Is my 9N dying?

[LowPoloCo.]

Hey Guys,

Took my polo to get some 6x9s fitted today, drove her down there, drove fine, drove all day, and it drove fine.

At about 2pm, having parked the car, i came back to it, bear in mind, before this point, it had been driving PERFECTLY.

So i come back to the car, switch it on, pull away, and theres just no power, NONE Foot to the floor, NOTHING, just struggled along, when it got to 4000 rpm it started to splutter, and every so often the noise would cut-out, as if i had taken it into the red-line on the revs and the ECU was cutting the engine.

So basically, it was unbelievably sluggish up to 4000rpm, then when it got there, the engine kept getting cut-off.

Bear in mind, it has a K&N Induction Kit, with no cold-air feed, and it was a un-usually hot day today. So i limp it to a car park, where i leave it for 9 hours because i had work, and come back at midnight, to find, to my surprise, that the car now works perfectly.

Anyone shed any light on this it would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Ell

[steve__30]

i dont really know whats wrong there, but i dont think a k&n with no air feed would make that happen, iv been runnin a k&n for about a year with no cold air feed and its fine, maybe you should take it to a dealer and find out whats wrong

[LowPoloCo.]

Yeh, im completely reluctant to pay £80 for them to look at it, because its fine now, and they'll just say theres nothing wrong.

Thanks
Ell

[DanDiesel]

i would check the HT leads firstly and the spark plugs.
similar symptons to what happened to my g/f mk4, power just disappeared and it turned out to be a knackered HT lead!

[LowPoloCo.]

sorry for my ignorance mate, but whats an HT Lead? and i take it VW wont check them for free?

Any way i can check them, what should i be looking for?

Thanks guys,

Ell

PS - It's been fine since

[M7]

coil packs are buggered. vw will replace for free as its a common fault

[LowPoloCo.]

Haha, i love a direct response, cheers mate,

Is that 100% positive? You recognize that this is probably coil packs? and they will replace for free? even without warranty? and they cant blame me because of induction kit or anything?

Sorry for all the questions...but its got a lot wrong with it atm.

It has a faulty Light Switch (£60 + VAT and fitting), which is the reason for my Dash not lighting up, it needs new front Pads and Discs, MOT runs out next month, and now Coil Packs?

The list continues...

Thanks guys,

Ell

[AKs_SlickPolo]

Most likely coilpack. My 1.4 16v did something similar and couple of days later a coilpack went.

Probs best to get it sorted in advance as it will become undrivable. Best to remove the induction kit though, VW will probably blame mods related to engine for its cause eventhough it aint!

[M7]

induction kit wont effect the coils i dont think but vw may not touch the engine if you have.
mine were replaced after warrenty ran out

[LowPoloCo.]

Ok, im gonna go out and get rid of it NOW,

and then when it goes back to VW for brakes and lights etc... ill tell them then.

Thanks guys,

Really helpful info. if you hadnt have suggested coils then i'd have just left it, and said it was Heat soak from the K&N or something...

out of interest, is it definitely going to become undriveable soon?

[RUM4MO]

I find it hard to believe that all 4 coil packs would fail at the same time - when a coil starts to fail the car would run unevenly ie on 3 cylinders - even my wife managed to work out that the engine was lumpy and missing when her first coil pack failed "like it was running on 3 cylinders" she correctly guessed - and she would admit to knowing very little about cars. I back the idea that you must get the stored fault codes checked - either at stealer or by someone that has VAG-COM. This will quickly reveal (hopefully) what caused the problem - £80 is steep but without this you are just guessing on how reliable your car will be in the future - and spending good money then guessing how to sort it. These engines or their control systems do tend to protect the environment when things go wrong - when I started to force my wife's Polo 1.4SE to "behave" after needing to pull into a passing place while driving up a steep hill, it behaved in a similar manner. Luckily it was only 100 yards from the carpark of the place we were stopping at, when it was restarted a couple of hours later it was okay. If this sounds similar to your event then maybe you should, in this case just ignore it (when I next read the fault codes there was nothing stored). If this does not sound familiar then take the previous advice and get the fault codes read. Good luck and yes as I have said before all the cars based on this platform do seem to be crap, especially after they are 3 years 30,000miles old - they turn into "wallet muggers".

[RUM4MO]

Ah, just discovered that you've got a 1.2 so running on 3 cylinders might seem okay for you - but the rest of my posting still stands, even although I don't know how rough a 3 cylinder feels when running on 2 cylinders!

[M7]

they will be under powered, idle funny and not rev as fast

[chris4500uk]

they will be under powered, idle funny and not rev as fast

But how do you tell the difference between that and a 1.2 3cyl

[M7]

if you drive it every day, then if its running under powered you soon feel it....i couldnt get a hill once, had to roll back down it