Passat V6 - Are coils a common issue?

[vortex_]

Today I picked up my 2011 Passat V6 FSI Highline Wagon!
What an utterly magnificent car! Enjoyed the short test drives I did in it over the past week while negotiating the deal, and ultimately decided to buy it.

This morning I picked it up with the eldest daughter, and went for a nice long drive in the hills of Adelaide. Mostly cruising but flexed a couple of corners on the way to Birdwood to see what the sports suspension was like etc - all excellent. I really love this car as a family car.

Before I go on. Today in Adelaide was HOT. For the majority of the time I was driving, the dash was saying the outside temp was between 38c and 41c in places, and at the time of the following issue, was showing 40c. Oh, and it's black...

On the way home, we cruised down the freeway taking it easy, then after a few sets of lights, we took off as normal and the engine started running rough and the CEL came on and started flashing...

Dived off the road and into a car park and gave it a rev - it was clearly down a cylinder. D'oh. Cue swearing!

Not knowing anything about VWs and having literally zero tools with me I called the RAA (our RACQ/NRMA/RACV) and he plugged in a code reader which stated that Cylinder 6 was misfiring. He swapped coils - though I'm mostly convinced he didn't actually swap them - and cyl6 was still misfiring.

Car was put on a flatbed to get it home, and have it booked into the local dealer next week for assessment. Not off to a great start with this new car...

So.. Are these kinds of electrical problems in hot weather common - or did I just discover a weakness in the car on the first day?

[vortex_]

Had a closer look at the car today, turns out the coils had been swapped last night. Hoping for a cheap fix I pulled the plug in cylinder 6, and it was totally fouled. Swapped it with cylinder 1, cleared the error codes and started it back up - it missed a little under idle, then gave it a rev and the plug cleared up.

Took it for a road test and everything is working as it should, no error codes at all

Still going to get the VW dealer to give it a once over next week - but fingers crossed a set of plugs and a few decent drives is all it needs. I guess it stands to reason as it had only been moved short distances over the past couple of months while it was on the market.

[3C4M Guy]

I've never had a problem with my coils ... but ... they were all replaced for free due to a campaign. (Never use the word "recall" with a VW dealer. VWs don't suffer recalls, they are subject to campaigns!) Not sure if the campaign was for 3.6L as well as 3.2L V6? And possibly the coils were an issue in just early years, but it's worth a try asking the dealer if there was a campaign on your vehicle. The campaign number on mine was 28F5 using 022 905 715 A coils and it was done in Feb 2012.