22nd April 2021, 18:26
| #1 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Pune
Posts: 50
Thanked: 144 Times
| 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI It all started when I finally got my driving license in the December of 2015. We had a 5 speed Maruti then, which was Gujarat registered. It was a perfect cash cow for Maharashtra police, and a youngster driving it, made me the perfect candidate for harassment. A new registration was as much as the car itself, so the decision was made to purchase a new car when I return to Pune for my summer vacations. I was pursuing my engineering then and was in third year. Fast forward to May of 2016, the search was on, the budget was tight. The first two weeks of May was spent reading reviews and ownership reports of all the hatchbacks in the 5-7 lakh OTR, endless hours on YouTube looking for every detailed review. Being an automotive enthusiast, the criteria's for selection were very simple.
So accordingly three contenders were short listed by me :- VW Polo I had seen the success they had in WRC and how highly regarded the germans were, this left a good impression about the product even before I ordered the test drive. This was also the first car we test drove, called B.U. Bhandari VW showroom at 12 pm, the TD car was at my doorstep at 3 pm. Test driving the Polo first was a mistake, but a good mistake. The TD was very good, going from a 13 year old 800cc 35bhp engine to a 70 bhp engine, had me already floored when I floored the throttle. The brakes were superior too, this was me experiencing the advancements in the industry. The car was glued to the road, undulations were not able to unsettle it at highway speeds. The fit and finish was top notch too. Mom and younger brother in the back seat liked the car too, a thumbs up from them. Nexa Baleno The Baleno had just launched was richer in the features compared to the Polo. Went to a showroom to TD the car, My thought going in was that maybe Maruti is trying to mend their ways and the car will be sorted to drive .For once safety and driving pleasure would triumph fuel economy. But sadly, that was not true, the car at 80 Kmph was being affected by the crosswinds, and I had to constantly correct for it. Undulating roads and crosswinds made the drive very unnerving for me. The waiting period quoted by the sales person was 7-8 months and I was in no mood to wait for that long. I wanted the car before I went back to college, so that I could enjoy a few long drives with my friends in the amazing monsoons of Pune. Things were not looking good for the Baleno, even though the features offered were impressive, simple things like a driver armrest, rear ac vents, a touchscreen infotainment system, things that Polo was missing, and then the final nail in the coffin dropped, during the TD, when my mother from the backseat commented that this feels like a bigger 800 and that was the end of Baleno. Hyundai i20 We didn't even test drive this one. There were many reasons, I didn't like it much from the online reviews I saw. A well kitted spec was little over the budget and polo already had my heart from the test drive and it was least expensive too. (remember how I said test driving the polo first was a mistake) Others Even a second was not spent on looking at Maruti's, their product mantra is in the reverse order of my selection criteria. Fuel economy and features is everything, who care's about driving dynamics. I have driven many swifts, altos and wagon R's , they are just so boring. I was looking at amaze and jazz too but my mother didn't like the design so they were out. I didn't like the interiors of Toyota etios, specially the centre mounted speedometer, just a personal thing. Booking and Delivery The decision was made to go ahead with the purchase of VW Polo, we visited the B.U Bhandhari showroom, and the experience was pretty smooth, maybe because we took their insurance and VW loan. What I wanted was a GT TSI, what we could afford was 1.2MPI Comfortline. At that time petrol was the choice because I knew that the car won't see a lot of running as I would be going to office in company provided transport and the car would be mostly used for weekend getaways and grocery shopping. The only motivation for a TDI was the extra grunt and turbo, and that too would cost 1L extra so pocket constraints and actual review of requirements made us stick to the petrol. Little did I know that I would never work as an engineer and become a photographer who needs to travel to places and would totally miss the power, more to come on this later. Carbon Steel Grey was selected as the colour, leather seat covers and mud flaps were freebies and reverse parking sensors were the only paid for accessory. The car was booked for 10k if I recollect correctly and the delivery time of 3-4 weeks was promised. Which meant I had a month of road trips to be planned before I went back to college.   The car came home in June exactly 3 weeks later, I had gone for PDI and it passed all the check points.The total on-road price came to 6.80L. Driving it home from the showroom was pretty scary, I was not used to the weight and the power or the lack of power, so stalled it at pretty much all the speed breakers. Pro's : - 4 star safety rating - Sorted handling characteristics, has stayed composed in some hairy situations - Understated design outside and inside keeps it relevant not the road - Stock music system is pretty amazing, specially over bluetooth - Good build quality Con's : - 1.2 Mpi engine is a sloth - Rear seat comfort and space is bad - Headlights are very inadequate for night highway drives - Expensive maintenance for it's class - Brakes are a bit underwhelming Overall Review (Ride, Handling, Engine, Comfort)  I am going to try to summarise my review of the car here, for a very detailed review readers can head to the Official Review (Volkswagen Polo 1.0L TSI : Official Review) Ride The car is fairly heavy for it's class at approximately 1 ton and you can feel that in the way it rides. The ride is very planted and confidence inspiring. The suspension is on the stiffer side at city speeds but it shines at highway speeds. On highways the car sticks to the road and doesn't shuffle or bounce around much, which leads to less fatigue overall for all passengers. Can happily cruise at 120 kmph with out any fuss, though getting to these speeds require a bit of work with the lacklustre engine. Long sweeping turns at highway speeds are dismissed without any drama, the body roll though present is well controlled.  