[fluidicjoy]

Introduction
So I ended up cleaning the Air Filter on my Polo with Volkswagen Group’s EA211 3 cylinder 1.0 TSI petrol engine. I believe the 1.0 TSI is an important engine for the Volkswagen Group in India, especially in the budget segment. Internationally, EA211 series engines are doing duty in a lot of vehicles like the Up! Golf, Polo, T-Roc, T-Cross, Touran etc. Coincidentally, I had the good fortune of servicing my friend’s 1.2L MPI Polo last year and I noticed that replacing the Air Filter on the 1.2MPI and 1.2 TSI sold previous was a ridiculously simple task which took less than 3 minutes! I’m not really sure what the engineers at Volkswagen were thinking, but they’ve easily quadrupled the time and effort for servicing the air filter on this newer engine. The single reason for that, is that the entire Air Filter box needs to be removed from the Engine, since the Torx Bolts holding the Air Filter in the Air Filter box, are threaded from the bottom side.

All that being said, I'm really liking this new TSI engine, despite the smaller size and I'm sure there must be many enthusiasts who wanted a little inspiration to service and maintain their rides themselves, and so I thought of compiling this DIY. If you are someone who'd rather watch all this unfold in detail, then there's a bonus treat for you at the end.

The strategies I’d be using should also be quite similar on the new 1.0 MPI, sold on the base Polo, and few other TSI engines belonging to this newer series, because the bottom line is that, the Filter is no longer accessibly without taking the Intake Box out. The methodology and flow of service operations I'll be following come from the Official Volkswagen Group repair manual for the 3 cylinder EA211 engine. The Polo with the 1.0 TSI engine Volkswagen in 2020, had the engine code DSHA.

Tools and Parts Required
The Air Filter screws are all T25 Torx Bits, while one of the Screw Mounting the Box to the Engine and Manifold is a T30 Torx Bit. To remove the Air Filter Box from tight hose clamps, you will compulsorily need a sturdy Water Pump Plier or a Hose Plier.

Now luckily, Volkswagen have included a Screw Driver handle and a bit in the Tyre Tool Kit at the back and it happens to include both a T25 and a T30 Torx Bit at the other end. Still, if you do not have any of these tools, here's a small list for suitable tools here.

1. Water Pump Plier
2. Torx T25 Screwdriver or Bit
3. Torx T30 Screwdriver or Bit
4. Cleaning Cloth - For cleaning dust, dirt and other purposes.

Part Number
If you are planning to replace the Air Filter, the present part number offered from the factory is 04C 129 620A, but I'd take this part number with a pinch of salt since this is the Air Filter which has come in from the factory and Volkswagen could eventually switch to a more localised revision for this 1.0 TSI Engine.

Estimated Time
So I would rate the work to be fairly simple and it should take you about 15-20 mins if you’re experienced but I must say it could end up being 1.5 hours if certain things go wrong, like they did in my case (nothing new to me), as I sadly mess something up every single time.

Company Specified Service Intervals

As per ERWIN, Volkswagen specifies a Filter Replacement interval of 2 Years or 30000kms, whichever is earlier. It is also worth noting that Volkswagen acknowledges India to be a High Dust Country. Volkswagen India however seems to be following a 1 Year or 15000kms Service Interval, where they replace the Air Filter. However, considering how dusty some driving conditions can get, I believe the air filter on this tiny 3 cylinder engine could do with some periodic cleaning well before the Annual Service Mark. The reason I took this DIY up, was to see how dirty my filter could potentially get considering my limited driving pattern around town, with the occasional highway sprint.

Sequence Of Operations (As Per The Service Manual)

1. Loosening the T30 bolt on the front of the Air Box
2. Loosening and releasing the Clamped Front Intake Hose
3. Loosening the Breather Hose on the left of the Air Box
4. Unclipping the Vacuum Line on the right of the Air Box.
5. Loosening and releasing the Rear Clamped Hose from the Air Box.
6. Pulling the Air Filter Assembly upwards and Out of The Car.
7. Unscrewing The Air Filter Cover
8. Cleaning or Replacing the Air Filter
9. Cleaning the Air Filter Box thoroughly

Reinstallation was supposed to follow the exact reverse order, but for me, I had to mix up the order quite a bit to make sure everything fit in without a stretch.

