Last September, faulty door handle hardware caused Volkswagen to take the rather drastic steps of halting sales and production of the electric crossover and recalling nearly 100,000 customer cars. Now it says it has new parts that will allow it to repair existing cars, lift the stop-sale order and soon resume production at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant.
The ID.4, like many new EVs, is equipped with recessed door handles to reduce air resistance. Instead of conventional mechanical handles that interrupt the laminar airflow along the side of the car, VW opted for an electromechanical solution.
Unfortunately, the door handle assemblies were not sufficiently waterproof, allowing the electronics inside to corrode. As a result, VW began receiving complaints early last year about ID.4s with doors that occasionally opened while driving, and the company reported nearly 300 warranty claims in September, when it withdrew the car from sale, issuing the recall and stopped the production line.
That line will restart “in the coming weeks,” VW says, and now that new and improved door handles are available, dealers can complete the recall. That also means that all ID.4s in inventory can be repaired and then sold. To sweeten the deal, the automaker says it will offer some “highly competitive leasing deals” as it hopes to push its clean crossover back up the sales charts.
