It certainly is. That explains much.

Still can't figure the car out. regular troubleshooting is useless since it's inconsistent. This morning it surged all 16 miles to work. around lunch I drove it 8 miles and it purred like a kitten the whole way with nary a problem. 2 hours later, it died trying to go into a driveway. This evening, it drove home surging almost the whole way. After it had come up to temp, for almost exactly 1/2 mile, the surging stopped.

weird.