UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hello all,

As you have probably guessed, my names Charlie (male!) and I live in Norfolk.

I have been stalking you all recently reading the info from your posts on the Polo Gti after falling in love with one and going ahead and buying it. My partner and I still own a 1996 P Reg white 1.0l Polo and i love the difference and the feel of the new GTI. I only wish i new more about cars and the working of them, needless to say, i seem to be learning new things quickly with the GTI, its a completely different beast
So we bought our car at the end of June, had two good weeks with it and headed from Norfolk to Wales on a camping trip. Got 350 miles from a full tank which i was very happy with. Here she is:



We had just arrived when i decided to take this pic, hence all the camping gear stacked up in the back!

Low and behold, on the second day, going around a roundabout in Fishguard (there's no fishmongers in the Fishguard.....We went there looking for one!) The gearbox broke, or should i say destroyed 4th and 5th gear cogs. We had to pay towing back to the garage (FYI, dont let RAC take it to the nearest garage, we stupidly made that mistake and ended up paying £780 to get it towed back to Norwich....i know, i know we should have had it towed there immediatly but we were hoping it may have been something cheap to fix so we could keep the car in Wales!) who sold it who have thankfully replaced the gear cogs and are due to change the gearbox oil again in two weeks to remove anymore metal fragments that may be laying about.

That was the first car issue we had. We got home after hiring a crappy 1.2 Corsa with about as much torque as a retarded donkey to return to a white polo with a flat tyre!

Two days later to top off our bad luck, borrowing my partners mums car, the electric window decided to fail and get stuck in the door well. You have to have s**t times to enjoy the good....right??

I have now had it back for a week and it seems a lot happier, we considered getting a refund from the garage but i really love this little car, its very clean for 11 years old, milage is 101,000ish and only has a few little marks on the body work which seems normal for the age of the car. I do not plan to do much to it at all, i really want to try and keep it stock and retro - as you can see in the picture the alloys need cleaning due to the corrosion issue when i can get round to it or have enough spare cash to have it done professionally but wanted to share with you fellow GTI'ers our new little monster.

Im sure at some point i may need to ask some advice, i want learn as much as i can about the mechanics of the car and i thank you all for the advice already on this site and any future advice you guys and gals may give.

Charlie

Hello Charlie! Welcome!

Bad news about the gearbox! Never nice to have something go wrong with your car, espeically miles from home
Least it's all sorted now tho

Sounds like a good tidy little polo, and looks great in the photo.
I look forward to seeing more photos

Thanks Verity,

We picked it up for £1950 with a new cambelt and MOT at time of purchase and we are really happy with it. Fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong!

I plan to give it a little clean tommorow, weather permitting! Cant afford any expensive cleaning waxes yet due to the Gearbox saga but its on the agenda... just going to concentrate on getting it looking shiny and removing a few little marks. Will post some more pics soon!

Gearbox is pretty much the most expensive thing that will go wrong on the polo's, so you havent got much to worry. Ensure that its been serviced with good quality parts, and you're good to go.

Welcome to UK-POLOS Charlie

Nice looking GTI you have there and not a bad price too.

As long as you dont give it too much abuse the gearbox will last you a fair amount of time, I had two boxes last year but that was because when it broke and i had it fixed, they bodged it with 1.0 litre polo parts

The guys & girls on here are more than happy to answer any questions on your polo, I have found this site the best and most informative out of all of them

Hi dude and welcome to the forum.

Nice little GTi you have there and keeping the 5 door dream alive I see Hope to follow your progress as you go along mate. I had the gearbox go when I bought mine. Don't be too disheartened. When its back up and running there shouldn't be much else that can go wrong

Endi, I hope your right, I love this car already! Progress will be slower than a lot of people on here and it's gonna be the subtle little things, I want to keep it as close to factory standard as possible. It's going to be a buff and a wax and the wheels sorted for sure!! I love the five door, I had never seen one until we went car shopping! Me and my fiancée Quilty immediatly fell in love with it!

Welcome along Charlie. Sorry to hear you didn't have the best start with your gti.

Glad its all fixed up now though. Best colour by the way

So i have owned my GTI for a month now and i really do love it, but there are things that bug me that needed doing.
This weekend i managed to rope in my best mate to teach me how to perform and inspection service and do things like oil and oil filter change, simple things but i had never done them before! We replaced the cabin filter, air filter and drained the oil, the old oil filter proved to be a pain to get off and had to have a few holes banged into it with a screw driver to un tighten it!
As we both had all weekend off work, i really wanted to try and tackle the issue of my s**t looking BBS's.
I dont have £250+ for a professional job on the wheels. I had to try and protect them to get through the winter at least. So, it came down to picking, scraping and sanding off the crap, priming with more sanding for the spots we had missed and priming again, then putting on coats of silver spray and the a clear protection spray over that. IT sounds s**t, but for £25 im happy with the outcome! There are spots that still look a bit shady and rough but for an amateur attempt, Im pleased as punch.

The 'well used, uncared for' look



Round one Sanding and scraping...



First lot of primer



Polo still jacked up with one of the finished wheels ready to be fitted



The finished job!!



I have learnt a few lesson should i do this again, i would spend more time sanding down to get the wheels as perfect as possible and would probably have removed the centre's but i needed to drive the car to work this morning so time was of the essence.
Hope you all like the update, and what can be achieved with some grafting and a tight budget!

Oh and some new VW centercaps have been ordered!

Good Job on the wheels mate, vast improvement to how they did look.
What other plans have you got for the car?

Apart from a good buffing and waxing, not really to sure to be honest. i would like to keep it original as much as possible, i love the base look, although some coilovers would be nice to lower it just a little, but thats gonna have to wait for sometime until more money is available (getting married next year and want a damn good honeymoon as well!). I think i will mainly be concentrating on cosmetics/asthetics, like scratched door handles, key scratches around the door locks etc for the moment.
Any suggestions would be welcomed

Yeah you cant really beat the OEM look
I always think lowering is essential with these cars simply because the ride height is far too high as standard.
Either a good brand of coilovers or the H&R 60/40 Cup Kit is the best route to take

wheels look great!!!
i agree the only thing that really needs changing on the exterior look of the car is the height. im not at all a fan of really low cars. but VW did put the Polo stilts, they deffinatly look better lowered just that little bit, looks much better and still natural

A quick couple of questions if i may, i have noticed recently that my steering wheel when driving straight is slighty off to the left, im thinking this may have been due to hitting a pot hole somewhere, is this just sorted with a wheel allignment?

The other question is regarding my gears. Since having the gearbox 'refurbished' by the dealer i bought the car off, it can be a pain to get it into reverse and engaging 5th gear gives a little crunch sometimes. Is this something that can be sorted by Linkage Adjustment or does it sound more serious? I really do not want to take it back to the dealer but if its going to cost loads of money, then they can pay!

Apart from that, i frickin love my GTI.

Wheel alignment should sort out the wheel if not park up straight, take it off abs put it back on straight. As for the other could be the linkage adjuster or clutch on the way out bit would think that would be done with the box