18 plate polo with no problems to date!

[mike sel]

Getting back to the original point.

Are there really only a few new Polos with no faults

[SRGTD]

Getting back to the original point.

Are there really only a few new Polos with no faults

Mike; there are probably plenty of new Polos with no faults, owned or leased by the masses who don’t frequent this forum, or other forums, so what’s being reported here by forum members isn’t necessarily representative of the wider Polo-owning and leasing population.

Many of the issues reported will be the types of teething issues associated with a new model, that don’t become apparent during pre-launch testing by VW. ‘Minor’ issues that were identified in the late stages of testing would probably not have been considered significant enough by VW to have impacted their launch plans for the Polo, but would be dealt with as warranty claims if and when owners report them to the dealers, such as the juddering wipers experienced by some forum members. Hopefully, teething / minor issues highlighted on any manufacturers new model are rectified at source at the earliest opportunity - on the production line in the factory by the fitment of revised parts where necessary. It would be interesting to see VW’s data on the number and type of warranty claims that new Polo owners have made compared to the number of new Polos registered.

As has been mentioned early on in this thread, people are slower to praise then they are to criticise, which could be why not too many contributing to this thread are reporting a fault free car. Also, some members are occasional visitors to the forum, so may not have seen this thread yet. Additionally, quite a few forum members are still waiting for their cars to be built / delivered, which limits the number of active members in this section of the forum who have experience of new Polo ownership.

I think that over time, based on forum member activity on this section of the forum, it will be possible to get a good idea of the types of issues that owners are experiencing with their cars. However, I suspect the majority of owners will be more ready to report problems and issues, than they will be to report they have a trouble free car.

[Leif]

Getting back to the original point.

Are there really only a few new Polos with no faults

The old line “If only everything was as reliable as a VW” does not reflect reality. VW are only mid range in the surveys. What’s more modern cars are full of complex electronics which increases the likelihood of something going wrong. This is my third new car. The first, a Ford, spontaneously accelerated which required a warranty repair. The second, a VW Up, had not one issue, mainly because being the base spec it had almost no moving parts to go wrong. It was a new model, and some owners did suffer rattling and clunking gear boxes. My Polo has had numerous issues, which hopefully were just the typical gremlins you expect with a new car. And as SRGTD says, this is a new model, which increases the risk of faults. However, VW has had issues with DSG gearboxes for many years, though new ones are supposed to be sorted.

[silverhairs]

The thing is, not everybody who has or hoping to get their Polo's this year, really want to go and join a forum. There must be thousands of very satisfied Polo owners out there who have never thought of looking to see if there is a forum out there for the bloody elusive Polo, but as I have said before this forum this time next year will be OK with a more balanced membership of members with normal Polo's other than the majority GTI membership we have at the moment. It will be nice to hear from members who have SE's, SEL's Beat and R versions of the Polo's.
For me it would be nice to have the acceleration of the 2 Ltr engine, but for the extra cost of insurance, ect ect and how often can you use the extra power on todays roads? In London it's faster by bike.
Please don't think I'm getting at the GTI owners, but you seem to be the vast majority of members posting in this forum, there must be 5 or 6 posts and a vast viewing members looking at these posts, that have GTI in the title, look at the amount of pages they cover?
As I say, it will be a better forum when we get members in with the lower powered run of Polo's.

[monkeyhanger]

I've only seen 3 other new shape Polos and one of them lives in the next street to me,, they're pretty exclusive around Tyneside.

Glad we're giving you some reading material Silverhairs. People are asking owners questions and are getting responses. Apart from the performance/drive of the 2.0TSI lump, the GTI+ is a great source of info for other models because it has most of the spec that people buying non-performance models with less standard equipment may consider adding in as an option. Perhaps people buying performance models are generally car greater enthusiasts than others who see their can as an A-B tool, so there's a greater proportional representation of GTI/GTI+ owners (either in hand or waiting to be one).


The performance models in the VW range sometimes offer the best value for money if you consider the cost as your monthlies or how much it will lose while you own it. If you look at the PCP examples on the VW website, the GTI+ has the best % retained of RRP at 51%, the worst performing being the SEL at a lowly 41%, and most of the others at around 45% (in those figures I have taken final payment and divided it by the RRP minus any deposit contributions applicable). The top Polo isn't magnitudes more expensive than the cheapest, unlike the Golf R, which is almost twice the price of the Golf S. You can take a midrange Polo, add a few options which hold almost nothing of their purchase price after 3 years/30k miles and be paying GTI+ monthlies or more if you're quite close to GTI RRP. There was a situation with the MK7 Golf whereby the GTD (2.0TDI 184ps) could be had at £5 a month less than the GT (2.0TDI 150ps), even though it had an RRP of £2500 more, because it had a much higher GFV and a hell of a lot more standard equipment. It seemed like you'd be robbing yourself not to pick the GTD over the GT.