Getting Started

Before we get started, I’d like to blow and clean this dusty engine bay with my electric air blower and now’s a good chance to protect yourself with an N95, if you aren’t already doing so, in these new Corona times. Now I ended up being a little lazy today, but it’s really helpful if you have a mask on. You’re protecting yourself from the million sneezes headed your way!

Now, we start by using the Water Pump Plier to loosen the Intake Hose Clamp and free the Intake Hose from the Air Filter Box. The hose might be really tight, so try gently twisting and tugging at it in place. Once you sense play, pull it backwards in a straight line and it should be off in no time. Once the hose is off, make sure the clamp is correctly seated on the pipe. Improperly seating the Hose Clamp can cause plastic intake pipes to crack.



Next, proceed to unscrew a T30 Screw right in front of the hose. As per the Service manual, it’s fine if you don’t take it out completely just as yet, as it should get lifted out of the way along with the entire air-box.

Now, we remove the small Breather Hose which connects on the Top Left and in some cases, these hoses are really tight. This one was not impossibly tight, but make sure you don't break, bend or stretch it too much while pulling it off. If you have a really tight hose, I'd suggest using a Trim tool to guide the hose off, nice and easily.
Next there’s a small vacuum line which needs to be unclipped on the right side of the Air Box. Next, we proceed to loosen the Hose Clamp connecting the Air Box at the rear and after this clamp is free, we can pull the entire Air Box upwards and out of the engine bay!

It could be helpful if you had someone to help you with the clamp as you could then focus on pulling the Air Box upwards and out from the Mounting Spots on the Engine Head. I could manage alone, but would have been glad to have a helping hand.

With the Air Box out of the way, it’s a good idea to place a small towel on the rear opening to prevent foreign objects from falling deep inside.


Let’s have a quick look at the Air Filter box, which is made in Romania, but before that let’s unscrew and speak about the Water Drain Pipe, which locks and unlocks with a click. This Drain Pipe needs to be inspected and cleaned with compressed air to allow a reliable passage for any water picked up by the intake, to leave the Air Filter Housing.


The Air Filter box is Made in Romania, and to my surprise, lacks any TSI branding on Indian variants. I’m frankly not a fan of this design and I hate to reiterate, but I believe it is incredibly stupid having to remove an entire intake assembly, for merely cleaning an air filter. We aren't speaking about cleaning or replacing the spark plugs are we?


And from the looks of it, this could totally have been avoided if the screws were on the front side, like the outgoing Polos we have here. The rear of the Filter Box houses the 9 T25 Torx Screws, 8 of which are around the box, while the 9th one is recessed in the centre. What is ingenious though is that these screws do not fall out.

Before unscrewing the filter box, I’d suggest placing a cloth on your working space because that would prevent any deep scratches to the air filter cover, which isn't pretty to begin with. With all of the T25 screws loosened, you can take the cover off and there you have your Made in Italy, Genuine Engine Air Filter waiting for you.


It's got a hole in the middle, like a Polo. As per the Service Manual, the Air Filter is recommended to be Replaced after 2 Years or 30000kms, whichever is earlier, but Volkswagen acknowledges that India is a high dust country, and so its a must to at least clean the filter after a Year or 15000kms. In fact, this duration would be even lesser if you drive through very dusty environments. This car, which is primarily city driven, is just about 3 months old and has been driven for only 1600kms, and this filter is fairly clean as you’d expect. All I’m going to do now is clean it with some air, but you could also just tap it clean against the floor. It was only slightly dusty, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures. Now’s a good chance to clean the entire Air Filter box thoroughly with a rag, before we proceed to seat the replaced or cleaned air filter back in the Air Box.


Put the lid back on, and start tightening the 8 T25 screws on the cover in a criss-cross pattern, to avoid cross threading and to ensure that the air filter box is properly seated. Then, also tighten up the 9th T25 screw in the centre of the housing.

Torque Specs

Now, the torque spec for the T25 bolts is 1.5Nm and just for fun I had a look at the least count of my digital torque wrench and its 2Nm. Well It’s a plastic assembly, and I can safely say you’d be good by merely hand tightening all of these T25 screws.

[fluidicjoy]

Before attempting to refit the Airbox, inspect the three rubber mounting points and make sure all of them are looking in good touch. These need to sit correctly on the Mounting Pins on the Engine Head. Now, remember the Water Drain pipe which we removed a while back? Well you can fit it back right now or you always do it in the end!



