I have noticed that when the engine is cold and I am accelerating at less than 25 mph, the delivery of power is inconsistent the car bucks or surges. It only occurs within the first 30 seconds or so, then it's fine. No performance mods as of yet. Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

1.8T engine

 

Might be something as easy as spark plug or coilpack on the way out.

 

If that's the case, how will I know which one it is? I'm not getting a CEL so I can't pull codes.

 

You can try to replace one spark plug at the time and go ahead testdrive... But you better change all 4 spark plugs anyways, if you got more than 25000 on them. With coilpacks it might be easy, just try to switch every coilpack with a new one and see whats going on during the testdrive. It might take sometime though, cause like u said it only happens when the car is cold... Oh, and you also might have some codes even though CEL is not ON.

 

OK, so I went ahead and changed out one of the coilpacks and it seems to be running a little smoother, although I can still feel some of the surging. Is there anything else that could be the culprit?

 

LOL its been awhile. Try spark plugs.