VW fixes ID.4 door handles, will restart production, sales

Last September faulty door handle hardware forced Volkswagen to take rather radical steps to suspend sales and production of the electric crossover, as well as recall almost 100,000 customer vehicles. Now the company says it has new parts that will allow it to fix existing vehicles, lift the stop-sales order and soon resume production at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant.

The ID.4, like many new electric cars, features flush door handles to reduce drag. Instead of conventional mechanical handles interrupting the laminar flow of air on the sides of the car, VW used an electromechanical solution.

Unfortunately, the door handles were not waterproof enough, which led to corrosion of the internal electronics. Consequently, VW began receiving complaints early last year about the ID.4 with doors that opened intermittently while driving, and reported nearly 300 warranty claims by September, when it pulled the car from sale, announced a recall and halted the production line.

That line will resume service “in the coming weeks,” VW says, and now that new and improved door handles are available, dealers will be able to complete the recall. This also means that any ID.4s in inventory can be repaired and then sold. To sweeten the deal, the automaker says it will offer several “highly competitive lease offers” as it looks to get its pure SUV back on the sales charts.