2004 TDI Randomly Reving Up

[BalanceGuy]

My 2004 TDI New Beetle will randomly rev up while driving it. It has an automatic transmission. It will suddenly go from 2100 rpm's to 3000 rpm's and suddenly drop back down to 2100 again. It will do this multiple times and then it will run fine for awhile and repeat the same thing over. It does not shift gears when this happens. I cannot find anything in common from one time to another. Any ideas? It has approximately 101,000 miles on it.

[DZLBUG]

Whats the maintenance history?

This is the 6 speed DSG, it is technically an automatic transmission...but internally it is nothing like an automatic. It is an electronically controlled manual transmission.

First off, this transmission has very specific fluid that MUST be changed every 40k miles. My fear is that this has not been done and damage has occurred as a result. At over $6000 for a replacement transmission, this is unfortunate.

But before you get too worried, the first thing to do would be to get it scanned for codes with VCDS. Generic OBD scan tools do not work. Depending on what you find out, a transmission fluid change is the next likely step.