UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi,

Firstly, Hello, i've been reading through these forums for a whole in regards my mothers 2006 polo but i've recently brought a 9n polo.

the 9n polo i just brought is 2002 1.4 16v BBZ engine, 3 door and a few nice add ons from factory, split rims, split blue interior are my favourite.

i brought this for £165! on a auction site

its out of MOT as of December. and was sold as needing a gearbox. 120,000 miles

Went and picked it up and other then needing a good clean/vacuum inside and out its not bad! yeah a few bumps and bit of lacquer peel in the buyers but being silver it hides it well.

Now this car is for my son as a first car (insurance actually not that bad) as a fixer upper and surprise him, IMO its a lush car for a 17 yr old!!

So faults:

gear box rarely gets 3rd and 4th is tricky but goes in easier, it feel like it not quite reaching 3rd gear, just sort of sounds like the gears are touching (not great) once in it drives in 3rd fine.

had about 10 litres of water (i kid you not) in the spare wheel well

drivers mirror housing smashed and covered with duct tape.

knocking from passenger side front when you swerve left to right (at slow speed) thinking top mount or ARB link?



Thats really about it, for £165 i don't think its too bad!

So questions.

The gearbox, first things first i'm going to re-set the gear linkage cables, easy job to do. after that i think all thats left is to swap the box (couple gamble on a new shifter tower but for the cost of it....) any thoughts? also i think the previous owner has driven it like that for a while.

Water in the boot, after searching here the rear lights seemed the main reason, they were held in place partly by duct tape. so i'm guessing water was going past that round sponge seal and into the boot.
i took them off and the two studs were dangling in the wing nuts held by the tethers. so took those out and epoxied them back in place, once set i refitted them. time will tell if this worked, failing that i'll replace the seals i think.
unless theres another leak you can think of but this seemed pretty logical?

the silver mirror cover, (electric mirror still works) are these cheap new or best just sourcing second hand?

any ideas on the knocking before i dive in?

also i noticed today as i ally the brake stationary the rear fog light indication on the dash very faintly flickers, thinking dodgy earth and did see some sort of splice on the rear left lighting so will investigate that.


after those niggles a service and tyre should be good to go. if it lasts more then 6 months and does well i'll do a cam belt too as i don't know when that was last done and couldn't see any stickers in the engine bay. seems a little more room on these compared to a tdi, do you still need to lower the engine?

Thanks for any helps

Andy

PS i'm handy with the spanners so all the work will only cost parts

Good luck with the car Andy - hope the cable adjust does the trick !
The flicker on the fog caption does sound like an earthish prob so also hope it is the dodgy wiring you spotted.
They are nice little cars when you get them running right

1) gearbox, not got a clue there, hopefully a quick reset of the cables will work, if not maybe see what it will cost to get gearbox repaired as a secondhand one should be in the same wear state.

2) water in the boot and cluster fixing studs broken free - what I found happened was that if the spongy seal round that fixing stud dropped out of the way, water gets into that stud and seizes the nut to the stud, next time it needs removing you end up rotating the nut/stud combo and that breaks it free, I needed to sort that on my wife's previous 2002 9N Polo - might be possible to buy seals kits for these clusters, other reasons for water in boot would be rear washer problems.

3) I'd think that getting a new mirror cover from scrappy will be cheaper especially if you get the correct colour - buying new from VW will only get you an unpainted one.

4) knocking from the front, maybe first thing to do is check that the ARB is not still the original with the plastic endstop arrangement, try moving it side to side - it should not move. Second thing will be the TCA rear bush torn, to check that, with the car parked on level ground and with the handbrake on and out of gear, try moving the front wheel back and forwards, if it moves within the wheel arch area, that rear bush is torn, I replaced these bushes for SEAT Ibiza Cupra solid bushes when my wife's Polo was only about 5 years old - stayed perfect for the next 8 years until we traded it in.

5) cambelt, maybe unclip that top cover and have a look in to check that all is okay as these engines will not like it if the tensioner/idlers collapse due to old age due to the belt being overdue a change, remember it is the bits that fail causing the belt to get trashed, not the other way round, also I always replace the water pump, VAG supply exchange pumps to reduce cost. I think that you support the engine and remove the engine mount that blocks the timing area.

I'd imagine that you will need to spend a bit on the rear callipers and discs etc as well!

I spent quite a lot of time and money keeping my wife's September 2002 9N Polo 1.4 BBY SE 5Door going, I speced it up with lots of bits as it was being imported, I started needing to spend money at just over 4 years old as that was when the ARB cracked its plastic endstops > then broke a front spring > then needed new TCA bushes > then needed a cambelt change. I have always said, these Polos are not like the 6N VW Polos, these are just copies of a Skoda Fabia and as such get built, running gear especially, from low grade steel parts and that causes lots of problems when you need to take them apart - "nasty little wallet grabbing cars" is what I called them over 10 years ago and nothing happen that made me change my mind, sorry! Current 6C Polo is a lot better in every way so maybe VW learned a lesson and hopefully any customers that remain are now having a better time!

cheers guys

for the gearbox, refurbed boxes are quite costly when i looked, second hand units can be had for around £100, i know what you mean on the risk but its a low budget thing.

i've seen the seals for sale, so will see how this quick fix goes. i tested the washer and it stays straight an works so hasnt sheered.... yet

i'll go through the scrappie route, cant be much.


i'll investigate the knock at the weekend hopedully, see if i can track it down, is there a replacement ARB then? was hoping it would just be a bush. time will tell

i think old cars that have aot of gadets can be hit and miss really, just gotta cross you fingers

Re the ARB - VW eventually redesigned the anti roll bar completely.
When we bought our polo it also had some front end knocking but I did not have time to look at it straight away (the car was parked at work for 6 months before I really looked at it)
It was a very low mileage car which still had the original (crap) ARB fitted and as Rum posted the plastic parts of the ARB had crumbled away.
I wish I had spotted it earlier as I would have got in touch with VOSA and questioned them as to why the car had passed an MOT like that (it was obviously MOT'd by 'mates' of the dealer),but by the time I found it - it was far too late.
Hopefully your car will have had the updated ARB fitted (most were changed at approx 5 years) and the knocking will turn out to be more mundane,ours had lasted so long because of its low mileage.

There was an early Skoda Fabia VRS on the Skoda forum that sounded like it was still on its original version of the ARB, so with a bit of luck and not being used on roads that get frequently gritted/salted in winter, some of these ARBs are still on cars.

Ford tried that same trick I was told, on the very early Sierras, so Skoda is not the first to make that mistake, but making it many years after it had failed to work for Ford just does not make sense!

I have a strange feeling that VOSA are not too bothered with that exact fail, they would fail a car with a "solid" ARB but worn mounting bushes though - try working that out!? Maybe as long as the split plastic was still in place and it was only the ARB moving side to side meant it would not fail their exact test for ARB mounting integrity. Remember these rules get written by Silly Servants. Edit:- well maybe not written by them, but approved by them.

I'll have a look, shes on 122k miles so hopefully