Hi all,
Just signed up. Great forum by the way!
I have just aquired a MK3 Polo Fox (1050cc) squareback on 47K miles and really good condition. I aim to use it to go back and fore to work as I have a Audi S3 and wish to keep the miles low on it.
I work about 35 miles away which is mainly motorway. I used it today for the first time and it seems happy to sit at 70 but wondered if this was putting too much strain on the car on a daily basis!
Does anyone else do this sort of mileage/speed daily? Am I straining the engine or will it cope fine?
I've heard these engines are pretty tough and I plan to service it regularly.
Looking forward to your comments.
Cheers
Rich.
Polo Fox suitability for motorway driving?
Thanks for the reply,metz wrote:is it a 4 or 5 speed car? (not sure what the fox was)
5 speed will be a little more comfortable on the motorway but guys on here travel up and down motorways everyday with their 4 speed 1ltrs without any probs.
oh and welcome
Its a 4 speed unfortunately. Good to hear that others are doing the same thing as me.
Cheers
Rich.
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amstrange1
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It should take it all day long. I bought my 1.3 CL with 105k on the clock 4 years ago, and it ran extremely well after spending most of its life doing motorway miles - they're good for a car, much better than short bursts of town driving. Having said that, the car's not got that engine in any more, but that's not coz it broke!
well I've got a 1L mk2 and I do 10,000 miles a year in it getting to work and back, and it will cruise all day at 70 on the motorway (although it goes feel a wee bit underpowered sometime), and in summer it will cruise at 90 all day long.
however in winter, its always a bit more sluggish and the air is too cold (you'll have similar experiences with the fox).
ahh and my cars got 140,000 miles on the clock, so its just about run in.
you shouldnt have any problems with your car, and the people who know me certainly know that I use my car (like having a spare engine in the boot for a month)
however in winter, its always a bit more sluggish and the air is too cold (you'll have similar experiences with the fox).
ahh and my cars got 140,000 miles on the clock, so its just about run in.
you shouldnt have any problems with your car, and the people who know me certainly know that I use my car (like having a spare engine in the boot for a month)
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Gareth_GT_Hatch
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Yes I know thats applicable to any car, I was talking about 'good' oil. Not the **** you get down halfrauds.
Get a good "Ester" based oil which assist's the additive pack in a motor oil formulation because its surface-active (electrostatically attracted to metal surfaces), so help to reduce wear and friction. While it's fluid at very low temperatures and at high temperatures so its very chemically stable and have low volatility (don’t evaporate away).
Lastly Ester help to prevent hardening and cracking of oil seals at high temperatures.
Just don't put s**t in it, after all it is the blood of the car.
I run our polo on SILKOLENE XTR 10W/40, which is a semi-synthetic. Cost me £25. Which is a bit more than what you get down halfrauds
But then you get what you pay for and all I'll say is that the difference it has made over what the previous owner put in (Magatec on the recepts) is amazing the engines seams to run so much better and soother.
Si
Get a good "Ester" based oil which assist's the additive pack in a motor oil formulation because its surface-active (electrostatically attracted to metal surfaces), so help to reduce wear and friction. While it's fluid at very low temperatures and at high temperatures so its very chemically stable and have low volatility (don’t evaporate away).
Lastly Ester help to prevent hardening and cracking of oil seals at high temperatures.
Just don't put s**t in it, after all it is the blood of the car.
I run our polo on SILKOLENE XTR 10W/40, which is a semi-synthetic. Cost me £25. Which is a bit more than what you get down halfrauds
But then you get what you pay for and all I'll say is that the difference it has made over what the previous owner put in (Magatec on the recepts) is amazing the engines seams to run so much better and soother.Si
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GroovyCarrot
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Yeah, you'll have no problem cruising at anything up to the high 70s all day every day. Anything over 80 is pushing it a bit for constant use, but it should take it alright anyway. Changing the gearbox isn't hard really.. I've not done it with the engine still in the car, but I've fitted a 5 speed box to my mk2 and certainly the theory of it is perfectly doable, shouldn't think it'll take more than a day or so first time you do it. If you're cruising on motorways a lot I imagine it'd be worthwhile, but make sure you get a 4+e rather than a 5 speed, as this will give you the same gear ratios as you have at the moment plus an extra cruising gear, whereas the 5 speed will keep roughly the same top gear but will shorten everything else to give a very close ratio gearbox - fun, but not much of an improvement on the motorways I always wonder if it's possible to combine the two to create a 6 speed box.. but I don't think my engineering skills stretch that far 
Welcome to the forums, btw
I always wonder if it's possible to combine the two to create a 6 speed box.. but I don't think my engineering skills stretch that far Welcome to the forums, btw
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Tahrey1043
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Quick interjection before getting more than about halfway down the thread
1043 4 speeds seem quite happy sitting at 90 (or whatever you can get em up to on full bore). Haven't studied the real long term effects of this, but i've put more than 20k miles on mine so far with probably 10k being merciless blasting, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of trouble. You can't redline it in 4th after all, not without a VERY VERY big hill, and the VW redline is traditionally quite conservative.
(NEED a quicker car
)
70 will be nothing to one! It'll run at 70mph til the end of time probably, if you keep it serviced, even though it's doing like 4000rpm...
IIRC the 5-speed gearboxes offered for the 1-litre didn't change the top gear much from the 4 speed, if at all, just gave you a closer set of ratios in order to perk up the almost non-existant acceleration... Some might have got a more GT-like box (eg Metz's saloon), which is a *little* bit better for cruising (say 10% tops) but not quite as good for speed in either 4th or 5th. Was hoping he had something like a regular 4 speed with a motorway 5th on it, but the results are inconclusive so far.
