1991 Volkswagen Golf Driver from UK and Ireland - Comments

The Servo went 3 times for the previous owner. This reportedly never happens and they had to order a part from Germany each time.

A mysterious fault occurred whereby the car would seize up after 50 miles of motorway travel and and would only restart once the engine had cooled. This happened on three separate occasions and my original Volkswagen dealership could not find the solution. The problem was fixed by an alternate Volkswagen specialist, but not satisfactory explanation was given.

As reported by other owners the engine can cut out while idling when started from cold.

In the 5 years (20,000 miles) I have had the car it has required:

1 Battery

1 Complete exhaust system

1 Exhaust "back box"

1 Clutch cable

and various other small expensive repairs.

The car still looks good and has been maintained well and so is in very good condition for a 12 year old car.

The car is quick 0-30 but short of acceleration in higher gears.

It is however a good driver's car and is definitely fun to drive.

The lack of power steering on this model makes it a very heavy car to turn, and difficult to park.

Although most of this review has highlighted the negatives it is a very solid and enjoyable car to own unfortunately I'm selling it now and am very sad to see it go.

Engine cutting out when hot is a common problem with old polo-c cars. A really dangerous one happened at high speed on the m25 in the overtaking lane with the engine totally losing power and having to coast across five lanes of traffic to the distant hard shoulder, The problem is a well known (to volkswagen) it's a problem with a temperature activated air flap in the air inlet to the air filter which goes wrong shutting of air to the carb when the engine gets warm.

If you make it to the hard shoulder and the engine cools the fault temporarily disappears. Changing the flap valve cures the fault until it decides to go wrong again usually after a couple of years correct operation.

Regards from mike.