Faults:

Wheel bearing needed replacing when I bought it. (£11)

This failed due to a dodgy stub axle, which I also replaced. (£25)

General Comments:

It's been a great little motor for me.

I previously had a 320i BMW; whilst this was powerful, it was sluggish around town and horrendously thirsty. Cue the Polo! I can put £10-£20 a week of fuel in and it always lasts. I don't do major mileage, but I do enough.

The wheel bearing and stub axle weren't a massive issue, as both are easy to change as the car is so simple.

The car is lowered, hence the low comfort marks, but this does improve the handling from standard.

The brakes are typical of a Polo, not great, however they also perform when they've really been needed. This can be cured by an uprated master cylinder off of a Mk2 Golf GTi if wanted, but I don't feel the need to.

Nippy around town, not a great motorway cruiser, LOL, but adequate - thanks to the 5spd gearbox as opposed to the 4spd 1043cc Polos.

Overall good, cheap, solid little car.

Faults:

Not great reliability, considering the make.

Terrible problems with overly heavy clutch, never finally solved until just before I sold it.

Comfort not exactly great.

Handling very average.

I cannot really understand why Volkswagen called this a 'coupe', but I suppose that if you produce a car, you can call it anything you want!

In the end I damaged the gearbox by going over one of those terrible traffic-reducing road humps in the dark. Since I only had a 1.0, I then swapped it for a second hand (but excellent) 1.3 with a gearbox in situ, and fitted a sports air filter. Only then did this car deserve any sort of plaudits at all.

Always heavy steering.

Heavy clutch.

Not great, but the body was sturdy.

General Comments:

I found this model very average compared to some second-hand cars I have owned, although it always started on the button.

Faults:

I Changed the plugs, leads, dizzy cap rotary and had the oil changed as soon as I got the car. All this because it wasn't as quick as I thought it would be.

I still have the problem of power lose. Even at high revs it won't go over 80mph on the flat. Only downhill will it do 90mph. However, as soon as your back on the flat, it looses power and decelerates back down to to 80mph again.

General Comments:

A great little car. It's cheap to run and I will keep it until it breaks. The body is immaculate on it. I love the car.

Faults:

Well first of all I bought the car from a girl who needed a bigger car and I realised the nearside suspension had taken a serious hammering from all the speed bumps in Basingstoke. Replaced.

Pressure plate and clutch release bearing wore out at 110k.

Clutch cable went shortly after.

Head gasket popped at 120k.

Water leak in driver foot-well maybe from the engine bay or the vents, unknown. (I think it was the tyre friction from the girl's speed bump days that has made a small hole)

Rust around the aerial, rear lights, in the boot at the corners, wheel arches and inside the doors.

Oh yeah, the paint fades too.. Don't buy a red one because it becomes very pink!

General Comments:

Cute looking car, when you get used to it. But its painfully slow until it warms up.

Got a 0-60 speed below 10 seconds out of it once. But it took some time and a few trips to the petrol station to do it.

Feels a bit unstable when accelerating quickly and breaks unevenly. But quick for a skinny 1.0 litre.

The cabin is awfully decorated, disgusting stripes and ugly colour scheme. But is quite comfortable and well designed.

Gearbox is a terrible and often grinds and crunches, but no leaks or problems there.

Very economical at 60-70mph.

Does drive at 85-90mph comfortably without a problem, but any more and it is really unstable!

I had some fun with this car, it looked pretty cool with a set of five spoke alloys on, but still would only score a 5/10 rating for image I'm afraid. Sorry.