And I did have auto start
/stop enabled both times. It took me three tries to start it back up this time. Stay clear of this vehicle, people.
Thanks for the additional information, and I am glad you're going to be on the phone with VW corporate Monday morning. Please keep us posted here with how that call went and what VW's plan is going forward.
I haven't completely researched the history of the problem with the AWD models and how far along they are in the troubleshooting process, but I recall there was a stop sell order on the AWD's earlier. I'll have to check and see if that was for the engine stalling / stopping problem.
We still don't know if this is a design or manufacturing or software defect that is present in all cars / models, or if just your car is having the problem. Like I said earlier, it is best to assume all cars are affected until proven otherwise. I had an 87 Honda Accord many years ago that had a problem where the engine would stop when I stopped the car, like at a red light. That turned out to be a cracked insulator under the carburetor due to age / wear & tear. Didn't affect all cars, just mine, but eventually other cars would likely develop the same problem when they got old enough.
Since we now know you had the start/stop system active, that alone doesn't prove it was a malfunction of the system, but it leaves the possibility still open. If you had turned it off, we might be able to say the system wasn't the cause (or at least it was less likely to be the cause). In fact if you are going to continue driving the car, for the time being I would turn the stop start system off every time you drive it and see what happens over the next week. I would also understand if you just want to park the car until the problem is resolved.
I like the stop/start system in that it helps get better mileage, and on our test drive it seemed to work very smoothly (my wife was unaware the engine was stopping/starting while she was driving). It is good you can disable it if you don't want it (like you are stopped for a very long slow moving train and you want to keep the A/C going). But it would also be good to have it disabled by default so you don't have to turn it off every time you start the car, if that is what you want. Especially if there is a suspected problem like you are having. Imagine you forget to turn it off one time and that's the time your engine dies on the freeway.
I'm not going to cancel my reservation at this point, the car isn't due until sometime next month and the deposit is refundable if we decide to cancel, so no risk of just keeping our place in line. Like you, I think it is a great car and I wouldn't give up on it until you see what VW is going to do about it.
My previous car was a Chevy Volt (drove it for almost 9 years) and I felt the same about it, it was the best car I ever had, or ever will have I'm pretty sure. Right up until the day the main battery died, 10 months out of the 8 year warranty and they wanted $18,000 (plus labor) for a replacement with only a 3 year guarantee.
Fred in New Braunfels, TX
