Misfire or rough idle on the 2000 Volkswagen Jetta
1 fire 1 of the 13 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When misfire or rough idle gets reported
Owners of the 2000 Volkswagen Jetta report misfire or rough idle at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 98,655 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40,440 miles | 62,000 miles | 75,000 miles | 120,000 miles | 139,095 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 18 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1998, at a median of 1 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 210,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 65; the 2000 has 13. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
My jetta has been back at the dealer 5 times in the past two months to repair the same problem. The car hesitates upon acceleration as if it will stall. The check engine light comes on. Sometimes it stays on until they reset it and sometimes it goes off. The dealer has replaced the mass air sensor and cleaned parts of the engine. Then the intake manifold had to be replaced. Now they told me the problem is the ignition coil and wires for an additional $700.00. This car is just three years old and I have spent close to $2000 in repairs in two months. I didn't even made it out of the dealer's parking lot before the check engine light came on again. Vw needs to address this issue but their customer service representatives won't help. *la
My jetta has been back at the dealer 5 times in the past two months to repair the same problem. The car hesitates upon acceleration as if it will stall. The check engine light comes on. Sometimes it stays on until they reset it and sometimes it goes off. The dealer has replaced the mass air sensor and cleaned parts of the engine. Then the intake manifold had to be replaced. Now they told me the problem is the ignition coil and wires for an additional $700.00. This car is just three years old and I have spent close to $2000 in repairs in two months. I didn't even made it out of the dealer's parking lot before the check engine light came on again. Vw needs to address this issue but their customer service representatives won't help. *la
While driving, my 2000 jetta gls, vehicle hesitates and stalls (engine light also would come on at times). On six occasions to service, vw claimed that nothing could be found. The seventh time, conveniently after warranty expiration, they found a bad ignition coil...which obviously, I had to pay for. Speaking to four acquantainces that had same vehicle, all reported similar issues with the hesitation and stalling. The kicker came from my friend who received a recall on this issue (ignition coil recall) for his 1.8t jetta. A call to vw (1800-822-8987) to inquire about reimbursement for my expenses revealed that my jetta VIN did not match the recalled VIN's!!! How can a part that has been recalled not be covered for my vehicle that has the same part? This is absolutely preposterous. Obviously, there are significant owners out there that are being talked into unnecessary repairs and sidetracked from the real issue and are not aware of the recalls or simply do not file complaints. A little bit of info...to test for the problem, run your vehicle with less than 1/4 tank of gas (one or two gallons will reveal the problem), and watch what…
Also reported on the 2000 Volkswagen Jetta
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Other visibility problem
Engine sensor failure
Other electrical problem
Window regulator or power window failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 13 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does misfire or rough idle happen on the 2000 Volkswagen Jetta?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is misfire or rough idle on the 2000 Volkswagen Jetta?
13 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed