UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

INTRODUCTION

From the off, let me make my position clear:

I am not a believer in the (so called) Long Life service schedules that many manufacturers seem to be favouring these days. Whereas I welcome a move towards more manageable intervals of 10-12k OR 12 months (whichever is sooner), I personally feel that any longer interval is a recipe for disaster, especially if you have a car with a turbo (as we all know turbos need high quality and fresh il often otherwise they can go *BANG*).

Now, my Mothers car is a 2005/05 Polo 1.4 Twist (Auto). I am a firm believer in changing the pollen and air filter once a year, especially seeing as her car is unlikely to be 'serviced' by the over-priced Grease Monkeys at the local dealership for anything up o 2 yrs or 20k miles (as its on the VAG LL service).

I'm not one for switching between fully synthetic and semi-synthetic oils - if the engine is used to a certain viscosity and type, then I am inclined to leave it as such as changing mid-way (I feel) can cause problems for the engine.


RATIONALE

Anyhoo - I digress This contribution of mine is all about the air filter. Looking at VWs service schedule, it appears this is can be left unchanged for anything up to 4 yrs; which is insane given that this filter is your engine's first line of defence. We all know the impact a blocked or dirty filter can have on a car - so I advocate annual renewal.


PART ITSELF

I tend to buy from my local Euro Car Parts (ECP) and specifically a HENGST filter because this is of OE quality - a genuine VW one costs nearly twice as much and I don't see why I should pay the extra given that it will be made my HENGST (or Fram) anyways.


TOOLS

The only other tool you will need a [fine nosed] Philip's (or positive) screw driver and a small bowl for the screws. That is it.


ACTUAL HOW TO

On the 1.4 16v engine, the air filter is contained within the engine cover. The FIRST step is to remove this cover. Itis held in place by 4 pressure pads roughly dotted evenly around the covers edge. It is a simple case of gripping the cover firmly and pulling up wards.

** CAUTION** There are two pipes that attach themselves to this cover. It is advisable that you try and remove both. One pipe is located mid-way along the RIGHT side. It comes away with ease. The second pipe is a bit more obscure is is located towards the top left most area of the cover and c an be a pain to get off.

[TIP] If the second pipe doesn't want to come off, then you just have to take it easy while lifting the engine cover off and leave it fixed in place.
You work your way round each corner

With the pipes removed and the cover lifted off, you simply have to turn the cover upside down. You will see about 10 Philip's screws in the housing. You just undo them, taking care to work logically and as you loosen each, the cover will simply lift away as work your way round.

[TIP] The screws in the under-housing wont actually come all the way out, they remain in place, so don't worry.

You simply lift out the old filter, clean the housing (as necc.) and refit the new one, tightening screws as you go.

You then simply line up the holes as you place the cover back onto the engine and press down firmly in each corner. Remember to refit any pipes you removed and then Bob is your Fathers brother, jobs a good'un.

That really is it. Nothing glamorous, but also nothing difficult. Very easy to do and takes about 15 MINs. the first you attempt it...it should then get much quicker after that

I thought about posting pictures, but in all honesty, there isn't anything to post. Once you have lifted the engine cover off, turn it upside down and undo the screws - that literally is it.

Any questions? Please post here or message me and I'll get back to you!

Couple of things, unless you do a high yearly mileage and operate the car in very dusty conditions, then my "take" on this task is to change the filter every three years or 30k miles - if your are a bit concerned just remove the filter every 18 months and hover the elements out in reverse direction. Oh and just use the VAG element as it comes with all the necessary seals that also need to be replaced. Other point is that I seem to remember that the screw positions are numbered - so probably remove them highest to lowest and refit lowest to highest. Also remember these filter housings were designed for only a limited number of re-assembling - the screws are self tappers into plastic - so take care. Finally, if you do not place the larger diameter air pipe on the RHS at the correct angle, then after 4 or 5 years it ends up getting cut through by chaffing on "something". I only discovered this by chance when changing my second COP coil assembly.

Remember you can always change the variable servicing to fixed servicing so that the warning is given at the correct time/distance - oh and probably use Fuchs synthetic oil from GSF.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you Matey. The air filter is you engines firstline of defence when it comes to filtering out impurities and allowing for good and pure air flow. A blocked/dirty filter can cause a number of problems which are best off-put by simply changing the element more frequently. I would never leave a filter in place for more than 10K miles/12 months (whichever is sooner).

Its the same philosophy for more frequent oil changes, not less.

As for cleaning the element, you will never be able to clean it sufficiently (the time spent cleaning ratio to quality of final product) will always be less when compared to a new filter.

