When I begin to accelerate, my car would stall for a second, and then it would give a hard jerk. After that, the car would run just fine. It always happens when I accelerate, and thank goodness, it doesn't stall and jerk when I'm at a stoplight in traffic. Each day it steadily got worse and worse. At first, my stepdad and I thought that it was the fuel injector. But even after getting a full tank of gas and putting in Heet (they come in red and yellow bottles and help mix the water so that it can convert to gas and clean out the fuel injector), it continued to stall.

Finally, we took the car to VW to let them see what was wrong with it. It turns out that the transmission was going out and needed to be replaced. The valve was old as well and needed to be replaced. When we asked them how much it was going to cost, they said it was $6,000. That was for the new transmission and the labor. A used transmission wasn't that much better either; that still was $5,000 including labor. That money can be used to buy another used car. After that, we took the car to a more trustworthy mechanic. He said that not only was the VW Beetle a "closed system," but in order to check the oil for the transmission and itself, he would have to take out the battery and the air duct. How am I supposed to check transmission oil when it's buried in the back somewhere?!

Just a fair warning from a person who has only had this car for a year and a half to anybody wanting to buy this car for themselves or for their teenagers. Unless you can deal with the financial cost of an European car, I'd say find another car that won't have these problems at 87,000 miles, which it shouldn't be till about 200,000 miles. Do what I'm about to do; sell it for what it's worth, and move on. Have a good day.

I Just bought a used 2005 turbo convertible and I'm having the same probs. I took it to the dealer after reading all the blogs on the possible problems and at first the mechanic tells me there is no fix. Then I mention the recall, which expired in 2011. And suddenly he knows what I'm taking about. My car stalls and recovers even on the freeway at 80mph. He wanted to replace the fuel pump at first, his diagnosis, but I told him that from what I've read, others have replaced the MAF, fuel filter and fuel pump but and the problem still exist. I wasn't comfortable guessing at what the prob could be. Of course, there are no error codes which I already knew that because I had taken it to my own mechanic. The dealer tells me to try to call customer service and maybe they will help me. I do call the and get a rehearsed answer from the rep so I call corporate and get a very nice lady, Emily Goga but when she calls the dealer they tell her they suspect a different transmission problem other than the valve recalled part! And I have to pay $120 for the dealer to diagnose the problem, she won't take my mechanics word. But that VW in no way could help with the cost because the extended warranty has expired. On top of that my airbag light has come on and they want $600 for a module that has gone bad. In my opinion, VW is ok with having unsafe vehicles on the road.