Car didn't start, couple questions

Hi all, thx for having me. I purchased a 2003 Jetta GL a couple days ago, and today I had a problem. The car wouldn't start for about 45 minutes. The ECP, battery, and engine light were all on. The car was getting power, but wouldn't turn over when I tried to start. Also the FM does not work on the factory radio, but AM,CD, and Cass work fine.

The car finally started for some unknown reason, maybe because it should. It has 35K miles on it, and runs nicely, but the starting troubles are making me have a case of buyers remorse.

Since the issue I have started it w/out problems 5 times or thereabouts.

Any insights on this?

edit- I also tried to have it jump started, but that didn't help.


-Sad Panda

jiggle the key next time ..key switch prone to those problems
don't hang a ton to keys off it or your asking for trouble

Do you have this problem only when it's cold outside? I had the exact same issue with my '03 and it turned out to be a bad ignition switch. The problem only happened when it was near freezing.

As an aside, others have suggested not jump starting this car. Could mess up the electrical system or something.

Hey all, thx for replies. PROBLEM FOUND!

I took it into a mechanic and he fiddled around under the battery for about 10 seconds, and up comes his hand with a wire that goes form the battery to the starter I think it was. Said wire was cut! A clean cut through this wire, and you could tell about 5% of it was still connected until he pulled it off. My guess is someone tried to disable the alarm or something by cutting this wire in an attempt to steal the car or something inside it, and didn't quite get all the way through the wire. The dealer said there was a new windshield installed, and I noticed the rear driver window isn't VW glass either. Anyhow, the cut wire was causing it to sometimes fire, sometimes not. I was actually relieved to see it, because then we knew exactly what the problem was. He fixed it up for free and off I went)


On a side note, the engine seems to have rather high RPM's at cruising speeds. It's an auto trans 2.0L and @ 65 MPH it's at about 3100 RPM. Just feels like it should down shift once more. What do your cars run at?

Glad to hear your problem has been solved!

My Jetta has the 1.8T engine so I don't know how relevant my response is to you, but my RPMs are right up at about the same level. When cruising at 70mph I'm up to about 3100 RPM in 5th speed (I've got the 5A). I wish it ran lower at highway speeds but I've become used to it.