Starter motor Denso or OEM Volkswagen

They want $514 for an oem so I went with a Denso hopefully it works, it was around $330

A reman Denso starter is a reasonable compromise.

Mine did the same thing recently. I would turn the key and everything would light up, car would act normal, but the starter wouldn’t engage. I replaced the starter with a reman Denso unit off of RockAuto and I’ve been good to go since.

Thank you all for the tips and advice. I've ordered a Denso (OEM) starter. I'm relived we ruled out the flywheel.

I agree with the other fellow, your OEM starter is goin to be much more robust than what you buy.

If it's OE it is Denso and worth keeping compared to the parts stores garbage.

My experience with a failing starter on a 2nd gen was slow cranking. I initially thought battery, even had the parts store test and tell me the battery was bad (they were wrong). After battery replacement the symptoms remained. Got a reman Denso starter, that fixed it.

a bit(a lot actually) of internet research got me a denso clone(looks like a hi torq) meant for a kubota tractor.

Mine has done this on my '23 Arteon a couple of times. Mine has even went so far as not wanting to start with the start button! Acted like the starter was dead.

I assumed my starter was going out so I replaced it with a new Denso one and it fixed the issue for maybe two weeks. After that it started to not crank first try and would take a while, now it’s almost every time I start it, it takes a while. I hear the starter spin and click every time so I assume it’s just not engaging the flywheel.