However your points Re: fitment of housing and screws is quite correct. But I would have hoped that VW would have designed something like this for extended period of use (IE: many years). In any event, if it does go all horribly wrong - you can find many good ones from a scrapper

For a filter thats only a few quid, I can't see the rationale to leave it in place for that long. I'm sorry but these extended service intervals are wrong. Especially moreso if you have a turbo(!).

ihpj wrote:INTRODUCTION
ACTUAL HOW TO

On the 1.4 16v engine, the air filter is contained within the engine cover. The FIRST step is to remove this cover. Itis held in place by 4 pressure pads roughly dotted evenly around the covers edge. It is a simple case of gripping the cover firmly and pulling up wards.

I'm having major trouble working it out.

What are these pressure pads you write about? It isn't clear to me at all.

Even if I could find the pressure pads, I don't see how the cover could be gripped to pull upwards and lift, because of all the damn screws that are bonding it down.

Ours is one-piece and seems to have screws everywhere - I've possibly missed identifying a few as they are hard to see, and they are all undone from below - WTF?!



You're right that the screws, the ones I could get at anyway, don't remove all the way out.



The one to the right of the dip-stick is especially hard to get at - hardy any space to get at it - but others at the front look even more impossible to get at from below.





This isn't my car - but on mine there are like 4 screws at the top you just remove easy to remove the cover - whereas this seems way over-complicated.

The whole engine cover lifts off mate, it sits on four cone like plugs. Give it a good tug and it will come off, just watch because there is a small air pipe connected to the underside. If you get stuck drop me a pm

Thanks Chewy.

Four cone like plugs kk. I'll try again later this week - (it is raining and I don't have garage access atm).

I'm going to try pulling this cover upwards - and hopefully I'll be astonished and it will come away.

Thanks for the airpipe warning reminder.

If I remember correctly, the small pipe that needs to be pulled off is the one showing in the last picture. Seriously, just grab the LHS front corner with both hands and sort of rock it up and down building up force and eventually it will pop off that fixing, try the same thing on the RHS front corner until it pops off that next fitting, then while letting the cover rest back down on the top of the two front fixings, try the same thing on the rear corners - it will probably end up refixing on to the front fixings again but by this time you will now have gained confidance in how it comes off. When refitting it, try to locate it above both the throttle body intake and the cold air intake pipe.

One comment that I will make on the comment made about my reply posting is, if you follow my advice about cleaning the filter "mid-service" then all you are doing is removing some of the build up of dust and small objects from the outside face of the filter element. On the subject about what oil to use, I always cut short Long Life Servicing and apply fixed time/mileage set to 12months/10,000miles and always continue to use suitable fully synthetic engine oil - like Fuchs 5W-40 Super Synth SL from GSF.

Thanks chewy, thanks RUM4MO.

Last year after you both tried to help me... I didn't have the confidence. I'd pulled but was fearful I was going to break something, and all those screws dotted around underneath gave me a mental block that something would rip.

Anyway my sister's boyfriend was around today and I tried again. I pulled up a bit harder this time at the LHS front corner of the engine cover (following RUM4M0's well-explained, confidence-giving technique) and was surprised and happy when I felt it release. My sister's bf (Chris) had been equally dubious it would work cause he pointed out all the screws, but after my side released, he was on the right side and gave it a rock/tug upwards and the cover lifted upwards.

We could then see where the pressure points were for holding down the engine cover at the back. So it was just my timidity which stopped me releasing the cover with attempts in the past.

It was a bit rainy/wet today so we returned the cover, but now I've got the confidence to release the cover myself, to do the air-filter and spark plugs when better weather arrives. It's approaching 4 years since we had the air-filter and spark plugs changed and I put that down to why our Polo is really struggling to start from cold in the Winter mornings.

Also, ihpj, thanks for this guide. It's very helpful (even if I struggled embarrassingly with the engine cover first part.) I'm going to follow the rest of your guide/how-to for the air-filter change, hopefully at the weekend if it's not rainy.

Yes this way of fixing the air cleaner assembly is a bit of a shocker - but it works! I can't remember what forced me to actually put into practise what I thought should be the way to get this assembly off - bit it does take quite a bit of courage to try to get it off without resorting to getting a new one ordered up as you've broken the original one fitted. Giving each point one huge "heave" usually just is not going to work I'd reckon - that was why I suggested the "rocking" method as it allows you to build up courage as well as effort!!

One last comment is, in colder weather all these plastics will become "harder" as they are all made of long chain thingies who's spacings reduce with activity - so they are more forgiving when the weather is warmer as they can flex and recover instead of shearing.

RUM4MO wrote:Giving each point one huge "heave" usually just is not going to work I'd reckon - that was why I suggested the "rocking" method as it allows you to build up courage as well as effort!!

Yeah I'm glad I did it that way. Thanks - honestly. Reassuring and helped me a lot.

