Car is a 1.8t and has about 160k on it. About 1 year ago my car developed a misfire. I took it to the dealer and they said the harness was bad so I paid 1200 to get the car repaired. Then about 6 months later the front variable valve timing (electric) was replace for around 700. Now I have another misfire and the dealer is telling me it is the harness again and now recommends to replace the injectors.

I can't for the life of me see how a harness goes bad in 1 year and on top of this, the guy didn't do any testing. The last visit was one of the worst visits I've ever had to a dealer. The tech tried to say my turbo was bad and that I had bad front camshaft seals and they told me it was bad (even though I am not losing any oil) I had to replace oil lines on the turbo as well. He tried to say since I had shavings in the inlet tube that was a sign of a bad turbo. Does this idiot tech take me for a fool. I checked there were no shavings at all in the inlet tube, there was small amounts of oil, but no shavings (took a white rag and wiped it out to verify).

So, this is exactly what is going on with the car and I am hoping a good tech on here might be able to help me out or point me in the right direction. When the car gets warm after driving about 20 min that is when it is prone to misfire. Another thing I find odd is the misfire only happens when my transmission is shifting. Say I am at a stop light it is most notable when the car shifts from 1st to 2nd it just falls flat on its face. Another thing is, this misfire does not happen all the time it is very random. Once I can drive all the way to work (work is 45 min away) and have no issues. The drive home I have all sorts of issue. Another thing too is that if I turn in somewhere and shut down the car for about 2 minutes the car runs fine after that.

I want to know something more concrete than a tech saying that we need to replace this or that. I don't mind taking out a voltmeter and doing some checks, I figure that is what techs should be doing and not me, but it seems these techs aren't that good anymore.

Thanks for any help given.

 

I hope you were able to resolve this. To start, I'd do an OBD2 scan. If you have VCDS- do a full scan when the car is warm and the misfires are prone to occur. Seems many don't reply in this forum; so sorry it is only now you've gotten a reply- and it may be way to late to be of value....