UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

If you want to raise your concerns over the VW GTI Pedal Box Recall, VW Customer Service are taking details on this to improve the service provided and to assist customers in getting their car back promptly.

Unfortunately, they have conceded that the work does take more than 1.9 hours and are amending the dealers work sheets on this recall appropriately with new work timings, so if you haven't had your pedal box replaced yet, then expect your car to be in for a day now for the work.

VW accept that the Pedal Clips and parts have not been available to complete the work promptly and are ensuring dealers they can call their dealer network parts ordering service to get parts shipped more quickly as many parts are on back order

If you want to raise your own concerns (the more the better to improve VW Pedal Box recall service), then call 0800 711811 and select option 3. You can then tell customer service what you think and they do make notes to improve the quality of this recall service, and to assist with your own car's recall service.

Strange, I rang a couple of times last week and they couldn't give two hoots...ring them again and they are making calls on my behalf to the recall campaign number and the dealer!

They have now informed me that the dealer will get the part in next friday and that it should be ready for me to collect then! shame it has taken three weeks and a lot of aggro!

How is everyone else coping?

that's maybe cos I raised the profile of this pedal box recall and explained how disgruntled customers were getting...

Hi, I'm Italian, and I have an Italian Polo 6N GTI.
Here in Italy nobody has ever heard about any recall for the GTI.
My can has 31K miles and it's about 15K miles that my clutch feels like it's finished.
By the way the clutch pedal doesn't swing smoothly, it feels as it's not lubricated. I asked VW about that too and they answered that there is a little cilinder on top of it somewhere that it dedicated to pedal lubrication.
Obviously the thing is not working...and it probably never did.

The worst thing anyway is that the car is 4 years old and VW is not willing to refound me for any repair I have to undertake (I yet haven't heard from the inspection...but I have weird noises going on down at clutch level).

Darn VW...second Polo I get, second bad choise...never again.

Sorry to hear about your problems Acolonna, have to say I'm not surprised to hear about the problems you are having with your gearbox/pedal box.

I'm not sure what we can do, there must be other owners in Italy experiencing the same problem and if you are able to contact a majority of them you might be able to club together and apply pressure on Volkswagen Italy. I can't see them acting on just one experience however if there are many then they will have to do something.

I guess that Volkswagen are a national 'company' as in each country will have their own subsidiaries and hence be governed by the rules and safety regulations of that country, the UK may have to recall back motor vehicles under different rules to that of Italy and so this is why we have had the recall and other parts of the EU haven't (hey we have to comply with the straightness of our bananas so why not car safety? duh!). I guess this also suits VW as they won't have to apply German rules and regulations to all their vehicles sold worldwide.

Are there any other Italian Polo GTI owners on this forum? Hope it all goes well, if there is a problem I'm sure you could write a letter to VW Italy and enclose a letter from the the UK, I'd be happy to fax you over a copy, surely VW UK should be able to supply you with one too. Good luck and keep us posted on the progress.

Hey at least you have leather interior, that should make up for it ha ha ha!

It would be fantastic if you could send me a fax with some official stuff from up there! I'm sure it could help me some way..
If you confirm you have something to send I'll post you the fax numba of my dad (I don't have one).


Well, as for the leather interior it was bundled with the basic Polo GTI here in Italy, at the time sold for 33.000.000 Lira (aprox. £10.000 to £15.000) it had:

> Xenon lights;
> BBS 15" rims;
> ABS EDS ASR ESP (which is all darn useless when you push the car to it's limits);
> Leather streering wheel, hand-brake and seats (only black);
> metallic paint (only 3 colors were available: black, red, silver gray);
> Rear spoiler with integrated stop light;
> Car stereo with 6 speackers;
> Electric lateral rear mirrors with heating;
> Manual climate control;
> Heatable seats (VW always bundles heaters with leather seats in Italy);
> Remote controlled door locks;
> VW anti-theft system;
> GT anti-theft system (only in central Italy);

Optionals I got were:

> Rain sensor & automatic rear mirror;
> VW GPS Navigation system;
> Blaupunct 10CD changer (it's a pain in the a_s to go to the last 4 CDs, because the computer has only 6 buttons);
> Climatronic system;
> SOS Kit;

1.9 hours! It takes at least 6 hours to do a clutch pedal box on a Polo!

Where VW get there warranty times from is beyond me...

I dunno what how they count the operation timings...it's true that worldwide they count a 6 hour job for clutch substitution on Polo/Golf.
At that point it depends where you want to have it done, if you're paying.
I know two VW garages, the small one in north Italy charges €25.00 plus tax per hour, the big one in central Italy charges €40.00 plus tax!!!!!

Anyway I just called in and they said that they will try to help me, they're going to call VW Italy and invite an inspector to come, inspect the vehicle and when he's found the issue decide if it's due to VW or me.

This is already a good step, but VW Italy can easily decline the invitation.
At that point I can only do two things:
1) eat sh_t and pay for my self;
2) start a war with VW hoping to get some movement, but the VW garage would be totally out of it...it would be between me and VW Italy.


One thing I know: if I'm going to have to pay for my self, I will take my car to a tuner and mount a sport-tuned flywheel-clutch (if that's the problem)...at least I'll get some more horsepower out of that little engine!


By the way, how fast do your Polos go up there?

I once saw my speedometer reach just nearly 230.00Kmh and the Climatronic diagnostics displayed 228.00Kmh (roughly 123.12mph).
It was the optimal situation: a lot of cars on the highway going above 170.00Km (91.80mph), limiting aerodynamic resistance and probably I had favourable wind in the back.

In the past months I couldn't get the car above 215.00Kmh (116.10mph)...and unlike usually the engine was sounding suffocated and quiet (usually at top speed you can hear it crying a lot)..

I just wanted to share my emotion...
Last year I sat in the sporty seat of a Golf R32, one of the 4 that you can see around in Milan. Heavily tuned (the Italian "heavily" will be quite funny for you...we have stright laws and a very, very, limited parts market).

I saw with my eyes the Climatronic diagnostics display 322.00Kmh (173.88mph).....
It's cool how the R32 behaves in the same way as the Polo GTI, but at 100.00Kmh above...

Exhilarating..


Anyway what I LOVE doing is giving dust to the new Golf and A3 with that sh--ty 2.0 TDI 140hp....on highways it takes an instant... when you reach 200.00Kmh you see them freezing and you can see the drivers' faces while you leave them back....it's just the best! (especially after you had them look at your GPS system at the lights through their windows).