Noises During Shifting problems of the 2005 Volkswagen Jetta

Hi, so my 2005. 5 2. 5l Volkswagen Jetta started making noises upon acceleration and the engine would shift quite heavily during idling. The check engine light went on and I took the car to dealership. Apparently, there is an issue with the timing chains of the engine. Never missed a maintenance, after only 68,000 miles it doesn't seem okay that timing chains are already affected. After looking at a few forums online, it seems that this is a very common problem for Volkswagen Jettas from that time. Please investigate! thank you.

We recently bought a 2005 Volkswagen Jetta (the newer design also coincided 2005. 5) from a private individual in March 2010. We noticed there was a slight problem with shifting gears that continued to get worse. In June 2010 we took the car to a local Volkswagen dealer and discussed the problem. They told us it sounded like the dual mass flywheel was the problem. That there was 2 different manufacturers that make the flywheels and they no longer use one of the manufacturers due to defects and problems with the flywheels they made. They said it was a known problem that the flywheels were bad and would need replaced way before they were suppose to. Even though the problem was known by Volkswagen they refused to fix replace the defective part. They said we could continue to drive it and but would continue to get worse and end up tearing up alot of other stuff if it did. We looked online and found many other people having this same problem, though no recall. We also read where if the flywheel locked up/came apart while driving it could lockup the entire car. We did come across where the flywheel had been recalled in europe. The car was drove till November 2010 when it had gotten to the point where it would downshift on hills and when you would try to get up speed to merge onto the interstate it would not shift to the next gear( but the rpms were normal) and was forced to merge onto the interstate at a very slow and unsafe speed. The engine also had a very loud chatter noise. We decided to have it fixed and replaced the flywheel assy & mount bolts and had to have the transmission fluid flushed and refilled and a new filter put in. Totaling $1423. 00. The new flywheel was not the same as the original one. It now runs great. Shifts perfectly and smoothly.

On February 16th while running errands I pulled through a drive through for lunch, car was running and sounded just fine, after pulling away I heard a loud "shrieking" noise and then a clunk, the car lost power and made a grinding noise, I immediately pulled into the adjacent parking lot and shut the car off, I waited a few minutes then restarted the car it started just fine but seemed to be idling a little rough, I shifted car into drive and lightly pressed the accelerator the grinding noise was present so I put the car back in park and shut off the engine, called aaa and had the car towed to the dealership. The dealership then called me later that afternoon and informed me that the dual mass flywheel had separated and would need to be replaced, they quoted me $1800 for the repair. I was informed that they had the part in stock and I approved the repair. The car just had 64,381 miles and I though it was odd that this failure occurred, I did some research on the internet and discovered that this is a "known" failure. Since the warranty "just" expired I had to pay for the repair. I contacted vw0fa and they took the information but did state the warranty expired, I understand that but it appears that this issue has been reported numerous times and this needs to be investigated! I had just exited the interstate before this happened, what would have been the outcome if I stayed on the freeway at 60mph and this component failed?.

The reason for the late post is that I just discovered this site. I purchased my 2005 vw Jetta brand new in 2005. It had 61 miles on it. I had the car for about 5 months when it was shifting very hard and nearly snapping my neck. I took the vehicle to the vw dealership over 30 times within a years time and they continued to tell me nothing was wrong. They kept the car and drove it and it of course it would not happen while they drove it. They actually told me I was driving the car incorrectly (what that means I don't know). I was unaware of the lemon law at the time. The car continued to shift extremely hard. Finally after it went back for the 30th time I demanded that they keep the car and drive it until it happened. Finally after 2 weeks (they actually gave me a loaner) the mechanic called me stating that it nearly snapped his neck and that they would put in a new transmission (rebuilt mind you). After getting it back about 2 weeks later the car would not go in reverse and was making the worst noise ever but I continued to drive it to the dealership. They had to replace the transmission once again (another rebuilt transmission). The other issue I had was the locks on the car. Some of the doors lock with the key fob while the back doors don't work with the fob or the switch on the door panel. This is frusturating when you have childreen and need to lock and unlock the car and get them in and out.