Acceleration Issues

Issue with my VW Golf 2.0 Automatic '02.

The car drives normally but when I floor the accelerator the car goes down a gear to accelerate but then never shifts gear to accelerate further so the car is reving like mad but not speeding up because its not changing gear. If I then ease off the accelerator it will change gear normally and speed up!!

If I'm doing 75 and I floor the accelerator it will go down a gear and actually slow the car down, I have to again ease off the accelerator for it to get back into correct gear.

Now when I hit 75-80 the car will not go beyond that speed

Whats the issue here???

Maybe the car IS going more than 75/80 but the speedo is not showing it. There is a known problem with the speedo gear on the differential gear coming loose causing the speedo to stick at 60mph+ or just drop to 0mph. THis normally only happens on automatics with the 2.0 engine.

No its definately not going faster, if I floor the pedal the car will not go any faster, it will downshift but will not upshift to pick up further speed. The car is now very sluggish when accelerating, not the 2.0 that I know and bought.

Sounds like maybe a bad MAF sensor. common to go bad and can cause sluggish accelleration and limited top speed.

I think your spot on with your interpretation. I know you can disconnect this thing to check whether it is or not. But having said all that the car this morning drove fine?? it did this before but then went sluggish again...is that more proof of a bad MAF?

Possibly, but it could have just been some bad gas too.