70-200 VR1 focusing problem

The problem got worse. It will focus from far to near but not the other way. If it does, it'll give up halfway, then stop. If I manually set the focus distance to something like 1.5 meters, then point to something far away, it will focus to minimal distance. This is really seriously driving me insane! I updated the camera's firmware, and I cleaned the contacts. All to no avail. My other lenses don't have this issue.