There are fuel savings to be made on the 1.0TSI units, but probably not as much as you might think. That 2.0 unit will not be breaking a sweat most of the time, whereas that 1.0 unit will be getting worked hard for a lot of the time. I'm consistently getting 38-40mpg on my 13 mile commute, and it is capable of 43mpg on a longer journey maintaining 80mph on the motorway. I doubt i'd get more than 50mpg with one of the 1.0TSI variants, so in the grand scheme of things, someone getting 50mpg in their 1.0TSI vs someone getting 40mpg in the GTI is going to save £300 a year on their fuel bill - pretty small in the grand scheme of owning a new car, and car tax is an even playing field now for year 2 and onwards, with year 1 differences being soaked up in the OTR price.

If you're an experienced driver with plenty of no-claims discount, the premium difference between the 1.0 95ps and the 2.0 will be tiny. If the insurance trade gives recognition to the GTI+ having the ACC sensor as standard (like it did for all but the S in the Golf range having it) and the crash prevention potential that it offers, the difference could be really low - my Golf R cost less to insure than my old 170TDI Scirocco, and about the same as my 184ps GTD.

[Leif]

The reason I avoided the GTI is fuel economy. I am averaging 64mpg in a 1.0 95 SE and doing about 25,000 miles a year. That said, a Polo GTI does seem like it is fun but practical, a family car with some nippiness. Not sure you should take estimated depreciation too seriously, they are rather rough.

[RUM4MO]

With this thread's title in mind, I was stopped at some traffic lights the other day and an old 6N Polo drove by, looked like it was being used as a mini van by a painter and decorator, now, I reckon that guy does not bother what car he has, he has probably chosen an old Polo because it is reliable and it probably only gets fuelled up when it needs it, MOT'd once a year and taxed - and nothing else, and it will go on and on, hopefully it gets a bit more in the way of servicing than I'm assuming though. My point being, that VW designed Polo does what it said it would do, progress with too many compromises is hardy real progress, total life impact on the environment will probably be less for that car over a lifetime of 20 years 150K miles.

[silverhairs]

Going back to "Monkeyhanger" reply "if you consider the cost as your monthlies or how much it will lose while you own it"

I don't do monthlies, I always pay cash! As for loosing money in percentages, I'm not really bothered, I'm not for throwing money away every 3 years or so, just to have a nice new car sitting on the drive. My car I got now, I've had it for 7 years, and it's still going fine. When I do get delivery of my Polo, I'm giving my 7 year old car to my grand daughter who has just go her degree at university and has just started her first job.
To have PCP, what percentage are you paying , or don't that come into the equation when talking about percentage drop. And as for having PCP and swapping the car instead of paying off the final payment, the cars never yours.

[mike sel]

I've only seen 3 other new shape Polos and one of them lives in the next street to me,, they're pretty exclusive around Tyneside.

Glad we're giving you some reading material Silverhairs. People are asking owners questions and are getting responses. Apart from the performance/drive of the 2.0TSI lump, the GTI+ is a great source of info for other models because it has most of the spec that people buying non-performance models with less standard equipment may consider adding in as an option. Perhaps people buying performance models are generally car greater enthusiasts than others who see their can as an A-B tool, so there's a greater proportional representation of GTI/GTI+ owners (either in hand or waiting to be one).


The performance models in the VW range sometimes offer the best value for money if you consider the cost as your monthlies or how much it will lose while you own it. If you look at the PCP examples on the VW website, the GTI+ has the best % retained of RRP at 51%, the worst performing being the SEL at a lowly 41%, and most of the others at around 45% (in those figures I have taken final payment and divided it by the RRP minus any deposit contributions applicable). The top Polo isn't magnitudes more expensive than the cheapest, unlike the Golf R, which is almost twice the price of the Golf S. You can take a midrange Polo, add a few options which hold almost nothing of their purchase price after 3 years/30k miles and be paying GTI+ monthlies or more if you're quite close to GTI RRP. There was a situation with the MK7 Golf whereby the GTD (2.0TDI 184ps) could be had at £5 a month less than the GT (2.0TDI 150ps), even though it had an RRP of £2500 more, because it had a much higher GFV and a hell of a lot more standard equipment. It seemed like you'd be robbing yourself not to pick the GTD over the GT.