If you really want motorway laziness with some capability left, a 1.3 non-GT 5 speed is where it's at ... the fuel consumption will actually be better (lower rpms and not having the throttle kicked wide open anywhere near so often - amazing what 10hp reserve power can do), there's no change in the tax band, and the extra insurance (maybe a couple hundred quid a year if you're already being buttraped by the brokers) is probably well worth it.
EDIT: Yep, they're designed to cope with driving situations up to and including going all the way across Deutschland in one day on the unrestricted motorways. Any speed that you can eke it up to should be fine unless you regularly go over Shap...
An 8P may be a decent swap for the motorway but might actually prove to be *too* long. As it comes off a 1.3, the overall gearing (based on the differential) is another 5% or so higher - so all gears from 1 thru to 4 go upwards (ever so slightly more sluggish acceleration and an mph or so off the top speed), and 5th will be crazy, like 22.3mph/1000 - not even doing 3200rpm at 70mph, which is close to the limit of what a 1-litre's power output can support. It'll still do it fine, and you could probably run up to about 80 on the flat, but you'd be changing down quite a lot... (you would get awesome economy at 50-60 however!)
I'm thinking along Groovy's lines - some kind of hybrid would be grand. But that would be even more complicated than swapping the box out. He's been brave enough to do that.... I wouldn't be. I almost did it with my own polo, waybackwhen - £100 for the box, and estimated at another £100 for the fitting, but it all went t**s up ('box arrived badly damaged and the code was wrong, too - it literally took months for me to scrape back the hard-earned from the robbing b*stards and it spoiled me on the idea).
Shouldn't be too difficult to make it (or a brilliant 6-speed - apparently the 5 speeds have the requisite bits in the right places) if you somehow get hold of an 8P and a 1-litre 5speed, and have the knowledge/tools/cojones to open up and partially strip out 2 gearboxes... either putting the differential from yours into the 8P (it would have to be that way round as the 4 speed casing is minimalistically small!), or, the 8P 5th (complete with synchro etc) into the 1-litre 5-speed, as the 6th gear.
However, if you're careful, you can get 45-50mpg out of the 4-speed with normal but relaxed driving (i still get 35+ with the pedal buried), and all you have to really deal with is the high pitched boomy noise from the engine - for which I reccommend a half decent stereo as a viable and cost effective alternative to a gearbox swap.
1043 4 speeds seem quite happy sitting at 90 (or whatever you can get em up to on full bore). Haven't studied the real long term effects of this, but i've put more than 20k miles on mine so far with probably 10k being merciless blasting, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of trouble. You can't redline it in 4th after all, not without a VERY VERY big hill, and the VW redline is traditionally quite conservative.
(NEED a quicker car
)70 will be nothing to one! It'll run at 70mph til the end of time probably, if you keep it serviced, even though it's doing like 4000rpm...
IIRC the 5-speed gearboxes offered for the 1-litre didn't change the top gear much from the 4 speed, if at all, just gave you a closer set of ratios in order to perk up the almost non-existant acceleration... Some might have got a more GT-like box (eg Metz's saloon), which is a *little* bit better for cruising (say 10% tops) but not quite as good for speed in either 4th or 5th. Was hoping he had something like a regular 4 speed with a motorway 5th on it, but the results are inconclusive so far.
If you really want motorway laziness with some capability left, a 1.3 non-GT 5 speed is where it's at
... the fuel consumption will actually be better (lower rpms and not having the throttle kicked wide open anywhere near so often - amazing what 10hp reserve power can do), there's no change in the tax band, and the extra insurance (maybe a couple hundred quid a year if you're already being buttraped by the brokers) is probably well worth it.EDIT: Yep, they're designed to cope with driving situations up to and including going all the way across Deutschland in one day on the unrestricted motorways. Any speed that you can eke it up to should be fine unless you regularly go over Shap...
An 8P may be a decent swap for the motorway but might actually prove to be *too* long. As it comes off a 1.3, the overall gearing (based on the differential) is another 5% or so higher - so all gears from 1 thru to 4 go upwards (ever so slightly more sluggish acceleration and an mph or so off the top speed), and 5th will be crazy, like 22.3mph/1000 - not even doing 3200rpm at 70mph, which is close to the limit of what a 1-litre's power output can support. It'll still do it fine, and you could probably run up to about 80 on the flat, but you'd be changing down quite a lot... (you would get awesome economy at 50-60 however!)
I'm thinking along Groovy's lines - some kind of hybrid would be grand. But that would be even more complicated than swapping the box out. He's been brave enough to do that.... I wouldn't be. I almost did it with my own polo, waybackwhen - £100 for the box, and estimated at another £100 for the fitting, but it all went t**s up ('box arrived badly damaged and the code was wrong, too - it literally took months for me to scrape back the hard-earned from the robbing b*stards and it spoiled me on the idea).
Shouldn't be too difficult to make it (or a brilliant 6-speed - apparently the 5 speeds have the requisite bits in the right places) if you somehow get hold of an 8P and a 1-litre 5speed, and have the knowledge/tools/cojones to open up and partially strip out 2 gearboxes... either putting the differential from yours into the 8P (it would have to be that way round as the 4 speed casing is minimalistically small!), or, the 8P 5th (complete with synchro etc) into the 1-litre 5-speed, as the 6th gear.
However, if you're careful, you can get 45-50mpg out of the 4-speed with normal but relaxed driving (i still get 35+ with the pedal buried), and all you have to really deal with is the high pitched boomy noise from the engine - for which I reccommend a half decent stereo as a viable and cost effective alternative to a gearbox swap.
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