Safe to drive? Mechanic can’t confirm reason New Beetle died while driving…
Posted by SavingsDog152@reddit | askcarguys | View on Reddit | 10 comments
2007 New Beetle. About 70k miles. I used to have to go up and down a huge hill every day. While I was driving my kid him late from a civil air patrol meeting a few weeks ago, the car died on me in terms of speed and control right as I was getting on the freeway on-ramp. I kept electrical and it restarted when I tried it, though steering was sluggish and the car did not want to do anything except limp. Once so was someplace safe enough to turn it off let it rest a couple of minutes and restart it, it had more acceleration but not much, and made a clunking noise under the hood for probably 15 seconds, which felt like from the passenger side. I parked it in a safe place and has it towed the next days, but it appeared to drive normally at that point.
The speedometer needle has been jumping for years, intermittently. And cruise control does not work well- it will suddenly and scarily accelerate rapidly so i don’t use it. Also the digital display has been messed up for years where it has the PRDS indicator completely lit up. The needle has been jumping that day. The check engine light has been on for years and I’ve repeatedly taken it to various mechanics and they say they can’t find anything wrong.
If I lost the cara power and steering on the freeway like I did the other day, it would be terrifying.
A well respected european machanic garage agreed to take the tow. They suggested it could be the transmission speed sensor, but ultimately do not want to do a. repair because they say they can’t get the symptoms to replicate.
I’m sacred to take the car back. Any suggestions?
hms11@reddit
No mechanic can guarantee something so sporadic OP so that's an ask you'll never get the answer to. If you owned a 2026 car with a random, hard to replicate issue you wouldn't be able to get that sort of promise let alone a 20 year old car.
That being said, do you know what the codes are for the check engine light? What kind of mechanics are you taking it to that they say "nothing is wrong" despite a check engine light?
That being said, this being a weird electrical issue, I would take a look at the fuse/distribution setup that those old Volkswagens tended to have on top of the battery. We sold plenty back in the day for the Jetta's and Golfs and they had a pretty similar driveline setup to the Beetles.
SavingsDog152@reddit (OP)
They said P1624.
Ultimately they told me they couldn’t replicate it and didn’t want to replace anything. They did tell me my battery needed to be replaced and that the car had needed to be jumped at one point. But. the battery was only three years old, i hadn’t been having any power or battery issues, and when I picked up the car they had left it parked on the street AND with the lights left on.
I’m honestly feeling a little defeated. I need to be able trust the car we drive on very busy metro freeways.
DaishiGD@reddit
Bulky_Employ_4259@reddit
It’s what that car is called.
hms11@reddit
"New Beetle" is what VW called them, not that OP is calling their beetle new.
The "Old Beetle" would be the old-school air-cooled rear engine jobs.
Bulky_Employ_4259@reddit
Vehicle speed sensor is my first thought, too. On most cars they’re cheap and easily replaced. May or may not be true on a VW.
SavingsDog152@reddit (OP)
They said the sensor they were thinking about is in the transmission itself on the Beetle and they’d have to partially take it apart to replace it…
Bulky_Employ_4259@reddit
I suspect you have a number of different gremlins at play. I don’t see how that sensor would cause lack of power steering (it might, electric problems can be weird) but it could cause the transmission to get confused causing a lack of power and all kinds of weirdness.
SuspiciousArt7316@reddit
Sell it and buy something else.
SavingsDog152@reddit (OP)
We definitely have thought about it but we stayed up last night and ran the numbers and it’s not really a $$$ option for us atm.