Vehicle report
Technical service bulletins are instructions a manufacturer sent its dealers about a known fault. They are not recalls and the work is usually not free, but they are the clearest signal of a problem the manufacturer already knows about.
2015831
VOLKSWAGEN: EXHAUST HEAT SHIELD, REPLACEMENT GUIDELINES. HEAT SHIELDS ARE TO BE INSPECTED AFTER COMPLETION O ANY TYPE OF REPAIR TO THE UNDERBODY (EXHAUST SYSTEM TRANSMISSION, ETC.), AND IF DAMAGED, REPLACED. *PE
Complaint counts are reports filed with NHTSA, not failure rates. A common model collects more of them than a rare one that breaks more often.