There are fuel savings to be made on the 1.0TSI units, but probably not as much as you might think. That 2.0 unit will not be breaking a sweat most of the time, whereas that 1.0 unit will be getting worked hard for a lot of the time. I'm consistently getting 38-40mpg on my 13 mile commute, and it is capable of 43mpg on a longer journey maintaining 80mph on the motorway. I doubt i'd get more than 50mpg with one of the 1.0TSI variants, so in the grand scheme of things, someone getting 50mpg in their 1.0TSI vs someone getting 40mpg in the GTI is going to save £300 a year on their fuel bill - pretty small in the grand scheme of owning a new car, and car tax is an even playing field now for year 2 and onwards, with year 1 differences being soaked up in the OTR price.

Not so on the fuel econ front. My 1.0 116hp dsg got 69.8 MPG on a 55 mile motorway run the other day (I did go out of my way to get it) and regularly gets around 55MPG. I drove 540 miles 2 weekend s ago and doing usual outside lane motorway speeds got 54.3MPG overall. That`s Summer driving for you. Who knows in the winter. Engine is not struggling or being worked too hard. Its all about style of driving! set the car up in Eco and switch off auto stop and climate control air con and go easy on the gas you will get 60+ MPG easy. the good thing about the 116hp is it will also give you a good turn a pace in sport 0-30mph.

If you're an experienced driver with plenty of no-claims discount, the premium difference between the 1.0 95ps and the 2.0 will be tiny. If the insurance trade gives recognition to the GTI+ having the ACC sensor as standard (like it did for all but the S in the Golf range having it) and the crash prevention potential that it offers, the difference could be really low - my Golf R cost less to insure than my old 170TDI Scirocco, and about the same as my 184ps GTD.

[monkeyhanger]

Going back to "Monkeyhanger" reply "if you consider the cost as your monthlies or how much it will lose while you own it"

I don't do monthlies, I always pay cash! As for loosing money in percentages, I'm not really bothered, I'm not for throwing money away every 3 years or so, just to have a nice new car sitting on the drive. My car I got now, I've had it for 7 years, and it's still going fine. When I do get delivery of my Polo, I'm giving my 7 year old car to my grand daughter who has just go her degree at university and has just started her first job.
To have PCP, what percentage are you paying , or don't that come into the equation when talking about percentage drop. And as for having PCP and swapping the car instead of paying off the final payment, the cars never yours.

I bought mine cash (and my Golf R), but you really should consider how much it is costing you on a monthly basis for comparative value. If there was a dirt cheap lease for the car I want. i'd be all over it and leave my money in the bank. Is it cheaper to change a car every 3 years than keep it for 6, 9 , 12 years? Depends on the car. If you buy a car that depreciates heavily initially, buy it for half RRP at 18 months old and you're laughing. Buy a car that retains a lot of the value while it remains on the radar for the dealerships (small Audis, spoty Audis, SUV Audis (Q), performance VWs and more exotic items), if you keep them a long time, their value does fall off a cliff when you would otherwise get to the point that a Golf GTI would cost twice the price of a Focus ST of the same age. Of course there will always be a difference between the 2, but there's only a certain gap the market will bear. My 3 year old Golf R would be on the foreecourt for £21-22k, which means i'd expect to get £18k px. Bought it with a £4k discount for £28k (5 year warranty, Lapiz blue paint and Pretoria alloys),so it's lost the equivalent of £278 a month over 3 years. There were lease deals for about the same amount, but without the options I added (not many, but they cost a lot when you add options to a lease and are paying 100% of the RRP over 2 years). When it's 4 years old it'll probably be £15k px and £17k on the forecourt. Any older than that and the VW garage isn't interested - perhaps i'll get £11k through Autotrader if I can stomach all the tyre kickers, offensively low offers and time wasters. If I keep it to 6 or 8 year old, it'll still probably be losing me £180-200 a month, but then i'm into tyres, shocks, batteries etc. Is it really that much cheaper to keep the car 7 years and have it worth next to nowt than chopping in every 3 years with a decent discount, and having the reassurance of the warranty (VWs aren't that reliable these days, within the warranty period, anyway)?

I actually tried to sell the almost 3 year old A1 that the Polo replaced through Autotrader recently and got one genuine call, the day after I sold it to the Audi garage because I felt i'd run out of time to get my money together for the Polo. I was selling it for £3k less than the Audi garage price, with a 5 year warranty and lots of extras. It was the cheapest one on Autotrader that didn't have double the mileage, and no-one has £10k without going through the car loan route - worst £50 I ever spent, Autotrader seems pretty poor and pretty expensive these days.

