I also have a GTI+; a 2020 car with around 12,400 miles on the clock. I think that regular servicing and maintenance is key to trouble feee longer term ownership which should minimise the risk of any major costly repairs. My car is on annual time and distance servicing as opposed to VW’s long life service regime, so it gets an oil and filter change every year. I know that oil technology has advanced over the years, but I don’t like the idea of the oil / filter not being changed for up to two years on long life servicing.
I’m not aware of any major mechanical problem areas with the current Polo GTI that you would need to budget for if considering long term ownership. However, a couple of potential weak points I’m aware of with VW’s 2.0 litre EA888 engine in performance Golf’s (the Polo GTI uses the gen 3b version of that engine) are;
- coolant leaks due to the water pump / thermostat housing failing. Cost to replace these items is around £800 at a VW dealer.
- blocked heater matrix; if coolant system expansion tank has ‘mit silikat’ printed on the outside, there’ll be a small bag containing silicate in the expansion tank, the purpose of the silicate bag being to help prevent corrosion of the aluminium components of the cooling system and prolong the life of the coolant. These little bags have been known to degrade and split with age, allowing the silicate to leak out which can block the heater matrix. Sorry, don’t know what the cost is to rectify but involves draining and flushing the cooling system, fitting a new heater matrix and coolant and purging the system of trapped air
As for potential DSG issues; I think that VW’s 6 speed wet clutch DSG is pretty reliable (I can only recall a handful of DSG-related issues reported on various VAG forums over the years), so provided it’s serviced at the required intervals - every 40k miles - it should give many years of reliable service.
With long term service ownership of any car, in addition to ‘normal’ regular servicing, there’ll also be consumable items such as tyres, battery and brakes that’ll need replacing periodically - the frequency of replacing these items will depend on how the car is driven and the mileage driven. Brake fluid changes are also due every two years. The air con may need re-gassing if the efficiency of the system deteriorates over time.
I may also keep my current car longer term (I’m undecided on this at present). Whether I do or not, I’ll be buying a good extended warranty in September when the three year factory warranty runs out which would cover unforeseen expenses such as a failed water pump / thermostat housing, replacing the heater matrix and any potential mechanical issues with the DSG. I’d imagine that if the digital instrument display or infotainment unit in the GTI+ were to fail, they would be costly items to replace, so a good warranty would (hopefully) cover the cost of fixing / replacing those items if the worst was to happen.
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