Taking it to another shop could be a good option to get a second opinion.
As I mentioned earlier, consider getting an under-hood battery disconnect switch.
I assume you lock the car when you park it. If so ask the shop if they tested for a draw with the car locked.
I once had my ass handed to me with a draw I could not find. It turned out the lock relay was bad and would stick on. If the car was unlocked no problem and since we leave cars in the shop unlocked… Get the picture?
Damn. I wish I had thought of this. After a recent crash, my Yukon developed an intermittent draw that was never found. I tried, the dealer tried, a specialty electrical shop tried. For weeks, and we couldn’t track it down.
I finally sold the truck and got a new one. I’m just saying, it’s one option! 
I took note of this ealier and saved the link. It’s an option of second to last resort.
Foolishly I assumed they would test for this since that’s how I found the car dead in the first place. I suppose I should learn by now what happens when one assumes. That’s why I’m wanting to find out if I can test it myself in that condition but I don’t want to stand over the meter for hours and hours.
…and there it is - the option of last resort.
Yes, with the right equipment.* But I doubt this will be helpful.
It sounds like you’re speculating that the draw might not appear right away but could pop up after it sat for a while. I won’t say that’s impossible, but I think it’s extremely unlikely. I’ve never heard of such a case. The matter here is the possibility that the draw exists in a condition that wasn’t part of the testing. If a draw is present only with the car locked, it should show up right away if tested for when the car is locked.
What is probably more of a concern is that many cars will have a significant draw for some time after the key is removed, due to modules that don’t shut down right away as part of normal operation. It can take from several minutes to a couple of hours for all the modules to go into their “sleep” mode, which is when a meaningful test for an abnormal draw can be performed. Whether this applies to your car I don’t know.
I can’t think of anything that would cause the battery to go dead other than an abnormal draw or a faulty battery. If a battery fails a given test, that proves that it’s bad, but if it passes that doesn’t necessarily prove that it’s good. Did Interstate have the battery long enough to see if it lost its charge prematurely over a several day period? If not, perhaps the battery is still a suspect. If so, I’d think there has to be a draw that hasn’t been caught in the act yet, and checking for that with the vehicle locked is the logical next step.
If there’s any question that the shop is doing the testing properly, going to another shop would make sense.
*To get a record of an electrical value over a long period of time requires a multimeter with a MIN/MAX record function or an oscilloscope that can be set to a slow enough time setting so it could show several hours on its display. Any auto shutoff feature would have to be turned off.
A DMM with RS-232 output is perfect for long-term low sample rate data logging.
Something like this.
Of course, you need to dedicate a computer to the task of recording the data…
When you said the car “hesitates” when starting on a cold morning, do you mean it doesn’t crank immediately, doesn’t crank very fast, or cranks but doesn’t fire?
One of the many common 90’s VW electrical gremlins was sticky ignition switches. On VW’s the equivalent of the “ACC” position is simply sticking the key in the ignition. Sometimes the switch gets stuck and the things that are powered in that position will stay powered after you pull the key out. The most obvious indication of this is that your radio will stay on when you pull they key out, but you say you’re anal about switching it off before turning the engine off, so you might not notice it. I could definitely see that being an intermittent problem and possibly one that doesn’t reproduce during warm weather or when parked in a nice toasty garage. I’d especially eye that with suspicion if your cold weather starting problem could possibly be related to an ignition switch.
Also you don’t happen to have an aftermarket radio, do you? That can also lead to some problems with the funky VW radio wiring set up.
Does the meter come with the monitoring software, beowulff?
Also, the battery is not above suspicion. This is the second battery in as many years. Interstate replaced the first one a year ago. It was a year old and dead just like this one. A bench test revealed the first one was faulty. This one is a year old now and found dead like the first. Bench tests did not reveal a fault but as you say, Gary T, doesn’t mean it’s not another bad battery. What dumb fucking luck it would be if it’s another dud. That’s why I suspect a random drain. But you’d think it would take less than a year to drain the battery if it was a drain, right?
I’m second guessing this all over the place.
By “hesitates” I mean the typical weak battery symptoms. Like the starter motor is turning through thick molasses. You know, that - woo-woo-woo-catch sound. Not the cranking like a bastard but doesn’t want to start deal.
It’s a 2000 model so I’m not sure the 90’s gremlins apply here.
No after market electronics involved. Everything is stock. The starter motor is original. It does have a rare issue with a sharp grind once the engine has caught. Like the solenoid (?) doesn’t pull the start gear back in time and it grinds as the engine takes over. That happens once in 10-20 starts and last about a second. I have no idea if it could be a contributing factor here.
I’m retarded about shutting off all the electrics before turning the car off, as a habit: fan, radio, lights. And I never use the vanity mirror. 
Sure, it seems to only take two or three days, but the the drain may have just started recently.
It’s my commuter car. It sits regularly for 2-3 days on weekends without being started/driven. Took a year to drain the first new battery. Another year to drain the second new battery.
If the draw is that sporadic, it’ll be a bastard to find and resolve.
If you buy the meter new, yes.
But, even if you don’t get the software with the meter, they generally just spew out readings on the serial port, and you can use something like Hyperterminal (or Zterm on the Mac) to capture the data.