Got new Polo SE 1.4TDi yesterday. Initial thoughts.

Chat about your facelift 9n3 Polo - Including the 9N3 Polo GTI!
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leonsmith
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Got new Polo SE 1.4TDi yesterday. Initial thoughts.

Post by leonsmith »

Hi All,

Have just swapped my 9n (Oo==oO) 1.9 TDi Sport for a new 1.4 TDi SE. I swap every 3 years and wanted to save myself a bit of money this time around.

Was a little worried about loosing the 20 odd horsepower but so far so good. ok, i'm keeping it under 3,000 rpm at the moment, but it feels hardly any different than the 1.9 on my 50 mile roundtrip to work so far - same gear in all the same places, no more right foot needed than before. All good. With a bit of luck, its doing even more mpg too! Time will tell if the missing 20 horses will make much of a difference when overtaking.

I think the new Polo looks much nicer - the redesigned front, indicators on the mirrors, colour-coded bumper strips as standard, altered rear window to lower the rear wiper a bit, chromed rear lights....it's all much more stylish.

Inside, I especially like the armrest in the rear seats with its hidden cubby box and the fact that there are 3 proper seat belts with headrests, rather than a lap belt in the middle which is good for nothing.

The interior lights are the same as the 9N and are very good, as are the additional cubbys under the front seats. Finally, VW have also put map pockets behind the front seats!

The mp3 front CD unit is a definate step forward. At last, we don't have to waste space in the dash with a cassette player! the mp3 unit seems to work very well, reading in a (cheap) CDR I made in a hurry last night, allowing me to move through the folder structure nicely, displaying the first 8 or so characters of them. Pressing the 'I' button during a track also displays the track name in a scrolling way, which is kinda nice. All-in-all, much, much better than the 6 disk front loading changer that my Sport had, which I had changed about 4 times due to various faults.

Handling wise, the new car feels a lot more comfortable over the bumps, mainly because i've dropped the 'Sport' suspension and switched from 205/45 to 185/65 tyres. Yes, it won't stick to the road quite as well, but frankly i don't do much 'drifting' round roundabouts these days ;-) I like the new found comfort. The steering seems lighter than the 9N, but I don't mind that either.

Nothing else springs to mind.....early days yet. I'll post a pic when i've got one to hand.

.....one more thing actually. Has anyone done the 9N so called 'Cubby Box Mod' on the 9N3? I took my centre console cubby box out of the 9N before I traded it in, and although the 9N3 dash looks identical, i'd really like to be absolutely sure before I set about pulling bits out of it!


Cheers,

Leon.
dxg
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Post by dxg »

Hello there Leon! Long time no see.

It sounds like you're keeping true to the Polo faith - unlike some people from our era (er - me!). I test drove that car on the press day and thought it was pretty good, although it struck me as quite loud - I'm assuming it's the 80hp upgrade of the 3 cylinder from the 9N?

I wonder if you could do something for me (and perhaps others reading this), however?

As you've been able to confirm that the new head units definately can play mp3s (rather than WMAs like the early ones), could you have a look to see what the unit's called (i.e. if it's not Beta or Gamma what is it?) and what revision it is (if there's anything visible from the outside on in the instructions).

I think this could be an ideal upgrade if you can confirm it works. What's the sound quality like? I don't supposed you'd be interesting in doing a quick write up of it (maybe even with pictures?), or am I pushing it too far?

Thanks,

Deek.
(The reason for my interest should become apparant in a few days, all being well!).
leonsmith
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Post by leonsmith »

Hi Dxg,

Yes, its the new 3 cylinder 80bhp engine. Does seem a little louder at tick over, but no louder when cruising. Some people reported vibration from the 9N 3 cylinder engine, but mine is perfectly smooth.

I'll take some pics of the new head unit and post them back tomorrow - no problem. As I said earlier - very impressed so far. Read my disk perfectly, no delays when playing back, skipped through folders and tracks perfectly quickly, without lots of 'retry' noises than I used to get from the front loading cd changer. I wonder if it will play .wma's now you've mentioned them.....will have to check. Edit (June 6th): Checked at the weekend and it doesn't play .wma's - bit of a shame as they're smaller.

More tomorrow.

Cheers,

Leon.
Last edited by leonsmith on Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mouse_GTI
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Post by Mouse_GTI »

Sounds good. Get some pics up!
leonsmith
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Post by leonsmith »

As promised, here are a couple of pics of the new mp3 compatible stereo.

Image

Image

So, you've got the standard radio preset buttons down the edge, but you've also got the folder skip buttons beneath the screen - these advance you through the folder structure on your CDR. I'm assuming it'll only move through folders at a root level, but have yet to test that. Knob on the left is volume, whilst the one on the right does manual radio tuning and track skip. I find them much better than buttons, less fiddly to adjust as your going along etc, but I don't think they look as nice in your dash.
Standard fleet of buttons at the bottom. The AS/i button, pressed when listening to an .mp3 disk will display the track information in a scrolling format. Obviously the size of the screen is the real limiting factor here, but it works well enough.

