As Sitting Bull once said, “That was over pretty fast.”

Had the Bug towed to the dealer this morning. A big round of applause for AAA’s towing service. Patty and I have paid for AAA for years without ever calling on them, but they did a wonderful job for us twice in three days. Today, the tow truck arrived at my house in nine minutes! Unreal.

At the VW dealer, I explained what I thought the problem was to the service manager. He agreed with me, but wanted to talk to the tech on site who was most skilled concerning electrical systems on New Beetles. His take: It was still the O2 sensor, as that unit is a “warmed” circuit which feeds back to the battery terminal and could cause the exhibited behavior.

So the dealer replaced the O2 sensor and “good-willed” the cost, meaning no charge to me. And, the car fired right up and the service manager and I both wiggled the big red wire repeatedly with no problems. A VW service advisor walked up and told me that the problem and the fix both had him baffled; he’s been working with VWs many years and he’d never heard of such a thing.

It appears as though the repair is complete and the dealer was nice enough to absorb the cost. My out-of-pocket was the $120 initial diagnosis, two AAA towing charges for what was over what’s covered in my basic membership (three miles is covered; over that is $3 per mile) and two tips to the AAA tow-truck drivers. So less than $175 total; time spent at the dealer today: Less than an hour.

I hope this is the end of this unusual auto problem, but only time will tell. Hope you enjoyed reading about it and found it informative!