I had to work on my own (older) car on Saturday, and only got around to the Polo in the late afternoon.

ihpj wrote:With the pipes removed and the cover lifted off, you simply have to turn the cover upside down. You will see about 10 Philip's screws in the housing. You just undo them, taking care to work logically and as you loosen each, the cover will simply lift away as work your way round.

[TIP] The screws in the under-housing wont actually come all the way out, they remain in place, so don't worry.

You simply lift out the old filter, clean the housing (as necc.) and refit the new one, tightening screws as you go.

Exactly that, but there was only one pipe in my instance.

After removing the cover (woot!) you could take the whole lot indoors if you wanted to do the filter change. Anyway it just went dark as I finished up (got a hook-lantern) and I decided to take a quick photo of the cover, to show those cover release points (the 4 smaller holes in a rectangle pattern) , before I flipped it back over and re-fitted it, together with the pipe.

When I removed the old air-filter from the Polo, and it's been there a fraction short of 4 years (feel a bit guilty about that).. I looked at it in the fading afternoon light and thought.. 'it doesn't look that dirty.' (I took a pic of it indoors afterwards.)





When I compared it to a new one though, it looked pretty dirty.

I'm not sure if this helps anyone else, or how accurate the information actually is:

First, ignore the dirt on the leading edge of the air filter pleats. All air filters accumulate dirt on the leading edges in as little as a few thousand miles. Yet most last for about 12,000 miles. You want to know how much dirt has penetrated deep into the pleats. To test the true condition of your filter, hold a shop light behind it. See how much light passes through the inner pleats and compare yours with the three sample photos below.



The filter shown on the left is totally clogged and cost the owner a fortune in wasted gas. The filter in the middle shows a clogged area, but the rest of the filter has decent light transmission. It’s borderline, and the owner could probably squeeze 2,000 to 3,000 more miles out of it. It should be replaced at the next oil change interval. The filter on the right shows how much light passes through a new filter.

Full source here: http://www.rd.com/advice-and-know-how/5 ... 50782.html

Both the old/used air filters in their chart look like they need replacing to me though. I can better understand those people who change it every 12 months/regularly now, given you can get better mileage and other good stuff to keep car in good order with a clean air filter.

There was one thing I didn't quite understand with the air filter change.

Slightly away from the air-filter compartment within the cover, there was a sort of hole, with a blue rubber band in position. I should have examined it closer. The blue rubber band didn't seem to have any obvious relevance to the air-filter as far as I could tell.

However there was a new blue rubber band in the box which came with my new air-filter.

What is that blue rubber band for?

I've taken a photo of the new blue rubber band which came in the new box (sitting on top of the old, removed air filter).

Replying two months later - sorry but I don't venture into this section often as its not model specific, from hazy memory, the blue band is an air seal for a section of the air cleaner and as such is best changed seeing as VAG think that they should supply a new one with the filter kit. But, I'd reckon that you should not worry too much if the original one looked like it was still doing its job. Of course if you really want to do it right then just replace it now that the weather is warmer - if you still have that seal kicking around. I, again with hazy memory of what I saw, think that maybe this seal can move when the top is getting secured back onto the lower section - and that would permanently deform it - but this would only be evident when it was next opened up, so maybe VAG just played safe.

I think that its coming up to time I had a look in there again and change the filter kit!

RUM4MO thanks for the explanation about the seal. I think I've still kept the new one which came with the air-filter, but for now the existing one looked ok when I replaced the air-filter so trust it will be ok for it's job for now, like you say.

I've also not ventured into this section for a while. Have only done so now because I've been hit by a problem which makes me regret not changing my air-filter sooner. Because the air-filter got so dirty I'm suspecting dirty particles and grime began to penetrate further through... to the throttle body, and further like the EGR valve.

The trouble I've been having with stalling, EPC light, and into limp mode these past 4 weeks. Think I've read all EPC related threads on the forum now. The stalling problem had been noticeably getting more frequent, but I thought the new airfilter and plugs was going to remedy it. Yet even after the change the stalls carried on, until about 4 weeks ago it also triggered EPC light and into limp mode. [The problem for my EPC light was not and is not the brake light switch.] A recent throttle body clean has massively done a lot to remedy this problem, and getting it running ok again, but it's still occurring from time to time, which is annoying.

I did change the filter very soon after posting my reply, and I'm glad I did as my records showed that in 7.5 years and 64,000 miles I had only replaced the air cleaner once - and it was dirty. So after replacing the filter and plugs the fuel economy improved by about 5% - or was that due to the warmer weather. The blue gasket fits to the small anti-chamber after the chamber the filter fits into. So far no EGR or throttle body problems (touch wood!).