Should I 'upgrade' to Golf EVO 150?

[ReVo]

Hi guys,

I'm at the end of my Polo 1.2 TSI PCP, and need to decide whether to keep it.

Dealership are offering me a decent deal on one of the last Golf EVO 150's, is it a worthwhile upgrade? I know the EVO engine had a lot of problems at the beginning, don't know if they were ever worked out...

[SRGTD]

Lots of current discussions over on seatcupra.net forum about the ‘kangaroo-ing’ issues associated with VAG’s 1.5 EVO engine, including owners of late date Seat Leons. Some Leon owners who’ve had the software fix applied to their cars have said it’s resolved the issue and others have said it’s not really made any difference.

From what I’ve read from various sources and on various forums, it seems the 150ps variant when mated to a manual gearbox is the one that suffers from kangaroo-ing the most, although it seems this issue isn’t exclusive to the 150ps / manual gearbox combination.

I recently had a 69 plate 1.5 EVO 150 ps VW T-Roc as a courtesy car when my Polo GTI was being serviced and MOT’d. It had a manual gearbox and it drove fine with no signs of kangaroo-ing.

If you are considering buying one, try and arrange an extended test drive - ideally get the dealer to let you have one for a couple of days - so you can drive it under all driving conditions, both with a cold engine and when the engine’s fully warmed up.

[Jay-Jay]

From what I read on the italian vw golf forum, VW has recently released a new ECU software update which fixes the "kangaroo" problem completely or at least by 90%, making it irrilevant in the daily use.
Except from this "not serious" defect, since this engine has been on the market, it has not showed signs of any other important malfunctions which could have needed an action recall or an update of components in factory.
It surely doesn't performs as good as the old 1.4TSI ACT (COD) engine, which was faster and more efficient in terms of consumptions. In my opinion, this could be caused by the OPF and the other EURO6D-Temp components, which make this engine feel like it has less power and torque than it really has.
But in general it's a very good engine and as per today I wouldn't be hesytant to buy a new car with it.

Talking about tuning, it turned out 180/190hp and over 300Nm are pretty easy to gain with just a stage 1 ECU remap without any hardware modifications.

[ReVo]

Well, I test-drove a Golf 130ps & 150ps - and they both felt the same as my Polo. The 130ps actually felt slower!

So I'll be keeping my Polo