UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hello
New owner of a MK2 polo here and need of your help!!
I bought the car a week ago and I have some problems trying to sort out.
The biggest problem is the grinding sound that comes from the near side front wheel. It started 2 days ago only when I was breaking. I thought that it might be the brake pads so today I took the wheel of and checked the pads but they have plenty of life on them. I have now realised that the grinding sounds when I brake but when I tunr on the right as well but only from the left hand side. Another thing I noticed is that the left hand side wheel is warmer than the right hand one after a quick spin around the block. Any Idea what it might be? I did a search and someone mentioned the CV joints could that be it? How much they cost to replace?
Another problem is the 1 st gear wich is quite noisy (sounds like hi speed reverse!!) Any idea what that might be? or how I can reduse this sound?

When the grinding sound is only or is more when you drive a curve in a particular direction, that means only when driving a right curve OR a left curve then it's mostly wheel bearings.

CV joints are only protective rubber thingis. If they are cut or otherwise broken then can enter dust and dirt and damage the axis with the time but then you would hear the grinding sound always independantly from the direction of a curve and if breaking or not.

I never had it on the front wheels but once on the rear ones and there it is a minor action. I didn't do it myself but the mechanic needed an hour or less if I remember right.

If one wheel gets hotter on one side it could be that for some reason the brakes don't unblock properly. If you jack up both front wheels and turn them by hand you maybe can feel a difference.

The gearbox can have all sorts of problems when it has been mistreated or if a substantial amount of oil was missing over a prolonged time. Otherwise it is quite robust. There is somewhere on the side a screw (17mm Allen key ?) where you can check the level of gearbox oil. The screw is sometimes difficult to find.

If you got the time it's worth to get a Haynes manual. They're cheap on ebay. Even if you do only minor things yourself you got an impression what the garage is doing.
I feel that the time isn't wasted as if you are dependant on a car you got an idea what's wrong, how severe is it, if you need to fix it immedately, what happens if you don't and so on.

Wheel bearings get louder with the time. It can damage something sometimes if you don't fix it but generally you can drive as long it's not getting too loud.

One wheel warmer than the other mainly wastes brake pads with the time.

Gearbox is often that robust that it needs tens of thousands of miles to get it worse. If only oil is missing that would be easy.

So, everything needs fixing but nothing is extremely urgent.

hello-

usualy a noise whilst turning would indicate a problem with the cv joint!!!!!

get the car jacked up and inspect cv joints,you know it 's from the nearside so this will save time.

whilst the car is jacked up,turn the wheel freely and see how freely it turns.get someone to apply the brakes,then once they stop applying the brakes try turning the wheel again.if it turns freely then you know the brakes are not binding,but if the wheel is hard to rotate then the nearside brake is binding on causing the excess build up of heat.


william