UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi im new to this site. I have a Midnight Blue Polo 6N, with 94,000Miles on the clock. I have done about 6K miles in the car and have had no problems with it until now.

Problem
1) The car normal starts first time but occasionaly it hasnt and the clock has reset a couple of times when starting the car. I guess this is due to its age.

2) Also most recently the car has started cutting out while driving. When depressing the clutch and selecting third gear the revs fall to 0 and the battery light and the oil light appear on the dash? also the idle revs have recently tended to move between 850-1000 Revs. What is worrying is that the engine cuts off and the power steering tends to go with it. Does anyone know what could be causing this???

If someone who knows possible reasons could reply it would be much appreciated also i dont really know the car lingo so if it could be as basic as possible it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi there

Welcome to the site - I too am not good with car lingo , but had a similar problem and got some cracking advice from the chaps on this site. They advised me to clean the throttle body then unattach the battery overnight and that did the trick.....However , if you want to wait until the techie guys are online that's ok !!!

^^ lol i'm not tecky at all but I have been facing this problem a whole year with my 16v. Its stopped happening last summer but as Autumn set in the car started playing up again

Anyway, do a search on the forum on "erratic revs" and you'll find many polo's suffer with this. The big problem is the culprits sitting amongst plenty of suspects so you may take time fixing it. It could be a number of this listed below:

- Throttle body (clean with carb cleaner and check)
- ECU (needs reseting as mentiond above or faulty)
- Distributor cap (cracks or leaks)
- HT leads
- Plugs
- Temp sender (gives awkward readings making the ECU compensate and give wrong instructions)
- Idle Control Valve (won't idle properly causing erratic revs)

You'll find when the revs try dropping to a stall the car tries saving itself but increasing fuel/air mixture making the revs jump up again; failing that the car will stall. As the car basically shuts down you lose P/S and brakes, which happened to me at 70mph TWICE I've tried everything but the ICV and Temp sender as i've just got lazy back in summer when the problem reduced.

Hope its of some help and keep us posted

The other thing to get tested once you've gone through the list from NOZ is the coil. The battery sounds like it's on its way out if the clock has reset, if it's not new it's worth treating it to a new one anyway.

Hi,

Ive had this trouble before and now its completely gone, touch wood lol

Well i took it to my local garage and he said he would clean the sump and add a engine clean thing, new oil and a oil filter. He then drove it for 30 miles to set it in.

I been driving now for awhile and the problem has gone

I remember sometimes when i use to come back from work, whilst driving on the main road the car use to cut out all of a sudden. That was scary lol

Anyways maybe thats ur solution too!

good luck

^^ Doesn't always work but the most common reason for this problem. Check this one first before do any of the others as it could get costly.

So far i've spent £170 changing leads, plugs, distributor, thottle cleaning etc which never worked for me

Hi NOZ, what has been the problem with yours? I've read before that you had intermittent problems in winter time.

Like you I went through and changed everything except the coil. I finally had it checked by an auto electrician last winter and it randomly tested positive and negative. The actual coil pack must have got some moisture into the metal leaves, causing it to work intermittently in wintry weather. It's been fine ever since.

Hi mate, I don't actually know the fault of mine yet. I think it might be the coil as other battery relates problems occur.

eg 1: wind down both electric windows together and they move slower but one by one they're faster. Also if engines on and suddenly try moving both windows together, battery bogs down a fraction of a second making the engine rev go down a bit with it and lower electical power to the lights of they're on.

eg 2: if the stereo's playing and I restart the car, the volume goes so I have to restart the stereo for volume to come back on.

eg 3: last week I fitted HID's and although they have their own power supply I still have problems. If switch on after a long time then the EU resets the trip, time and rev counters all the way down and back to normal (although car still runs perfectly during this) For the ECU to reset the battery must be disconnected!

Reckon its the coil mate?

I've got slow windows too, though mainly the left one, which is embarrassing when you're try to drive and pull it up if it sticks! I don't think this is the battery, just something else to fix.

The other issues you've got sound like the battery isn't putting out enough amps. When I got a new one, I went for 44Ah, though I don't run any amps or have HID's. It might be worth checking what is yours rated at and maybe getting something with a bit more output.

Before I put a new coil on mine it would be fine one minute, then not start the next. All the relay's would come on and the fuel pressurised, then nothing. This only happened in winter. It might be worth trying swapping it with a friend or one from the scrap yard, as I think they're a bit expensive.

ah but the windows would slow down only when doing both sides together, which suggests together they need more power which the battery can't cope with.

I will do what you mentioned above though and see how it works.

When you've got a spare £250, you need one of these...your windows will be off the rails!

http://www.optimabattery.co.uk/english_ ... optima.htm

^^ lol thought about it but can't be bothered spending too much cash. Might think about getting just a slightly more powerful battery.