2002 Volkswagen Polo S review from UK and Ireland

As the car was second hand it needed a few things doing to it to make it A1. In general, though, the car is nice to drive, has plenty of mid-range pull and is comfortable.

However... my biggest bugbear is the fuel consumption. The figures quoted for this car indicate that it should return approx 49mpg around town and 68mpg on an open road. The combined figure is 61mpg. Most of my driving is on the motorway so I expected it to return late fifties, early sixties. I have to date only managed a best of 51mpg (worked out when refilling the tank and calculating the MPG). I am, to say the least, disappointed with these figures.

I've come to the conclusion that if you trundle around and never allow the turbo to really cut-in then higher MPG figures are probably possible, but under normal everyday driving VW's figures are unrealistic.