Sound quality from the standard 8 speaker system in my Polo seems very good to me, but i'm no audiophile.

Certainly I think it's a big improvement over the cassette 'gamma' and front loading cd changer I had in my previous Polo.

About my only complaint is that I don't believe it has the auto volume increase that the gamma radio used to have. Can anyone confirm that? (I don't seem to have the user manual for my radio!)
Last edited by leonsmith on Fri May 26, 2006 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mouse_GTI
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Post by Mouse_GTI »

Exactly the same as mine 8)
leonsmith
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Post by leonsmith »

Here's a picture of the car too......standard stuff.

Image
Mouse_GTI
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Post by Mouse_GTI »

Nice colour too
dimpalz
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Post by dimpalz »

ooooooo it's lovely! My 3 door 1.4 petrol SE is on order, I'll happily wait til my birthday to get it even tho it'll probably be here before then. How long did you have to wait for yours??? I don't really like sport styling and it's nice to know the SE has all the good stuff, this will be my first car and I could just burst with all the excitement lol.

I'll be interested in the cuddy box mod too (if anyone else would answer the bloody question! :evil: ) What colour's ur interior, and do you have any shots of the back seat? I'll be gettin the glovebox ipod adapter seeing as I dont own any CDs :oops: but it's good to know I can still make some and everything will be cool.

Thanks for the info =)
Last edited by dimpalz on Sat May 08, 2021 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
dimpalz
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Post by dimpalz »

BTW what's that MIX button for?
Mouse_GTI
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Post by Mouse_GTI »

I can't remember. I've still yet to have a proper play about with the stereo
leonsmith
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Post by leonsmith »

I haven't tried the mix button on the stereo yet either but I assume it generates a random playlist from the tracks available on a CD.

Yes, the SE has all the gadgets you could want with the possible exception of the on-board computer that the Sport model has. I used to quite enjoy looking at the outside temp, journey time and mpg especially, but i'm not missing it too much.

The iPOD adapter will be an interesting option - I guess that's just a 3.5mm jack plug? or does it allow you to control the iPOD from the head unit too?

It took me just 2 weeks from going into VW to order the car, to driving it away. If they have a car in the country which fits your specs then it's literally the time it takes to move it from one end of the country to wherever you are. I was lucky in that I only wanted a regular SE, with no optional extras, and wasn't particularly bothered about exterior or interior colours. You would have had a job getting an 'S' model as they've had a special low APR deal going which has tempted lots of people, but they had a few SE's to choose from and what looked like plenty of Sport models. If you spec a car from the factory then the waiting time is around 12 weeks :shock: I can remember ordering a brand new fully loaded Mk3 Golf GTi 2.0 about 10 years ago, which was just as they were moving from the Mk3 to the Mk4 and it took 5 months! ....it's not at all pleasant waiting that long, I can tell you!

I have the Flannel Grey interior which I'm really pleased with. The seat material feels very high quality and nice and soft too - much more comfortable that the interior I had on my TDi Sport previously.

I'll take a pic of my rear seats and post later. I'm particularly pleased with the back. 3 proper seat belts are a bonus (I have children) and the armrest is a nice extra for passengers - as mentioned before, it has a cubby inside it too, but it's quite thin so i'm not sure what you could use it for. I presume you get this on a 3 door model, but you'd have to check.

I'm up to about 400 miles now and so far so good. Very pleased with the 1.4 TDi engine and fuel economy seems as good as expected. I was getting 52 average mpg on my 50 mile roundtrip to work on the 1.9 TDi, so i'm hoping to at least equal that whilst the engine settles in and then hopefully get it up to the high 50's.

I'm looking forward to completing the 1k mile running in time and being able to play with the engine a bit more but even keeping it under 3,000 rpm still gives you plenty of power. For example, at 70 mph you're only doing 2,500 rpm :-) I do plenty of overtaking during my route to work, which is almost entirely 60mph limit rural areas and it glides past beautifully at around 60 - 60 seems a good speed for the engine - plenty of torque available.

I hope we see a few more people reporting back here with their 9N3 views! :-)
leonsmith
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Interior Pics

Post by leonsmith »

As requested. Pics of the interior. Quick mobile phone pics, I hope they're ok. I've sized them down to keep the loading time fast but can post full size versions if required.

Image
Flannel grey interior. Rear. VW have at last added map pockets to the back of the front seats. Proper seat belt in the middle with associated head rest. Head rest can raise up, but lowers right down to get out of drivers rear mirror vision.

Image
centre armrest down.

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centre armrest cubby

Image
front.
Mouse_GTI
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Post by Mouse_GTI »

I love playing about with the computer
leonsmith
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Post by leonsmith »

Mouse_GTI wrote:I love playing about with the computer
Yeah, it's a nice addition to the car. Like I say, I found outside temp and MPG information the most useful. You probably know already but don't forget that the computer has two memory settings switched between by a button underneath the right hand stick - I've spoken to a couple of people who didn't even know it was there!

Cheers,

Leon.
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