Misfire or rough idle on the 2012 Volkswagen Jetta
Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When misfire or rough idle gets reported
There are 12 reports of misfire or rough idle on the 2012 Volkswagen Jetta, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 43,800 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
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 2012 has 12. 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.
Midnight, driving back from a friends house. My 16 month old (or rather new) jetta se 2012, shakes up when I turn on ignition. I give it 2-3 seconds to calm down. It doesn't. Instead, the epc light goes on. Then the check engine light. Hmm... Weird. Those weren't on like 2 hours back, or ever infact. Being the smart techie that I am, I try the highly technical solution to any problem that I don't quite understand - I try to turn it off and on again. The same god awful shaking and stuttering. But no epc light. I think to myself, maybe this is just a transient thing. Try to pull out of the parking space, and there it is ... The [xxx] epc and check engine light. But my home's only a mile away, maybe things get better on the way there. You know, its a new car (bought 16 months back, brand new, and has ~7600 miles on it). But no, as I try to "drive" the piece of [xxx], it starts shaking more violently when I get to 25 miles and hour. So, I pull over, and a quick google search tells me to stay below 20 MPH and get it to a dealer asap. So I get the car towed, and the next day the dealer tells me its a faulty ignition coil that has been…
Midnight, driving back from a friends house. My 16 month old (or rather new) jetta se 2012, shakes up when I turn on ignition. I give it 2-3 seconds to calm down. It doesn't. Instead, the epc light goes on. Then the check engine light. Hmm... Weird. Those weren't on like 2 hours back, or ever infact. Being the smart techie that I am, I try the highly technical solution to any problem that I don't quite understand - I try to turn it off and on again. The same god awful shaking and stuttering. But no epc light. I think to myself, maybe this is just a transient thing. Try to pull out of the parking space, and there it is ... The [xxx] epc and check engine light. But my home's only a mile away, maybe things get better on the way there. You know, its a new car (bought 16 months back, brand new, and has ~7600 miles on it). But no, as I try to "drive" the piece of [xxx], it starts shaking more violently when I get to 25 miles and hour. So, I pull over, and a quick google search tells me to stay below 20 MPH and get it to a dealer asap. So I get the car towed, and the next day the dealer tells me its a faulty ignition coil that has been…
Midnight, driving back from a friends house. My 16 month old (or rather new) jetta se 2012, shakes up when I turn on ignition. I give it 2-3 seconds to calm down. It doesn't. Instead, the epc light goes on. Then the check engine light. Hmm... Weird. Those weren't on like 2 hours back, or ever infact. Being the smart techie that I am, I try the highly technical solution to any problem that I don't quite understand - I try to turn it off and on again. The same god awful shaking and stuttering. But no epc light. I think to myself, maybe this is just a transient thing. Try to pull out of the parking space, and there it is ... The [xxx] epc and check engine light. But my home's only a mile away, maybe things get better on the way there. You know, its a new car (bought 16 months back, brand new, and has ~7600 miles on it). But no, as I try to "drive" the piece of [xxx], it starts shaking more violently when I get to 25 miles and hour. So, I pull over, and a quick google search tells me to stay below 20 MPH and get it to a dealer asap. So I get the car towed, and the next day the dealer tells me its a faulty ignition coil that has been…
Also reported on the 2012 Volkswagen Jetta
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Fuel pump failure
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Other powertrain problem
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 12 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 2012 Volkswagen Jetta?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. 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 2012 Volkswagen Jetta?
12 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