Now, installation is nearly the reverse of removal but I did face a couple of potholes. So instead of following the manual, I started off by slightly threading in the bottom T30 bolt which is also a mounting site and then proceeded to slide in the intake box into the Rear Hose Clamp.

It was the rear Hose Clamp which gave me a lot of trouble, so make sure you have a really good set of pliers.


Then, we press down the Airbox along the Rubber Mounts on the Mounting Pins and once the Air Box is fit completely, you can tighten the T30 screw at the bottom.

Next, we connect the Breather Hose on the left and it even has a White Mark on it, to help you align it correctly. The only major hose left now is the Outside Air Intake, which should slide right in, on releasing the Hose Clamp.

Now, just clamp the Vacuum Hose on the right of the Air Filter box, between the two White Markings, and if you took the Water Drain Pipe out for convenience, fit it back right now!


Final Checks

As a final step, we check all of the Tightly Clamped hoses and make sure they are securely and snugly fit. We can tug at them lightly to see if they are loose or incorrectly seated because if they come out, there’d an instant drop in power. The hoses also need to be secured at the correct position. Making sure the Air Filter box is sitting on the correct mounting points.

Mistakes I Made

1. I started unscrewing the Air Filter box and it suddenly struck me that I was working on a rough floor, which had the potential of placing some ugly scratches on the the Air Filter Box. I did rectify this tiny cosmetic not so fatal mistake, but still there are quite a few scratches on the Black Plastic Box that I need to polish now.
2. The second mistake a little less forgivable in my opinion. The hose clamps being new, are really tight. I freed the hose clamp, but did not check where it was resting on the Rear side of the Intake. It turns out that the Rear Intake has a Soft transient piece and the clamp was clamping onto that. As a result, by the time I was done working on cleaning the filter, the Soft cylindrical piece was almost crumpled and the hose clamp had tightened and widened to quite a huge extent. Releasing the hose clamp and managing to get it back in the right position took a huge toll on my forearms. It definitely added 30 mins to my working time.
   

The Other Things

Noticed a small speck of white paint on the T25 screws holding the Air Filter. They must be markings made after the bolts were electronically torqued down to 1.5Nm. Here's a small schematic which explains the entire assembly on this DSHA engine. (Credits : VW)


Bonus
I was simultaneously shooting the steps I followed for this service operation and here's an edited video of the same.

https://youtu.be/cBVQiZmhix4

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[GT Racer]

This attention to detail & thorough care makes team bhp my choice to read sipping coffee every morning. Great post will help many DIYers out there. Loved your red polo TSi in the background. Keep updating on the after sales experience too, hopefully many mods will follow.

[Reinhard]

Nicely done & narrated. Always fun to DIY with our cars. When one looks at the pictures/videos of a DIY project for something considered a part of routine car service, suddenly makes one think that the labor charges in our service bills might perhaps be justified & not as unfair as we feel usually .

This is also a classic case of complex German engineering. The air-filters on the 1.3 MJD (Ze Italians!!) and even most modern Tata / Mahindra etc engines - are serviceable much easier with the bolts/screws directly exposed on top besides the engine cover. Nothing else needs to be undone / removed from place other than the lid of the air-filter. Here in the TSI's case - it seems the entire assembly had to be taken out and opened from under/side to access the filter in it.

[Sen]

Cheers for sharing, will help me in my 10,000 km inspections.

For now, during one of my routine inspections, saw that due to a day or two of outdoor parking, a rat had chewed part of the battery protection sleeve in my engine bay, leaving me outraged and dismayed.

Not a critical component, but it could have been. The rat menace is well documented especially in the 80+ thread since 2004.

Will keep an eye on your posts.

[SatyRoy]

Fluidicjoy thank you so much for the detailed instructions. Would be forwarding it to my cousin brother who wanted to do the same however lacked step by step details. Very nicely done. Would certainly help a lot of us.

[Jeroen]

Thanks for sharing, excellent write up. It does make one wonder what idiots design this crap?

I always maintain that the real quality of a car doesn’t materialise until you start maintaining it. The ease at which something is replaced and or maintained is a direct result of how it was designed. Alfa Romeo has always been great at visual design, but totally sucks at how they need maintaining.

