Faults:

Broken front springs (both sides).

Front brake pads (standard wear and tear).

General Comments:

This little car is amazing. Yet it feels bigger than it is.

Economical (on an normal week, I average 55 mpg, on a motorway trip I averaged over 60).

The car has more than enough power to get you out of trouble. Very easy to be doing over a ton without realising.

Comfortable and quiet also for a diesel. Apart from a couple of rattles (taking age of car into consideration), the build quality is excellent and car has never let me down.

Faults:

I purchased the car second hand in mid August.

In September the power steering went, and the pump was replaced under guarantee.

Since then the rever stay at 10 when the car is not moving, it does not return to 0.

The brakes screech if I brake suddenly. I have since found out, the brake pads need replacing.

Now this evening the EPC light comes on.

I am female and know nothing about cars.

Can the replacement of the power steering pump have caused the rever to stay at 10 instead of returning to 0, and is this the cause of the EPC light coming on?

Any info would be helpful thanks.

General Comments:

It has jerked one two separate occasions.

Sometimes it feels as if it is bouncing.

Relaible, but sluggish coming up a hill, low power.

Faults:

Engine would not idle soon after starting and could only be kept running by keeping the revs up. If it cut out it could only be kept going by running with higher revs. Fault would clear itself if left for a while (hour or two) and would seem to have gone away. This happened two or three times before I decided it had to go to my local VW dealer, and they carried out a throttle body clean under warranty, saying this was a common problem on the Polo. Seems OK now.

Exhaust Emission warning lamp came on and stayed on. Engine performance seems impaired and handbook says to take to nearest VW dealer. The previous owner (my father) eventually had a new Nox Sensor fitted under warranty in Apr 2005 after reporting the same (intermittent) fault. Car is now out of warranty, so this could get expensive.

General Comments:

Generally the car drives well and is has a good level of equipment and is well appointed for a small car. Having owned this May 2003 car for only about 4 months, and already having experienced the two reliability issues, I am beginning to become concerned that I may have a rogue 2003 car.

Faults:

First fault I experienced was when a warning light came on the dashboard - something to do with emissions (?). Turned out to be a faulty sensor and was replaced under warranty.

Second fault was with one of the rear seat belts which would not operate which was also replaced under warranty.

Third fault was a problem with the Air Con, apparently something to do with the vent control. The dealer picked it up on the service - to be honest (due to the British weather!) I hadn't used the air con for a while and had not noticed. Fixed under warranty.

Fourth fault was a few days ago. Car has been running absolutely fine until one morning whenever the revs dropped (whenever I slowed down at traffic lights, a roundabout or just in traffic) the engine cut out. As I was away on hols, this resulted in my car being transported on a tow truck 90 miles home.

Dealer say it is a build-up of carbon in the 'Throttle Hood' and is normal, and also not covered under the warranty.

I'm a bit surprised (and miffed) that I can experience a fault when car is 2.5 yrs old and has done 35k miles that results in a breakdown and towing and its NOT covered on the warranty.

Car was serviced 2 weeks ago, but they said they don't check this on the service.

I've never come across this fault before on any other car, I would be interested to know if anyone else has (especially someone techy who could tell me if this is reasonable!)

General Comments:

Generally I like the car very much and up until the latest problem I was thinking of trading it in for a new polo gti, but I'm having second thoughts now!

The service I receive from the main dealer can't be faulted, for each problem and for servicing they collect and deliver my car (20 miles) and it comes back valeted!