UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

I could do some advice as to whether contacting the dealership that I bought my car from and outlining the problems that have arisen over the 2-year course of owning it will be worth the hassle.

August 2019 - I purchased my Polo BlueGT with 20k miles on the clock, however, after around 10 minutes of driving back home on the m54, the EPC light came on. Thankfully, this was due to a hose for the turbo coming loose. The car was promptly fixed and I managed to get home in one piece.

I then noticed a very slight metallic knocking noise coming from the rear each time I went over a speedhump, this turned out to be the rear brake cable sticking out from the brake disc due to it not being assembled correctly when the last service was done. This was a very quick fix. I then noticed the clutch pedal making a creaking sound each time it was released. Long story short: This thankfully got replaced under warranty after travelling back and forth to the dealership in question 3 times.

I then noticed that the back tyres were rather noisy, decided to swap them to the front, which made no difference so I forked out on 4 brand new Goodyear Eagle F1's for around £350. And finally, recently, I've noticed a rubberised creaking sound whenever going over a speedbump, turns out, according to a local VAG Specialist Garage that the front left shock absorber is faulty and will no doubt need replacing within 1 year both anti-roll bar drop links will need replacing too, the cost will be around £400.

So to summarise: My car is currently on 36522 miles. After purchasing the car in August 2019, I have had:

October 2019 - Clutch Pedal replaced (free due to the car being under 1-year dealership warranty)

October 2019- - Dodgy rear brake assembly fixed (free)

June 2020 - Battery replaced due to Start-Stop System error (£200+)

November 2020- 4 new tyres due to ones that were on the car being out of shape, worn and noisy (£350+)




Current problems:
- Front left shock absorber on its way out
- Front anti-roll bar drop links on their way out
- Possible that front suspension bushings are worn
(All of which may be the cause of the rubber creaking sound when going over speedbumps).
-Turbo actuator is momentarily sticking open which is causing a very slight hesitation when accelerating hard in 2nd gear (£££)


Surely all of this shouldn't be happening to a car with such low miles and which also has a full service history. Even if I could get any sympathy from the dealership and hopefully get these problems fixed, either at a discount or just have the car replaced would be ideal. What are peoples thoughts on what I should do next?

Unfortunately, I think that many of the issues you’ve experienced with your car would be classed as normal wear and tear. I see from your earlier posts that your car is a 2014 6c Blue GT, so it’s around 6 - 6.5 years old which is the point where things will inevitably become worn or fail and need replacing - sometimes irrespective of the car’s mileage - e.g. rubber components degrading with age, low mileage cars with stop start activated doing lots of stop start driving will a have an impact on battery life. I’ve owned cars in the past where many items such as tyres, brakes and battery all seemed to need replacing around the same time, and that can make for quite an expensive few months motoring, even if the car’s not being used much.

The supplying dealer did rectify the issues you had with the clutch pedal and rear brake assembly as I’d expect them to, especially as these happened so soon after you got the car, and the car also had a warranty (although not everything is necessarily covered under the warranty).

As for needing to replace the battery when your car was approaching 6 years old - if the battery you replaced was the original, then nearly 6 years from a battery is pretty good, especially if you leave your stop / start switched on; based on some of the threads I’ve read on other VW forums, many batteries on cars with stop start need replacing sooner than you needed to replace yours. Also, for a set of low profile tyres to last 30k+ miles, I’d say that’s pretty good, and as tyres wear down, they do tend to get noisier. Tyres can also get flat spots or go out of shape if they’re on a car that’s parked up and not moved / used for prolonged periods of time - so other car owners might also have experienced this issue during lockdown.

One of my previous VW’s also used to make a creaking noise when going over speed tables. The cause was dry rubber bushes on the front suspension and is fairly common on VW’s. There was no creaking during wet weather - presumably, when the bushes got wet, there was sufficient ‘lubrication’ to stop the creaking.

In your position, I think you need to decide how long you plan on keeping your car. If you’ve no plans to sell it, then I’d suggest finding a good independent VW specialist to do the work you envisage needs doing, and focus on getting any jobs done first that might result in an MOT fail. Based on the length of time that’s passed since you bought your car and based on the article at the link below, I don’t think the dealer you bought the car from is under any legal obligation to help financially, although if you’ve been using that dealer for all servicing and maintenance work on your car, then they might be prepared to make some form of goodwill gesture and contribute towards the cost of repairs.

https://www.whatcar.com/news/your-legal ... -car/n3307

I highly doubt your bushes are bad. They dont go out so early.
They can be always be replaced with solid ones, they last longer and easy to do.
Also anti roll bar bushes are easy to replace, and cheap.

Hi guys, so I had the following work done yesterday:

.Offside Front Shock Absorber replaced
.Offside Front Anti Roll Bar link replaced
.Both Front Lower Arm Bushes replaced
.Brake Fluid Change

All of which cost around £450 (ouch).

Now, a new problem has arisen, my steering is off centre, so I have to turn the wheel about 3 degrees to the left in order to drive in a straight line.

I went back to the same garage earlier today to get a free wheel alignment done. I was told that the wheels are straight and there are no tracking issues, it's just the steering wheel isn't straight and may be the culprit here.

Not sure whether to believe this...perhaps the tracking equipment isn't calibrated correctly or the alignment wasn't done properly?

Was told to wait around 1 month for things to settle and then come back if the problem is still present. I don't see why a crooked steering wheel is considered normal...