1996 Volkswagen Polo SE review from UK and Ireland

Interior light has never worked, and dealer unwilling to repair.

Drivers door hinge fell off after 2 months.

Electric Mirror failed and was replaced under warranty.

Gearbox failed 1 month after warranty expired! Had to replace with original VW part at V.W. dealer who were not able to do repair for 3 weeks and no courtesy car available. After several letters to V.W. they agreed to pay half of the bill. (The car had only done 10,000 miles!)

Having spoken to several other Polo owner this is fairly common on 1.4 Polos made in 1995/6.

Water gets in from both passenger and driver doors and despite the car being taken to dealer to have new door rubbers etc, every time it rains there are puddles in the foot wells. Again a very common fault and one which the dealer has apparently 'never come across'.

Good reliability. Always starts first time.

Car is now 7 years old and still looks good.

Standard alloy wheels are too small and high profile tires look a bit silly.

These Polo's are rated as the top Super-mini. In my opinion they are vastly overrated. The car is slow, expensive to buy and run and has very average build quality.

The gearbox is very poor and difficult to put into reverse.

The standard stereo and speakers are terrible.

No electric windows, central locking or sunroof. (Poor spec.)

Rear visibility is a joke. Move if you see one reversing toward you!!

Boot is far too small. Smaller than a Metro! It is quite deep though.

60bhp from a 1.4 engine is not very good and as the car is fairly heavy this makes progress very slow.