1997 Volkswagen Polo 16v review from UK and Ireland

Electric windows are not working.

Brake pads - twice!

It seemed a really great car, I went in with a 1.6CL and told the salesman I wanted something better, more exciting.

He showed me the 16v, metallic black, it looked lovely. Then I made a mistake, I never drove it, I just bought it!

Don't get me wrong, it is nice, it's typically Volkswagen, solid, no rattles, etc. I was disappointed with the windows electrics packing up - the dealer has been extremely helpful!

My main quibble is that considering it's a hatch-back with 100bhp, it's a slug. It's not that fast, and the gearing seems wrong, you can change gear and all you drop is about 1500rpm, then you need to change again and then you are at about 4500rpm doing 70mph. As most of my journey is on the motorway I get fairly poor fuel economy.

The other quibble is that the suspension and steering are dire - almost dangerous. The car just lunges about the road, the steering has absolutely no control over where the car is going! You can turn fast and it just points all over the road and that's in the dry - in the wet it's just not even worth trying a corner at anything less that dead slow!

In my opinion the 1.6 was almost as quick, cruised a lot more smoothly at speed and was much more economical.

Sorry VW - not this one!