Scott,

You wrote:  "You could also try blocking off radiator air inlet, like all
big trucks do
in the winter.  You should have your heater hoses insulated, and run the
warmest thermostat you can find."

This is what I thought would do the trick at the beginning. In fact, the
problem is not one of overcooling (if it were, a closed thermostat would
immediately solve the problem) but of UNDERheating. That's what was
bothering me to begin with. If the thermostat is closed, it shouldn't matter
what happens with the radiator, the coolant lines, the heater cores, etc. as
there is no circulation anyway. Testing the tstat and finding it good left
me stymied. Again, this is a problem with lack of heat generation, not
overcooling. You could pour the coolant out on the ground and it would still
run cold (because in fact, it's not "running" in these condtions, just
sucking in cold air.)

Putting a manual bypass on the idle switch should solve this problem. But
I'm wondering what that would do in other conditions, especially when you
really are idling. Wouldn't it produce an abnormally high/fluctuating idle?
Also, it seems like when you bypassed the idle/decel switch in times of
ordinary, ie. not freezing weather, deceleration, you would get worse gas
mileage.

Any 2.1-ers out there with this problem? I'm wondering if VW realized there
was a design error and corrected it in later versions.

Geza