UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi, i’m about to do an oil and filter change on my polo but i was wondering what the best oil for it would be since these have head issues often and i’m think i’ve bent one of my valves
(was doing 90 for like 5 minutes and it lost all throttle and was rolling and losing revs and i couldn’t do anything, stopped on the side tried rotating the engine and it was knocking very bad, it cooled down for 10 mins and drove fine after, been driving like this for about 2 months now, still has a little tapping noise tho)
it drives fine now tho but i’m just wondering what the best oil would be to prolong its life time

I don't think that it will be running okay with a bent valve, if you genuinely think that there is something wrong internally you should carry out a compression check on that engine.

As for oil types etc for this engine, I will leave that to others that run cars with that engine, I'd be using a quality oil that conforms to VW spec 504 and a filter element from Mann etc.

I use castrol edge 5W-30 and a MANN filter. Bit of top end noise at start up but soon goes away once oil reaches the head. Engine has 123K and previous owner wasnt very good with maintenance so that’s probably the cause. Seen people suggest 10w-40 but I’m unsure how much of a difference there is, hopefully someone can say.

It might specify 10W40 as an option in the owner's manual (as it does for my 1.4) but that is a semi-synthetic. If there are mechanical issues oil will at best damp the noise a little. It will also increase fuel consumption. For a high mileage engine you could try 5W40 (synthetic) such as Quantum. I switched to 5W40 Castrol Magnatec (Synthetic) which seems to reduce noise a little better than say, Shell, Quantum, or other oils. I change the engine oil approx every 6 months and fit a new Mann filter based on mainly commuting (which dilutes the oil and it can drop out of grade) as opposed to highway use.