2003 Passat GLX wagon...bad throttle body??? HELP!!!
 

So, recently my car started acting up. When driving and accelerating at around 40 mph it would hesitate (tachometer would jump around) and felt like a bumpy road. I took it to my local VW dealership and they said it was the throttle body, so they replaced it and charged me $1000. When I went to pick the car up, I got about 1/2 mile down the road and the same problem happened. I took it back to the dealer and they are now saying it's the valve cover gasket, spark plug wires and spark plugs...they say it's missing on the 1st and 3rd cylinders or something like that. They want to charge me $700 more for this repair. But they're saying the throttle body was the first thing to come up on their diagnostic test and did need to be replaced.

I've talked to several mechanic friends/acquaintances and none of them have thought that a bad throttle body would cause the problems I had (several have even said they're surprised a car with 62k miles would have a bad throttle body). I've looked on the internet and everyone describes a bad throttle body as causing rough idle or car just won't start, but haven't seen any descriptions at all like mine. I never had any problems whatsoever starting the car or at idle.

Any help??? I'm not a mechanic and don't want to pay for an unnecessary $1000 repair. Should/could a bad throttle body cause symptoms like mine?

Thanks!