I was driving on the interstate, at about 68 mph, when the engine completely shut down without any warning whatsoever. The car, having a manual transmission, was still in gear and slowed down very quickly without any warning to other drivers (no brake lights). I tried to push in the clutch and coast to the shoulder, and successfully made it off the highway. The car restarted, and I made it a few miles towards the dealer before it happened again, luckily on a low-traffic street. The car was towed the rest of the way towards the dealer and diagnosed as a failed high pressure fuel pump, causing catastrophic fuel system damage. The fuel rail, injectors, pump, tank, and all lines will need to be replaced as the result of the pump failure caused bits of metal flakes to circulate about the fuel system. The diagnosis and listed repairs were determined by the Volkswagen dealer.

- North Pekin, IL, USA

Power train:clutch assembly 2009 Volkswagen tdi 18000 miles and again at 61000 thousand miles. Just should not be... one under warranty one not. 2 replaced means poor design on Volkswagen part. I should not have had to pay.

- West Friendship, MD, USA

The contact owns a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta. The contact stated that while attempting to accelerate, the vehicle would not move and the engine would not rev. The contact had to shift into neutral, manually rev the engine and then shift into drive so that the vehicle would accelerate. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer but the dealer could not find the cause of the failure. The failure was involved in a crash because of the faulty transmission; there were no injuries. The failure mileage was approximately 21,000.

- Rayland, OH, USA

2009 VW Jetta tdi. Engine stalls frequently, with delayed restart. The ECU will shut down the engine if the RPM falls, even momentarily, below some predetermined level, I observe this threshold at about 600 RPM. The key must be cycled to the off position and then back to start to restart the vehicle, but once shut down, there is a brief delay before the ECU will engage the starter, leaving the driver of a stalled vehicle in possible harms way, with the key in the start position waiting for the engine to restart. Discussion of this problem is often obfuscated by shame, denial and recriminations about drivers ability to adequately operate a manual trans and clutch. Very skilled drivers may never see the problem, but may also deny it. Many drivers, new to the car, are often unable to drive the vehicle at all. I, as a moderately skilled driver, after over a year driving the car everyday, still stall the vehicle periodically. The solution is to update the firmware in the ECU so that the low RPM threshold is lower (approx 400 RPM), and/or that a short delay be added to the shut down feature so that brief transient low RPM events do not trigger the shut down.

- Topanga, CA, USA

I recently purchased a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta tdi diesel car with a 6 speed manual transmission and 20,000 miles. I have notice that the car is extremely easy to stall when attempting to accelerate in first and second gears. It seems the injection timing may be too far advanced. I have driven lots of similar older model diesel cars in europe and elsewhere without any such problems. I do not know what to do to correct the problem. I have noticed that you must speed up significantly in first gear before shifting to second. The engine seems to be unable to lug at a low rpms.

- Noblesville, IN, USA

Windshield wipers system failed in snow storm. Parts replaced complete loss of engine power while driving in traffic. 8 times this has happened. Dealer can not find cause. No start situation, twice. Dealer can not find cause. Transmission noise. Dealer can not find cause, will replace transmission if noise continues.

- North Berwick , ME, USA

Transmission spontaneously disengages while vehicle is moving. Problem sometimes fixes itself immediately, sometimes the vehicle needs to be restarted in order for the problem to be cleared. The dealership is aware of the problem, but is unwilling to fix it sitting that they cannot reproduce the circumstances surrounding the problems. The dealership will only examine the problem 24 hours before I incur charges for the loaner vehicle. So far no parts have been replaced, and no work has been done beyond attempts to reproduce the problem. This problem caused a near accident at highway speeds when it occurred while the engine cruise control was engaged. After disengaging power, the engine revved to red line, the transmission then re-engaged. This problem occurs frequently, up to 3 times per week.

- Oak Park, IL, USA

We were heading up hill when suddenly traffic came to a crawl after a few minutes we started to smell something like burnt brake pads, we figured it was coming from the vehicles heading down hill braking friction, we did nothing of it until we pulled to the side of the road and lift open the hood then noticed that the smell was actually coming from our car engine compartment. The incident took place on a Saturday, on the following Monday I called VW customer support to report the incident. The representative told me to take the car to the nearest VW dealership to be inspected, the dealership mechanic made the recommendation to have the clutch replaced, VW agreed to have it replaced under warranty. However the new clutch is beginning to show the same sign of failure the car has only 6500 miles on it. I have heard from outside sources that main cause could be the dual mass flywheel it appears that this is happening to a lot of owners.

- Granada Hills, CA, USA