Yikes! I would have sh!t!
A refrigeration mechanic mate had one too. Think it was one of the little 1.3litre diesel things with both (belt driven) supercharger+turbocharging with the DSG. He had so many problems with it, when the trauma was finally over he worked out it actually spent more total time in the possession of John Hughes than it did him during his period of ownership. Eventually John Hughes gave up and imported an entire new complete powertrain assembly from Germany (motor+gearbox+DME), installed it and then bought the fixed car back off him because it was obvious he wouldn't even be able to give it away because it had such a bad reputation amongst his social circle at that point.I knew a guy who worked in VW customer care at the time that was all going on. interesting times for him.
My experience was no where near that bad, but it was bad enough that I steer clear of all VAG cars now.