2012 TDI Stutters and doesn't shift in the AM

Hi all, Really frustrating here's my situation:
Start car, not too slow to start, but the colder it is the longer it takes to "turn over" (I live in Phoenix AZ where cold is 50F/10C). Back out of my short driveway, get on street slowly hit the pedal then lack of power, stuttering, super rough, slowly get up to 25mph/40kph) stuttering all the way, I have to get the RPMs up to about 3k and then it shifts. Drive another few hundred yards/meters and it feels like it gets it's groove on and then opperates fine. Been going on for a couple months, full power, full everything after that "warm up" period. Twice in the past month I tried to push it harder and the glow plug light turns on, lack of power/limp mode feeling, I pull over turn off car and then turn on, all is well, i keep driving, no issues all day. Next day, slow/stutter going and not pushing it early, I go back to normal after 3 minutes of driving and slowly getting up to 3k RPM.

I have gotten an oil change recently, no change. I put in Oil additive, no change. I put in fuel/injector cleaner, no change.

So does it sound like an injector issue, pump issue, transmission issue or the glow plugs?

My dealership wants to charge me an arm and a leg to simply determine what's wrong without wanting to narrow it down first...

2012 Passat TDI SEL, 125k miles (201k Kilometers) timing belt recently replaced and oil filter housing replaced (it cracked and had to be replaced). Stuttering was slight before these repairs, statyed slight but evolved over time to be worse.

When last time dsg oil changed?

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When was the fuel filter replaced?

oil additive? what is such snake oil you speak off? are we still in the 1970's?

maybe a sketchy injector. The ECU compensates for those using the glow plug pressure sensors, but not until 50C coolant temperature. So while the coolant remains below 50C, the car runs rough. Smooths out once it warms up some.

Of course this is only speculation based on a brief description. You will need vcds to properly diagnose.
That expense of purchasing VCDS would be well justified to avoid the "arm and a leg" diagnostic fees now and in the future.

KERMA said:

maybe a sketchy injector. The ECU compensates for those using the glow plug pressure sensors, but not until 50C coolant temperature. So while the coolant remains below 50C, the car runs rough. Smooths out once it warms up some.

Of course this is only speculation based on a brief description. You will need vcds to properly diagnose.
That expense of purchasing VCDS would be well justified to avoid the "arm and a leg" diagnostic fees now and in the future.

Click to expand...

What are these VDCS diagnosis procedures? I'm experiencing something similar at the current time.

We had the same problems starting around 80 K miles after the Gen 2 Fix. It was, like you stated, in cool operations just after start and goes away after a mile or so. We had it into the dealer twice for this and the first time they tried to sell us a fuel tank cleaning for $350. I declined. Then came the issue with the Ad Blue Range and the likelihood of not being able to restart after reaching the magic mileage. This was a problem with the programing of the AD Blue system to properly flow enough into the Nox Catalyst. We got it reprogrammed and then it happened again. The seond reprogramming seems to have fixed it. Then a month later we go the second instance of the AdBlue system failure and this time they replaced the NOx catalyst and NOx Sensor (part numbers 561-254-400-A Cat and 03L-907-807-AF Sensor). This was done under warranty at 96K miles. Remember, you have complete Engine/Fuel Pump/Exhaust warranty to 120K. Make sure you get that problem squared away to your satisfaction. Don't let them try to sell you any nonsense. Maybe you have an injector imbalance that is causing the problem? Maybe your programming was bad when the Stage 2 fix came down? maybe something else is wrong. Do not live with this problem until it is out of warranty.

Mine did the same thing right after the fix was done. Dealer wound up replacing all 4 injectors under warrenty, Problem gone.