2001 Volkswagen Polo SE review from UK and Ireland

I had owned the car for less than 2 weeks when the Engine warning and EPC lights came on resulting in a lost of power to the engine. A number of sensors were replaced which seemed to fix the issue.

Shortly after the ABS warning lights appeared and my ABS stopped functioning to fix this 2 sensors were replaced and this sorted the problem out for 1 or 2 weeks. The problem resurfaced and once again 2 more sensors were replaced.

Since I have owned the car I have had a leak in both left hand side doors and the carpet in the front and rear foot wells is soaked through. VW have been unable to fix this as of yet.

Whenever I put the car into reverse the gearbox makes a crunching sound - VW have tried to adjust the clutch to fix this, but have just told me to put the car into first gear before putting it into reverse.

The Clutch needed to be replaced at 55k miles - VW quoted £440 - independent garage replaced it for £220.

I had an electrical problem which meant the electric windows and central locking stopped functioning - and because the Petrol cap is controlled via Central locking I could not open the cap to fill up with fuel either.

The pedal box has broken 3 times which meant I was unable to use the clutch - apparently this is a "known" fault on Polo's - the GTIs were recalled for this - however the other Polo's were not. After having it welded up multiple times I eventually had to have the whole box replaced - this cost £400 (the pedal box itself was only £30). When VW returned the car to me the Brake lights were stuck on (because VW had failed to fit a clip properly) and ever since the engine has been randomly cutting out.

VW repaired the brake light problem free of charge although they have yet to fix the engine cutting out (seems to happen when at low revs mainly).

This week the Engine and EPC lights have once again started to appear. Will be going back to VW again with this soon.

When the car works - it works beautifully. It's extremely quick off the mark and corners well.

The SE model has a large amount of extras on board which make driving extremely comfortable and pleasurable.

However since ownership I have been plagued by a spate of unreliability which has resulted in a costly repair bill.

Servicing at 10,000 miles is short and also expensive.

I will not be buying another car from the VW Group again.