For a car that does retain a lot of the value, about 1/3 of the PCP monthly is interest. I'm avoiding that. Even so, despite owning mine outright from day 1, I don't really think of a car as a permanent posession. You can buy a nice watch and have it last a lifetime, but no-one keeps a car forever and they don't get significantly cheaper the older they unless you're playing banger roulette. I'm always considering how much this car is costing me a month for as long as I keep it. There are plenty of cars out there that i'd like, but they'd cost me too much per month in depreciation, even if the sticker price seems reasonable. Of course VAG know this - a £20k Skoda can cost more in depreciation for 3 years than a £26k Audi of the same size and engine type.

[monkeyhanger]

The reason I avoided the GTI is fuel economy. I am averaging 64mpg in a 1.0 95 SE and doing about 25,000 miles a year. That said, a Polo GTI does seem like it is fun but practical, a family car with some nippiness. Not sure you should take estimated depreciation too seriously, they are rather rough.

If you're doing 25k miles pa then depreciation is going to be brutal and you won't even have any VW warranty when you hit 60k miles at 2.4 years old. If I was doing 25k miles pa, i'd expect my mpg to improve accordingly if I was doing 100 miles per working day - somewhere in the region of 48-50mpg when the car has loosened up a bit, without changing my driving style. I got 43mpg on an 85 mile journey, with a "tight as a drum" 500 miles on the clock, maintaining 80mph and 4 people in the car. If i'd have religiously stuck to 70, i'd have been in the high 40s. Still off your 64mpg, but mpg does improve for all car on longer journeys. someone doing 5 miles to work is going to be worse than someone doing 10 miles and a hell of a lot worse than someone doing 50 miles, even with a very similar driving style. That warm-up phase has a big effect on a short journey, and average speed plays a huge part also - i've seen 44mpg on my Golf R for a journey stuck at 50mph on a long stretch of roadworks motorway.

[silverhairs]

The thing is I don't loose any sleep worrying about the depreciation of the car sitting on my drive, it's the last thing on my mind. I've never had a mortgage (and I don't rent). But as I said I don't have to have a new or up to a 3 year old just to show how well off I am

" but you really should consider how much it is costing you on a monthly basis for comparative value".

[monkeyhanger]

The thing is I don't loose any sleep worrying about the depreciation of the car sitting on my drive, it's the last thing on my mind. I've never had a mortgage (and I don't rent). But as I said I don't have to have a new or up to a 3 year old just to show how well off I am

" but you really should consider how much it is costing you on a monthly basis for comparative value".

Your quotation of mine is relevant no matter your financial situation. Why wouldn't you get a new car every 3 years if the way the financials are stacked, there's pennies difference between keeping 2 cars concurrently 3 years years each and keeping one for 6 years, having to risk something going wrong outside warranty, having to replace consumable items that'll last 3 years but not 6 (tyres, brake pads, brake duscs, maybe a battery or shocks).

As much as I like performance VWs, I only buy new because the dealerships ask as much for a year old one as you can get a discounted new one for. I bought a £24k car for £21k and expect it to be worth £12k at 3 years old in px or private sale. To lose about 38% of list price on a new car over 3 yesrs these days is good going. That seems pretty shrewd to me if you like having a new car on a regular basis. You don't have to be trying to impress everyone else with your car choice. I care more for my enjoyment of a car I want than whether others will be impressed.

Your mortgage/rent-free lifestyle is pretty unique, most people here will be PCPing and I can only think of a few ways people could buy a house outright with never having rented :

1. Inheritance/ ricb parents bought you a house.

2. Working in a role for many years in which accomodation is provided, but pays enough to accumulate enough savings to buy a house.

3 living with patents or the in-laws to a very late age while banking most of your wages.

There is no shame in borriwing money to buy a house or a car, or even leasing a car.

The main point of my recent posts here is to show that sometimes the dearest option (RRP) is sometimes nowhere near the dearest option on a monthly basis - due to a favourable depreciation profile, depreciation being by far the biggest running cost of a newish car.

As most people deal in monthly transactions both for income and outgoings, it seems a logical way to consider costs for most.

[Leif]

The reason I avoided the GTI is fuel economy. I am averaging 64mpg in a 1.0 95 SE and doing about 25,000 miles a year. That said, a Polo GTI does seem like it is fun but practical, a family car with some nippiness. Not sure you should take estimated depreciation too seriously, they are rather rough.