Handling The steering is pretty direct and with an underpowered engine the car usually agrees to all your inputs as long as you respect the laws of motion. The steering is fairly heavy in city and weighs up nicely as the speed increases which inspires great confidence. The feel of the road is also very good, compared to a swift, you can always tell what's the surface like and what the tyres are upto. Push the car a little in the ghats and you really start enjoying the stiffness of the suspension and zero fuss handling, the WRC pedigree shows here. But always be aware of the weight and the braking capabilities of the car. The brakes are just enough for the 1.2 MPI but any more power and torque requires more stopping power. I have been through multiple emergency breaking scenarios over the 5 years of ownership, it has always stopped fairly well. The abs has worked reliably over roads and sand/gravel surfaces.  Engine Now coming to the elephant in the car, the 3 pot 1.2 MPI engine made for the "kitna deti hai" market. At 75bhp/114Nm it's just adequate for city use and gets to 60 Kmph nicely, above that it requires a bit of work and patience. It starts pulling from 1500 rpms and pulls linearly till 3500 and then all the energy gets converted into noise above these rpms no point going till the redline. Some say that it sounds good some just call it noise, as a mechanical engineer, I like it. As long as you're in the city everything is comfortable. Even on the highways you can happily cruise at 80-120 kmph and it's comfortable, the engine starts getting vocal in 5th gear at 120 kmph but it's not disturbing, you can drown it by increasing the volume of your favourite songs on the rather amazing music system. The problem arises when you want to overtake trucks quickly on a two lane highway and have to be mindful of two wheelers and the gaps are small. You need to either know the drivetrain very well and be in the right gear at the right rpms and make your move swiftly or just wait for the gap to be big enough where you can slowly build speed and overtake, over long distance the constant shuffling of gears is fatiguing. The 1.2 MPI Polo is best enjoyed at 100 Kmph with minimal overtaking to be done and just cruising to your destination enjoying the scenery and music. I manage to get 13/14 kmpl in the city and 16-18 kmpl on highways this is what's indicated on the MID. I have not tried the tankful method. Space The front is pretty comfortable with big chairs and good ergonomics. The rear space is really bad and is only suited for shorter adults or children as the bench doesn't offer much under thigh support. The rear seat can only take 2 adults, with the floor bump and now an armrest in the front, rear space is really limited. The boot if packed nicely can easily take luggage of 4 adults. I travel with a team of 4 and all our camera equipment and duffel bags fit in with some adjustments. One camera bag goes on the rear bench seat and acts as a centre armrest. A light in the boot is sorely missed. Ownership Experience  I consider myself lucky to be based in Pune, where the dealership is run by B U Bhandari and the factory is nearby. I have had my car serviced by them till date and have had no major issues with the car or their service. The service itself is a little bit pricey on an average I end up spending 7-8k per year on annual service. Other thing that I don't like is that the service stations is 30kms away from my residence and it's a royal pain in the behind sometimes. In the first year of ownership my mother was driving and I was in college, when I got a call at 7am in the morning, I asked her what's wrong and she told me that she crashed the car, my heart was broken, all I wanted to ask was how is the car!? My mom was fine, she was waiting at a signal and a Mahindra bolero pick-up banged it's rear end in the front of my car as it passed perpendicular to our car and did a slight turn so the rear overhang banged into our car. The damage was a heavily dented hood and a broken headlight, the insurance took care of this. The car was in the workshop for two weeks. In the second year of the ownership I went over a gutter cover which was not level with the road, the cover was 4 5 inches below the road surface, at 80kmph, which knocked my steering geometry out and resulted in the car getting pulled to one side when steering was held straight. Even though it was very marginal I just could not live with it, this took 3 visits to the service station to correct. This is where I realised that the service mechanics don't really care much or have in depth knowledge of the system they are working on, they are mechanics not engineers. The CRM head to whom I escalated the issue at the third visit and the floor manager both just wanted me to be okay with the pulling, they were very cordial and accommodating, after one or two rounds of steering alignment and test drive they just wanted to me be okay with it. Finally I got it rectified locally, where the mechanic understood what I was trying to tell him and corrected the geometry to be straight. In the third year of the ownership, I visited Diveagar and travelled through tamhini ghat, for almost 100kms there were no roads just dirt tracks everything was dug up, that years service I had them look at the suspension as something was loose and making noise over bumps, they changed the bushings and said on of the stabilising rods was out of it's bushing and hence was rattling over bumps. The total servicing was 17k, pretty expensive. The car is in it's 5th year and has covered 27k kms and I enjoy it thoroughly and even after so many years I always look back at it after parking it. I have made so many memories along with her and I hope I make many more, it's truly a wonderful relationship.  