Hello - new member here.

Got a used 2010 VW Golf.
Randomly stalls with no warning.
Engine warm. Stalls when car comes to a stop. No check engine light or codes whatsoever. Car can be hard to restart at first. Starts after a few tries but stalls again as soon as car is put into drive but not, curiously, when put into reverse...??? After a few minutes and other tries, ends up driving away. In the next two minutes, car "half stalls" a few times but then runs normally for the next two days to two weeks, then the problems comes again.

Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

Marc

 

Hoping to get some insights, sorry it's a bit long, but here's a message I sent to my mechanic with more details about some observations of mine, while trying to make this otherwise good car function a few days ago.

I drove the Golf around for approximately 25 minutes with no problems whatsoever.

After getting back to your garage and backing up in "its" spot, I tried a few times to go forward and it stalled repeatedly. However, once it had moved forward and stalled, there was never any problem backing it up. It never stalled when backing up, even when I backed up rather quickly.

I then tried about 10 times to move forward and then back up and it almost always stalled when moving forward but not always in the same way.

Out of the approximately 10 times I tried this, about 50% of the stalls were the same as last time, that is, the car starting and revving without a problem (in neutral) after having stalled, then still not stalling when I put it in drive and then, when I press the gas while in drive, a very short spike in rpm, car moves forward just a bit and then quickly stalls. BTW, when it stalls, the car won't start if I just leave the key in the "on" position and all the "dash lights" (that are normally on when you put the key to on) are off - as mentioned, only the battery light is on. To start the car after it stalls, I have to cycle the key off then back on again and then all the lights come on as usual and it starts without a problem.

It got a little weirder during the other 50% of stalls...

On one occasion, it stalled as soon as I put it in drive, without having pressed the gas at all. Once, after pressing the gas, it moved forward in "jerks" since it "half stalled" two or three times, but this time, **all** of the dash lights turned off (and then just as quickly back on) at the same time it was stalling in jerks. On another occurrence, just after this last one, it did two spikes in rpm followed by two half stalls and moving forward in jerks, but this time, all the dash lights did not go off and on but just stayed on as usual. Once, I tried pressing the brakes and the gas at the same time and then releasing the brakes slowly as I gave it more gas, to see if I could prevent it from stalling by doing this and it worked as it did not stall on that occasion. And, as I also mentioned to you before Christmas, I also experienced a few weeks back, after stopping the vehicle, the half stalls and jerky forward motion along with **all** the dash lights going dead (meaning not only the warning lights but every single light in the vehicle, as if all voltage was cut off to everything at once) at the exact same time it was half-stalling in "jerks".

Just a question, other than the ECM, I don't know if there's such a thing as a "voltage regulator" in the Golf. I remember having problems with voltage regulators in the past, but in much older cars, in the 1980's or 1990's if I recall correctly... not sure if anything like that might be in play here ?