sounds a little like an ignition switch or maybe some corrosion in the connector for the engine harness, maybe a bad oil sender

Our 96 Passat had an issue with the oil light and alarm right after I fixed several oil leaks on it a couple of years ago.    If I went over 2000 rpms for several seconds, the oil light would start flashing and an alarm would start beeping . . . the only way to shut it off was to stop and turn the car off.  This would happen almost every time I tried to accelerate into traffic or if got over about 62 -63 MPH.  It turns out that I had replaced one of the leaking oil sending units (it has 2) with one of the wrong value.  I put the right one in and it got better, but was still having the same issue occasionally.    I had also installed a new filter and changed the oil when I was fixing the leaks.  The filter that was on it was either an STP or Fram (don't remember which one for sure) that I picked up at AutoZone . . . At the suggestion of a couple of techs here on the forum, I changed the oil filter to a Mahle-Knecht brand and the problem went away for good.

Most cars have one low pressure switch to turn the oil light on when you have almost no oil pressure.  My Passat (and I'm sure most other modern VWs) use two switches that require different minimum oil pressures at different RPMs.  Mine just set off an alarm, but perhaps yours is designed to turn the engine off to protect its self.

Zen's comment helped me also remember I also occasionally have the issue of losing power when I'm trying to accelerate through the low gears.  I'll step on the gas in first, and I'll get the normal surge, then lose it.  Then immediately surge again and lose it again. I'll shift to second and the same will happen until I get into 3rd where it still jerks, but not as bad.  Once I'm up to cruising speed, it's fine.  This tends to either happen consistently, or it won't at all.

The two problems have not yet happened at the same time so I'm not sure they're related.  Maybe you guys can tell me.

^^^ Did you ever replace the coil, Shannon?  I don't remember now....

Also, what kind of oil did you use?  And what brand of filter?

We fixed a bunch of oil lights in the Lockhart's days by replaceing the oil filter with a factory one and topped it off with oil.

No Rick, I haven't replaced the coil yet.  May go ahead and do so pretty soon.  Buzzed all over the place tonight with no issues thankfully.

Not sure about the oil/filter.  I let Rick's crew handle that for me 3 months ago, so when I take it back in again soon I'll talk to him about trying one of the ones Zen suggested.

Travis, thanks for the picture.  For the ignition.coil, there's a pretty good video by a guy (bearing01) on YouTube that I watched.  He is actually working on my exact car performing this maintenance.  As long as he's right, I can't get much better than that if we decide to try it ourselves.  The only concern I have about us doing the work is I understand the plastics under the windshield wipers is pretty brittle.

We keep hoping to stumble upon a job that we feel confident enough to tackle, but I'm a little tired of buying replacement pieces.  Maybe this is yet another job I'll let R&M tackle.

So far I've saved enough using coupons to pay for this car, now I'm working on saving enough for my new upholstry and carpet.

unrelated to the topic, but bad picture of a mk3 euro glove box