UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi, I'm having an issue with my Polo, it has an AUA engine, 75bhp with around 73k miles on it. It struggles to get up to 70MPH on the motorway and I mean struggles... when the motorway even slightly goes uphill the car revs will slowly drop to 60 and below, prompting the need to downshift as the audi behind gets right up my backside. I just feel like it's a little too WEAK honestly I feel like I'm losing power somewhere because I've read that people can easily get up to 90-100mph in this car. Putting my foot down slightly causes the engine to roar as if it's trying to go but just can't go, like it's being lugged. I've noticed in good conditions (on a flat road) the car will get to around 80mph but will not go past it. Is my car just bad?

It also is using quite a lot of fuel, from a full tank it only managed around 300 miles before the fuel light came on, the typical range I've read is around 450 miles, maybe this is a part of the problem.

I've been researching this form and other materials to diagnose the lack of power and the thing I'm going to try is replacing the fuel filter and putting some injector cleaner in the tank.

Is this problem real and is there nothing I can do about it?

SOLVED:

Pulled out the spark plugs, they were as white as Casper, indicating a lean air/fuel mixture. Since the car idles rather smoothly when cold, I was banking on there being no vacuum leaks. Replaced the fuel filter and spark plugs with recommended ones and went for a test drive. The car now pulls in fifth considerably more than before and I can actually get to a top speed of at least 105MPH (I chickened out at that point ). I'd like to leave this here in case anyone else has this problem, I hope that's okay.

Yep same problem so thanks for posting!