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Posted on Jun 25, 2009
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2003 VW BEETLE Won't Start....

I drive a 2003 Beetle. I have taken it to seven mechanics in the past year and still no one can find the problem. Now the problem seems to have become worse. It started with the gas pedal giving out while I was driving, only to kick back in after about 10 seconds. It progressed to the car losing power and coming to a complete stop (almost as if it ran out of gas). Usually this would happen when I had less than a half a tank of gas. But, there is no leak in the gas tank. When this happened, I could usually just turn it off and turn it back on. Now, the car will not turn on at all. You can turn the key and the engine tries turning over, but will not start. I tried to jump the battery this morning, but the battery is not the problem, the car still will not turn on. You turn the key and it just makes the "chugga-chugga-chugga" sound like it's trying to turn over, but it won't. Any ideas? Suggestions? (Besides taking a baseball bat to the thing...)

  • Anonymous Feb 07, 2012

    I had this same problem .the car would sometimes bogg out and about ten seconds later engage again and the throttle would respond again.,then about two weeks later after I turned the car off it wouldn't turn back on for hours,then eventually not turn on at all. The problem I found after checking relay after relay and fuse and such it ended up being the fuel sending unit in the gas tank . The unit slides up and down on it's self to go with the waves of the gas tank ,and sometimes it gets caulked in a weird position and stays like that pinching the wires to the fuel pump..I took out the back seat took out the unit and manually hooks up a power source to get the pump running then I reset the cocked plastic bottom price and put it right back in and fixed the problem..!!!!!!!!!!?! This was after taking it to multiple mechanics and having them not able to do or find any problem wrong with it, I hope this helps...

  • Anonymous Feb 07, 2012

    I had this same problem .the car would sometimes bogg out and about ten seconds later engage again and the throttle would respond again.,then about two weeks later after I turned the car off it wouldn't turn back on for hours,then eventually not turn on at all. The problem I found after checking relay after relay and fuse and such it ended up being the fuel sending unit in the gas tank . The unit slides up and down on it's self to go with the waves of the gas tank ,and sometimes it gets caulked in a weird position and stays like that pinching the wires to the fuel pump..I took out the back seat took out the unit and manually hooks up a power source to get the pump running then I reset the cocked plastic bottom price and put it right back in and fixed the problem..!!!!!!!!!!?! This was after taking it to multiple mechanics and having them not able to do or find any problem wrong with it, I hope this helps...

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  • Posted on Aug 16, 2009
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I HAD Same PROBLEM WAS THE THROTTLE BODY HAD TO BE REPLACED

  • Anonymous Feb 07, 2012

    I had this same problem .the car would sometimes bogg out and about ten seconds later engage again and the throttle would respond again.,then about two weeks later after I turned the car off it wouldn't turn back on for hours,then eventually not turn on at all. The problem I found after checking relay after relay and fuse and such it ended up being the fuel sending unit in the gas tank . The unit slides up and down on it's self to go with the waves of the gas tank ,and sometimes it gets caulked in a weird position and stays like that pinching the wires to the fuel pump..I took out the back seat took out the unit and manually hooks up a power source to get the pump running then I reset the cocked plastic bottom price and put it right back in and fixed the problem..!!!!!!!!!!?! This was after taking it to multiple mechanics and having them not able to do or find any problem wrong with it, I hope this helps...

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Jermaine Johnson

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  • Posted on Jun 25, 2009
Jermaine Johnson
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Check fuel pump if not fuel pump then have ecm check aka the computer

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