandma’s Caravan with at least 3 or 4 of my cousins on multiple occasions because there weren’t enough seats for the adults and us kids. We rode in truck beds more than a few times as well on public roads.
As a dad now, I cannot fathom ever putting my daughter anywhere but the safest possible car seat while in the car. How times have changed..
I’m the same age, and with six kids in the family the family car was a 12 passenger van with three rows of bench seating. On long trips my dad would pull the first bench out completely and put blankets and pillows on the floor in the big open space for us to play or nap while driving.
My parents treated it like a commercial flight, in that once we were comfortably hurtling along at 75mph on the freeway we were allowed to unbuckle and move about the cabin.
The closest my girls get is folding down the middle row in the mazda5 and sitting in the back row (buckled up) with their feet stretched out in front of them. They call it “limo mode”
If you sit in the back row of a Ford Flex with the middle row folded flat, you have a great surface to put down a laptop to game with!*
*accuracy may suffer
“and move about the cabin” really got me, thanks for the laugh this morning.
The commercial flight is such a great way to put it! My family was the same way! Once on the highway, my sister and I would unbuckle, and shuffle around to each lay horizontally on the back 2 rows of seats and sleep during every road trip. We had a big, early Ford Expedition, so lots of space back then. Only incident I recall is getting woken up by being thrown onto the floor because my dad had to slam the brakes to avoid hitting an animal on the highway.
We Gen-X’ers all grew up rattling around in the “way back” of station wagons. Most of us made it to adulthood.
In the 1970’s someone in the extended family rigged up a way to have kids ride in the trunk of a sedan. No restraints of course. They rigged up a bell with a string if the kids in the trunk needed to alert the passenger compartment.
They should seriously just install one of those AutoZone plastic consoles there. Friction fit between the seats so owners can have the recall “done” then yeet it into the dealership service centers dumpster on the way out.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Memories of my five unbelted siblings filling the back seat of our ’59 Catalina. I, the youngest, was coddled in the unbelted safety of my mother’s lap in the front.
Man, this is just more proof that VW can’t catch a break in this country.
“Ausgezeichnet! We have finally made ‘American-sized seats’ for third row.”
“Erm, seats are too wide.”
“FIIIIIIIIIII….” (that’s German for FUUUU…)
They can put anti-homeless spikes in the middle to prevent any unbelted freeloaders from settling down.
You’re gonna get hop-ins.
I think the NHTSA is lagging on their spec of the average American body size. They need an updated risk assessment.
They’ll update “average body size” over my dead body, just like they’ll increase the Social Security retirement age!
BRB, left arm hurts.
Isn’t this whole recall to avoid more dead bodies?
Sounds like VW told the designers to go to a typical US McDonalds and look at the customers to determine how wide the seats should be
So is this trim easily removable?
Seems like a recall I wouldn’t even bother doing.
There’s a similar one for my truck that does nothing but degrade my experience, so I just haven’t brought it in to be completed.
A few years ago, Honda determined that a lot of Odyssey owners are idiots, but also have children, which is a dangerous combination, but very common.
See, the middle row bench seats (actually 3 unique pieces) had “infinite lateral adjustability” within the range of about 3″ or so. This could make a big difference in comfort, especially for the middle passenger.
However, a lot of owners were going through the process to slide the seat over, but then failed to lock it back down to the floor and test it with a little tug. You know, something that just about anyone would do when partially removing or reinstalling a seat.
Nope. Now we have these mandatory metal brackets that ensure the seats only have two positions, not infinite. Thankfully they were installed with one screw, which was easy to undo. The funny thing is the dealer had to redo it once (after I removed).
I’m all for safety recalls, but I don’t love “customers are dumb” recalls disguised as safety. I can easily redo it before selling the car, too.
Exactly this. Take out the bracket and the screw, toss it in the glove box, and put it back before lease end or you sell the van.
My thoughts exactly. They might just put some kind of “snap on” trim to fill in the seat space and call it a day. Then the owners can unsnap it and stuff it in the garage somewhere until they sell the van.
The only reason a center console type idea doesn’t work is because you still need access to the seatbelts.
I hope they take the Singapore Air approach.
Business class seats are too wide, so they give you a little cushion that ends at your hip as filler between you and the shell.
This is the bizarro world version of GM eliminating roll down rear windows on their A/G body sedans and wagons in order to make the rear seat wider.
Yeah, but that didn’t count toward the surface area of the seat cushion itself, being a breadbox-size cutout in the rear door that only affected the “elbow room” direction.
Pre-Ozempic seating
So that time we squeezed 15 people into an 89 grand caravan to go to a hockey game was illegal?
We crammed 6 people into a 1971 Triumph GT6+ to cruise the drag. Was that wrong? Should we not have done that?
15 in a Chevette to get to a high school football afterparty.
I managed to get 6 into my genesis coupe.
Impressive! I remember the one and only time I had 3 people in mine I thought I was doing good
Two in the front, 3 across the back, one lays across them.
I’m sure if we got in an accident, the car wouldn’t have crumpled as the internal cabin pressure would’ve held the shape.
3 in the Z4. Thankfully it was only half a mile.
“Hands-free shifting with this simple trick!”
I got 8 in my Dodge Omni.
Dodge Omni Origami. I maxed at six, maybe seven? They were different times.
We fit six in a Honda Civic hatchback, with one person in the hatch.
15 in a Grand Caravan to go to a hockey game? What part of Canada was that?
Southern Canada: Minneapolis. Border battle between U of MN and UW a very long time ago.
I think it was situations like this that I’ve always insisted on driving. Unless it was coed (fairly rare unfortunately).
They know these are built for Americans, right?
Just beat me to it, lol.
I do hope that VW just throws in some dumb, easily removable trim.
In some cases AN American.
Just like the VW FATLASS
That’s some easy badging that I haven’t see done yet. But that’s one car that’s been around for more than a decade and I still find it one of the ugliest vehicles on the road. They’re nice. I’m just glad the owners spend their time on the inside.
I’m more partial to the VW Biguan.
I still rock an ASSPAT, the OG model 🙂
You rang? Oh, sorry.
Biguan is pure gold
I wonder if they’re going to release a Golf of America, it’ll be the exact same as the Mexican delivered version, just 3 feet wider.
It could have a big frunk added too, like the new Can’t Touch My Taos