Father's Volkswagen EV repeatedly accelerated on its own, locked his young family inside 'and almost killed them'

A single father has vowed never to buy a Volkswagen EV again after he says it assumed a mind of its own on a busy road, almost killing him and his young children.Matt Hinton, 52, leased a VW ID4 for work purposes using a salary sacrifice scheme – but was soon locked in a nightmare situation when a series of increasingly severe issues arose.It culminated in a string of terrifying near misses with the car suddenly deciding how fast it wanted to go, and preventing passengers from opening the doors.But when Mr Hinton tried to complain, the lease company – LeasePlan, which is now operating as Ayvens – refused to replace his car leading to an excruciating three-year back and forth.The vehicle was off the road for more than a third of the time he leased it, he claims – before his own company eventually had to swoop in and pay over £13,000 to end the ordeal.Mr Hinton told the Daily Mail: 'I was totally scared. I didn't know what the car would do.'I would tell anyone from the rooftops: never deal with Lease Plan, never deal with VW.'Mr Hinton, a global director for a life sciences company, said he leased the car through a near £1,000-a-month salary sacrifice scheme – a move he would later come to regret. Matt Hinton, pictured, has vowed never to buy a Volkswagen EV again after it assumed a mind of its own on a busy road, almost killing him and his young children His VW ID 4, pictured, was off the road for more than a third of the time he leased it, he claims - before his own company eventually had to swoop in and pay over £13,000 to end the ordealWhen he first drove it in 2022, the seatbelt on the driver's side was frayed, he claims, but things got scarier when his family started struggling to open and close the doors.A similar problem – involving water leaking into the door causing it to open unexpectedly – prompted a huge recall of ID4s in the US.And so began a relentless charade which saw Mr Hinton continuously report issues, and the local VW dealership in Gloucester attempt to fix them whether it seemed possible or not. 'Lease Plan and VW were completely inept at managing any faults with the car,' he said.The dashboard soon started crashing, meaning Mr Hinton could not see the speed dial, the fuel gauge, and other key information. Bigger issues were on the horizon as the car's sensors started malfunctioning, removing the vehicle's collision avoidance, parking sensors and lane detection. If these were worrying signs, a series of terrifying journeys where he lost control completely were the final straw. He said: 'The first time it happened, it was just me in the car going to the local shop, and everything just went black on the screens.'I lost all control over the pedals and everything else and all I could do was roll to a stop. 'That meant that I went into the curb and I killed the two near-side wheels by scratching them up.'Weeks later, an almost identical incident put the lives of his entire family at risk.'The children were in the car this time, and when it happened again, I just had to somehow come to a safe stop, get out the car, get back in and it reset itself,' he said.'I managed to limp it home and at that point I refused to drive it anymore. Pictured: The car's display alerting the driver to faults with the child lock'My children certainly didn't want to get in the car. It was the only transport I had.'Around the same time, the car spookily started misreading speed limit signs and accelerating quickly.'The autonomous system picks up the speed of the road by looking at signs, but it would just speed up to 70mph on a 30mph road,' Mr Hinton said.'It would just think, "I'm in a 70mph zone," and suddenly accelerate. It felt like there was a ghost in the machine and I had no confidence in it.'The car's sensors faltered randomly on the motorway, causing the regenerative braking system to suddenly kick in.'I could be doing 70mph in the middle lane, and suddenly I'm braking with cars and lorries behind me,' he said. 'That's not a situation I ever wanted to be in.'Mr Hinton's EV nightmare made it difficult for him to get around and denied him quality time with his children.He said: 'Sod's Law, it would always happen around the holiday periods. I would find I would be in a VW Polo [as a replacement car] trying to transport two children down to our place in Devon with surf equipment and everything else and it just wasn't possible.'So that limited some of the time where we could have gone down to the coast and spend some time as a family together. Faults plagued the car for years, but the local workshop was rarely able to solve the problems'It created an extreme amount of stress. Once the children went to school, I would have to get to Gloucester, drop the car off, pick up some random car, come back, and try and make up the time I'd lost in the evening.'It also caused stress for my elderly parents, who would have to manage school pickups if I was driving backwards and forwards to drop and pick the car up.'VW Gloucester's workshop repeatedly told him they were unable to replicate any of the faults and had to call head office in Germany as they were so puzzled by the issues. A spokesperson for VW said the manufacturer was 'disappointed' to hear about the issues.'I would note that this may have been exacerbated by the fact as a fleet customer he does not appear to have had direct contact with our customer services frontline team,' they added.'According to the retailers' technical reports, for each reported issue the car was inspected and faults rectified where found. 'Unfortunately, others could not be replicated by the retailer and so were not possible to diagnose. But I can see from our records that we did all we could to resolve Mr Hinton's technical issues.'LeasePlan not only refused to replace the car but declined his requests for compensation as it was part of a salary sacrifice scheme. Mr Hinton added: 'To try to fix the driver's side front door, [VW] took the whole door apart and couldn't even get the door cards and everything back in properly, because they didn't know how to do it. They didn't have the right tools.'The first time I had the car returned to me, the door card was hanging off and I had to live with that for about four or five weeks. It was just crazy.'Mr Hinton added: 'Lease Plan and VW were completely inept at managing any faults with the car.' He started taking the ID4 to VW Bristol, which had it for at least 20 weeks between the end of 2024 and 2025, he claims, yet never fixed anything.Mr Hinton started fearing the ordeal was becoming a burden on his company, adding: 'I felt like I was putting them out. But they also took it extremely seriously that the vehicle was at fault.'A new HR director at his firm escalated the issue and ended up prompting its resolution. His employer had to cough up £13,000 to return the car – and was even charged extra for the wheels damaged in the April 2025 crash.It rounded off a miserable three years where disputes about a company car wasted valuable time with his children.His ID4 was off the road for more than a third of the time he had it, he calculates, and he made around 30 journeys to and from the Gloucester dealership, totalling approximately 980 miles and 52 hours travelling. Mr Hinton got a new EV in June 2025 – but he made sure it was not a VW and avoided LeasePlan – who have been approached for comment. Sensors on the car started playing up, and the VW even misread the speed limit and accelerated without promptThe new vehicle has already done 8,500 miles without a single fault emerging. He said: 'To my detriment, I would never want to deal with Lease Plan again, which means I'm paying a considerable sum for the car I have, because I can't go through salary sacrifice anymore.'Being a higher tax earner, I'm taking the hit now on my tax.''I never owned a VW vehicle before,' Mr Hinton added. 'And I would never purchase a VW ever again.'