Brand New Polo Stalling

[mariegriffiths]

I have a brand new 55 plate Polo. My forth Polo after having a 1.4 Mk4 before that a Mk3 1L and a Mk 2 1L.
The car performs less well than the old 1l cars.
Is this the problem with the 3 cylinder car?
Reversing up a hill from a stand still is a no no unless you have loads of revs. You hen do not have much control as you have to slip the clutch so much. I hear talk on this forum about sensors and cut off values.
The car is noiser than the same engine size test drive car, wheasier and at idle there is a vibration. looking under the bonnet it almost appears like things are missing. There isn't the nice plastic cover like my old 1.4 just the bear cylinders.
I am disappointed I expected better from a new car.

[inder]

No experience with one myself, but I recon best advice, would be to take it back to VW dealer and use your three year warranty to have the car scanned using their diag tool for any faults present and a good once over for any potential problems

Bits can be done for free under your warranty

Hope of some help,

[mariegriffiths]

It is going in Monday.
I have more information on te fault.
Things seem okay when the car is cold.
As soon as the needle touched the normal operating temperature,
it is as if a switch comes on and turns it from Jeckell to Hyde.
It then idles at 700 rather than 800 and becomes lumpy on idle.
It is less smooth on acceleration too. The worst bit is that after a dab on the accerator the revs go up then plummet to 500 before picking up.
If I put power on then of course it stalls. It seem similar but not as severe as an automatic choke problem I once had. Is there an fuel injection equivalent?

Edited by a mod - rpm figures correct now

[inder]

hmm odd stuff, let us know how you get on

[mariegriffiths]

The garage din't find anything wrong.
It didn't seem to do the stalling trick when i reversed into my drive tonight though.
I did put an extra 300 miles on it at the weekend bringing up to 600 miles.
It might be a wearing in problem that goes away.
However at slow idle it is still is lumpy after in along traffic queue it can be quite irritating.
VW quoted over 2k to put a new engine in.
Does anyone know the costs of doing this?
The performance of this 3 cylinder engine is less good than the G reg 1.43 polo I had.

[Tahrey1043]

well, at 600 miles you probably still shouldn't be expecting or trying for top performance...

and the car is probably a fair bit heavier than your old G-reg - i know that even my mk3 is, and the mk4s heavier still ... what does it say for the kerb weight, in your handbook?

going from say 800 to 1100kg will have a definate impact on the performance, especially if your "3 cylinder" (capacity? hp?) is the bottom-of-the-range 55hp 1.2.... which will probably have comparable output specs to the earlier carb/singlepoint injection 4-cylinder 1.3s, and might well be meant as something with similar performance to lighter 1-litres.

(indeed - what does the book also have as official top speed and 0-60 times, if they still carry that info?*)

* i know both my astra and my mums rover handbooks dont state that, only a thick wad of environmental stats - perhaps EU legistlation "discourages" performance figures in owners guides these days?

[mariegriffiths]

I just test drove a 1300 mile polo of the same model and engine and it ran much smoother than my 700 mile polo and didn't seem lumpy at slow idle. If it is not as smooth by that many miles then I will demand that they have another look at it.
It is however running much better than last week after putting 400 mile on it. It only stalls when the engine is hot and the otside temperature is cold and I put 150 rpm on it rather than 200rpm.
The VW sales guy seem to think I should be putting 200 plu on to reverse the thing. The loan car reversed up a steeper incline at 800.
BTEW I made a mistake on the G reg polo descrition it was a lowly 1043 engine.

[Tahrey1043]

How steep a hill are you reversing up? If you're just doing plain side-of-the-road or supermarket car park flat surface maneouvering then you dont even need to touch the throttle, idle revs and a careful clutch foot should do it in any car, once it's been run in - no matter what the stealer says.
(my own one has a bare 700 miles on it's engine after a rebuild, effectively "new", and it's settled down nicely, can move it on idle without much trouble so long as you're gentle)

it *is* best to keep the revs in the moderate 1500-3000 zone, or better 2000-2500 if you can while running in, but past that all the stiffness should have worked out and you can vary from that gradually without worry - say just dialing in enough throttle to keep it above idle when moving back/forth slowly, or reaching 4000 and ever further when overtaking.

By now i think revving it up to 2000 or more just to reverse is overkill unless you have quite a steep slope to get up. Unless i'm in a hurry, 1200 is more than enough even in the 1L to climb backwards up my reasonably sloped drive (not steep, but you wouldnt want to push the car up it yourself, or go forwards in 2nd)

Re-reading your posts it sounds like there's definately a problem. I have a friend with a brand new fiesta, barely more than delivery miles (she wasn't even up to 100 when i had a lift) and you'd be hard pushed to tell it hadn't done a couple thousand already, except for the clean, chemical smell and the plushness of the seats. Ran perfectly, plenty of power without having to strain it or rev high, quiet, smooth etc. No stalling, missing, lacking power in reverse or any of that nonsense. And we're talking about a ford here.