My Mercedes W123 is probably one of the last cars ever to be designed with ease of maintenance in the design brief. And it shows. The only car where I can remove a door card in under a minute and re-install it within a minute. No rattles, no squeak! Irrespective of how often you take them apart. German engineering perfection to the max.

Sadly, all Germans lost that. It will take you 45 minutes to replace a headlight bulb on the new VW Beetle. Not as bad as your air filter, but I would still rated as a truly half baked stupid design. Whoever thought of that needs to be shot. I can’t even begin to fathom why they would do so? It is very difficult to imagine this design being cheaper or better.

It’s a shame, for me the Polo was sort of VW last stronghold on the cheap, simple and efficient way of motoring.

Jeroen

[TrackDay]

It is always good to get air filters cleaned regularly rather than wait for the service interval. This simple step can ensure good engine performance and life.

However I am surprised at the complex way the air filter box has been designed !

[fluidicjoy]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Nicely done & narrated. Always fun to DIY with our cars. When one looks at the pictures/videos of a DIY project for something considered a part of routine car service, suddenly makes one think that the labor charges in our service bills might perhaps be justified & not as unfair as we feel usually. Here in the TSI's case - it seems the entire assembly had to be taken out and opened from under/side to access the filter in it.

Glad you liked it. Yes, it truly is fun to DIY with our own cars. I have been trying to determine why a shift in the intake position was reinstated with the EA211 group of engines as earlier, most of the previous engines had a separated intake, while present engines are opting for an integrated manifold approach. If there is an engineering insight, there still could have been a more suitable way to flip the screws and make this assembly more user friendly.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I always maintain that the real quality of a car doesn’t materialise until you start maintaining it. The ease at which something is replaced and or maintained is a direct result of how it was designed. Alfa Romeo has always been great at visual design, but totally sucks at how they need maintaining.

My Mercedes W123 is probably one of the last cars ever to be designed with ease of maintenance in the design brief. And it shows. The only car where I can remove a door card in under a minute and re-install it within a minute. No rattles, no squeak! Irrespective of how often you take them apart. German engineering perfection to the max.
Jeroen

What is honestly quite intriguing is that this is not a ubiquitous design language update to the Intake across the line. Only the lower end offerings seem to need this lengthy process for cleaning the air filter. The older Polo based on this platform and sold here had a very simple method for cleaning the Air Filter. I have heard so many marvel stories about the W123. No wonder it is loved so much by passionate enthusiasts.

Originally Posted by TrackDay

It is always good to get air filters cleaned regularly rather than wait for the service interval. This simple step can ensure good engine performance and life. However I am surprised at the complex way the air filter box has been designed !

Yes! However I think I was too impatient as the filter in my case was barely dirty. Still, the entire work let me have a lot of fun writing and documenting this DIY!

[veedub]

Fluidicjoy, that's a brilliant write up about the new 1.0 TSI maintenance DIY.

Some attributes of this engine are yet to be common knowledge everywhere. Interestingly, there already is a K&N replacement air filter on Boodmo listed for Rs. 9792 at the time of posting this, in case someone might be looking.
Link to the K&N: https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-333037-49435340/

Also, going slightly off-topic but can you confirm if the engine oil capacity for the 1.0 TSI after a full drain and with a new oil filter is ~ 4L? Please do share with the community and fellow DIYers.

[fluidicjoy]

Originally Posted by veedub

Also, going slightly off-topic but can you confirm if the engine oil capacity for the 1.0 TSI after a full drain and with a new oil filter is ~ 4L? Please do share with the community and fellow DIYers.

The 1.0 TSI does indeed have a rated 4L Oil change volume. I have posted about it here on the 1.0 TSI Official Thread. You can read about it here (Volkswagen Polo 1.0L TSI : Official Review).

[sagwal]

Originally Posted by fluidicjoy

Introduction

Air filter housing in 1.5 TSI EA211 Evo (DPCA) is on the right side of the engine.

[ankitsharma]

Good work. Keep more coming.

I stumbled upon this while searching on youtube and got the link to this thread from there.

I have the Rapid 1.0 TSI.

[vedirah]

Hey, thanks for the write up! I followed your steps, and I too am stuck at reinstalling the tight hose clamp at the outlet of the air box. Could you explain how you managed to get it back in position?