If you're doing 25k miles pa then depreciation is going to be brutal and you won't even have any VW warranty when you hit 60k miles at 2.4 years old. If I was doing 25k miles pa, i'd expect my mpg to improve accordingly if I was doing 100 miles per working day - somewhere in the region of 48-50mpg when the car has loosened up a bit, without changing my driving style. I got 43mpg on an 85 mile journey, with a "tight as a drum" 500 miles on the clock, maintaining 80mph and 4 people in the car. If i'd have religiously stuck to 70, i'd have been in the high 40s. Still off your 64mpg, but mpg does improve for all car on longer journeys. someone doing 5 miles to work is going to be worse than someone doing 10 miles and a hell of a lot worse than someone doing 50 miles, even with a very similar driving style. That warm-up phase has a big effect on a short journey, and average speed plays a huge part also - i've seen 44mpg on my Golf R for a journey stuck at 50mph on a long stretch of roadworks motorway.

I don’t care about depreciation, I kept my VW Up for six years and 130,000 miles, and it cost relatively little to maintain. I hope to keep the Polo more than six years, as my mileage will drop significantly in a few years t8me. Incidentally these small three pot engines warm up very quickly, far more so than older engines, and I get good mpg over 15 miles and even 6 miles. The real killer is traffic and congestion as you suggest.

[Leif]

The thing is I don't loose any sleep worrying about the depreciation of the car sitting on my drive, it's the last thing on my mind. I've never had a mortgage (and I don't rent). But as I said I don't have to have a new or up to a 3 year old just to show how well off I am

" but you really should consider how much it is costing you on a monthly basis for comparative value".

Your quotation of mine is relevant no matter your financial situation. Why wouldn't you get a new car every 3 years if the way the financials are stacked, there's pennies difference between keeping 2 cars concurrently 3 years years each and keeping one for 6 years, having to risk something going wrong outside warranty, having to replace consumable items that'll last 3 years but not 6 (tyres, brake pads, brake duscs, maybe a battery or shocks).

As much as I like performance VWs, I only buy new because the dealerships ask as much for a year old one as you can get a discounted new one for. I bought a £24k car for £21k and expect it to be worth £12k at 3 years old in px or private sale. To lose about 38% of list price on a new car over 3 yesrs these days is good going. That seems pretty shrewd to me if you like having a new car on a regular basis. You don't have to be trying to impress everyone else with your car choice. I care more for my enjoyment of a car I want than whether others will be impressed.

Your mortgage/rent-free lifestyle is pretty unique, most people here will be PCPing and I can only think of a few ways people could buy a house outright with never having rented :

1. Inheritance/ ricb parents bought you a house.

2. Working in a role for many years in which accomodation is provided, but pays enough to accumulate enough savings to buy a house.

3 living with patents or the in-laws to a very late age while banking most of your wages.

There is no shame in borriwing money to buy a house or a car, or even leasing a car.

The main point of my recent posts here is to show that sometimes the dearest option (RRP) is sometimes nowhere near the dearest option on a monthly basis - due to a favourable depreciation profile, depreciation being by far the biggest running cost of a newish car.

As most people deal in monthly transactions both for income and outgoings, it seems a logical way to consider costs for most.

I only buy new cars, and I too came to the conclusion that one year old cars from a dealer are not financially appealing. And if the car is sold at one year, did the person look after it? Or did they tend to push the engine too much? In fact I reckon that used cars from dealers are not worth buying if you have the money to pay cash for a new one. That said, someone who does high mileage would perhaps be best to buy a low mileage 2 year old car, and keep it for 3-4 years.

My first car was a 4 year old Nissan approved Micra. It cost £4,000 and lasted four years before flying south for the winter. So it worked out no cheaper per year than buying new, in fact less so because consumables on a new car are new. And an advantage of a new car is that I am the only driver, and I am rather sedate and drive sympathetically, not thrashing the clutch and gears. That helps the car to last without faults. I’ve done 130,000 miles and 160,000 miles in cars on the same clutches.

As for new cars not being more expensive, I believe that affordable cars are best kept for 7-8 years and then sold on. The brake disks on my Up lasted 80,000 miles, and were not expensive to replace. I replaced the cam belt, a bit expensive, but it’s only every five years or so that it needs doing. If a car is driving well, with few faults, then it’s best kept for longer. I sold my faultless Up as I was concerned about it dying, I needed a car for work, and I wanted a posher car.

By affordable cars I mean Ford, VW etc as opposed to BMW, Mercedes etc. VW seem to last well, and you can probably keep one longer, assuming it’s not a DSG, which I would sell after six years as repairs can be expensive. Premium cars probably are worth buying used, as they cost so much when new, far more than they are worth in my biased view.