This is my first post on here following an attempt to service my 2020 Polo Match (1.0L Match) yesterday - it might sound like an overreaction, but the nightmare all arises from 2 fixings/clips on the undertray. The actual engine service itself was easy, it was gaining access to the engine that proved the hard part.
Now I'm no newbie to servicing my own cars and working on cars, and in the last 15 years of servicing cars (including cambelt changes, clutch changes etc) I've never encountered such a difficult car to work on...and all I was doing was a simple oil change and air filter change. It was not a pleasure to work on, it feels like VW have made it as difficult as possible to do everything.
Anyway, I was hoping someone could help me identify what kind of fixing was giving me so much grief.
I started by jacking the car up and placing it on axle stands before proceeding to remove the undertray (so that I could gain access to the sump plug and the oil filter). I was surprised to find there were different types of fixings for the undertray in the first place - it's only a plastic cover, so why complicate things with 3 different types of fixings. Anyway, I removed the 9 T25 Torx screws, and then the 3 bigger T45 Torx screws. I tried to remove the undertray and then realised it was still attached right at the back, by 2 other fixings. These 2 fixings were plastic, rather than metal like the Torx screws I'd already removed at this point.
These 2 fixings I have never encountered before, and I could see no means of removing them at all. At first they looked a little like a Allen key fitment, but the minute I tried to use one of those to undo them, they just rounded off as the plastic was incredibly soft. I'm not even convinced they were Allen key fitments after all. Bottom line, I could figure out how to remove them, but I needed the undertray off to access the underside of the car, so I used pliers and just pulled them to pieces (i originally tried using the pliers to unscrew whatever these things were, but they kept spinning and I got nowhere). After I had destroyed they, a male thread was left poking through (from the car side), which is odd, as this means the threads are the other way around to the Torx fixings.
I've spent hours in the workshop manuals, on YouTube, and on google trying to find out what this clip is. I'm wondering if I can just pull out the remains of the clip and replace it with a nice simple self-tapper to make future undertray removal so much easier.
I'm hoping that this post might catch someone's attention who just knows immediately what I'm talking about when they see the photos - any help would be really appreciated. Thanks a lot.
I've attached some pictures below:
First picture
- The red on the outside (x9) are all T25 Torx screws
- The red on the inside (x3) are the T45 Torx screws
- The green are these 2 fixing that caused me so much grief
This is what the fixing looked like before I massacred it with pliers
Third picture
This is what I had to pull off the clips to get the undertray off - each one seem to have 2 layers like this (the fourth photo shows what was left on the car)
Fourth picture
This is after I massacred the fixing, you can see the thread poking through (the bit of plastic attached to the thread is the remains of what I removed in the third picture)
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