Volkswagen Repair: Passat engine problem, air control valve, obd ii

Question
I have a '99 Passat 1.8T manual transmission that did not get much use over the winter.  When trying to start it the other day, the battery was dead (it's a pretty new battery).  After jumping it, the check engine light came on.  And when I stepped on the accelerator to get going, the car just stalled.  

Now, you can step on the gas, and the car won't do anything initially, and then suddenly the engine will rev, but you can't sustain the gas to the engine.  It'll just stall out, or jerk back and forth, even with your foot not moving off the accelerator.  The car is also now idling at an abnormally low RPM.  It is basically undrivable, and jerks back and forth with the engine alternately revving and then nearly stalling.  I'm trying to decide whether I can drive it well enough just to get to the dealer.  Any thoughts on how serious this might be?  I haven't had any real problems with this car before.

thanks.
Scott

Answer
Scott, thank you for your question.  The problem you are having is related to the check engine light.  Sometimes when a battery gets jumpstarted it will cause a spike in the electrical system.  The ECU (on board computer) will see this spike and will start reading all of the sensors improperly.  To fix the problem will require either a handheld scanner or the large scanner available at many repair shops.  Once it is one the scanner (OBD II), you will find out what is causing the problem, though a fault code generated from the ECU.  If I had to guess, it is probably the air control valve to the fuel injection.
Hope that helps