2008 Volkswagen Jetta drivetrain & axles problems

While entering a parking lot, parking space, after stopping completely, the car would not move when accelerator was lightly depressed, there was a 1 to 3 second delay, and then the car lunged forward crashing into the opposing parked vehicle, damaging the fronts of both vehicles. This hesitation was noted once before at about 3800 miles while entering a highway from a stop. Again, the hesitation was followed by a sudden lunge.

While merging onto the freeway, as I reached 60MPH the car lunged and the engine began revving over 6000RPM. It felt like the car was stuck in 3rd gear. The gear/drive mode display LED began flashing constantly. The car would not shift up to a higher gear so I moved into slower lanes and kept the car at about 5000rpm/55MPH until it was safe to stop. The car geared down as I decelerated but appeared to skip a gear and lunged at each shift. I tried switching between drive and sport mode but there was no change.