The monkey's also share my love of her  Upgrades  - Got the genuine armrest fitted by the dealer itself for 6500/-  - Got aftermarket headlights, they are running a 4700 Kelvin crystal HID's for low beam and 6000 Kelvin LED's for the high beams. This was a DIY upgrade, very easy to do. - Automatic Headlamp Switch Got it from here, it's plug and play Future upgrades : - Alloy wheels, second hand original VW one's or maybe mom revenge - New tyres as these JK vectra's have become hard and are 5 years old now, any recommendations? - A remap possibly to improve throttle response and some small gains. Enquired about this, a performance garage in Pune is actually doing these, he quoted 15k for the remap and recommended a Piper-cross performance air filter at 4.8k. Do you guys think it's worth it? possible gains of 10bhp/10Nm - A dashcam - A ceramic coating, had done this in 2018, need to repeat it - RCD340G infotainment system Last edited by Beerus : 22nd April 2021 at 18:44. |
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23rd April 2021, 07:01
| #2 |
| Team-BHP Support   | |
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23rd April 2021, 08:53
| #3 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: Bengaluru
Posts: 1,241
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23rd April 2021, 09:12
| #4 | |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Chennai
Posts: 1,421
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| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Another happy VW owner! It's always the ASS that screws up the experience! Congrats on the 5 year anniversary! She still looks very young! Quote:
2) If you can get VW alloy wheels which have been swapped at the tire shop right after delivery, that'll be your best bet. They are very light! 3) I'd suggest you to stick to 185/60R15 itself. Upgrading to 195 will slow down your car. The Continental UC6 is available in the stock size and they have raving reviews. In fact, I'm planning to to swap back to 185 from 195 because the gear ratios have been perfectly chosen for the 185/60R15 tire size. The 195 makes the gear ratios taller and consequently the car slower. Hope you continue to have many more trouble free kms! | |
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23rd April 2021, 09:40
| #5 |
| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2021 Location: Mumbai
Posts: 533
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| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Really enjoyed your 5-year update, especially your writing style!  I used to own a 2012 VW Polo Comfortline which I sold in 2014 and this article was like a trip down memory lane! Kudos to you for maintaining the car so well, it doesn't look like 5 years old at all. I personally think that the 2015 onwards iteration of Polos and Ventos were the best until now. Only 27kms is yet like breaking in period for VWs! Wishing you many happy Kms ahead  |
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23rd April 2021, 09:50
| #6 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
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23rd April 2021, 11:49
| #7 | ||
| BHPian Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Pune
Posts: 50
Thanked: 144 Times
| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
Quote:
The headlight unit costed me 27k, these come with 6000k LED's as high beam permanently installed. Both high beam and low beam are projectors. Then you have an option of either going with LED's or HID's for the low beam. I personally went for a HID set up as I wanted a lower temperature light for my low beams(4700k). For HID set up you need to make 1 inch holes in the dust caps, so that the wires can go to the ballasts. Where as LED's for low beams are direct plug and play, no holes need to be drilled. Crystal eye HID's costed me 5k or so. Was not able to drive much on the new headlights because of the lock down in Pune, but the cutoff seems clean and the throw is quite good, will post some more pictures in future updates. How long it lasts is something that I cannot vouch for and am worried about the same. Because ultimately these are Chinese/Taiwanese products. Headlight Unit - 27k 55W Crystal Eye HID's - 5k Shipping included. I found reseller via instagram who sells many VW mods, he's based in kerela. | ||
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23rd April 2021, 13:17
| #8 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2017 Location: Poona - Kudla
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| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
We own a Polo Highline in Flash red 1.2 MPI and its a good 7 years old now. One thing I love about the Polo is its consistency across the years. Every time I crank the engine I get the same feel it did 7 years ago. My take : 1) Quality Quality and Quality : From interiors to paint to the engine bay, everything is top notch. You don't feel the age at all in-spite of all these years. No rattles, no vibrations nothing. 2) Age proof : On top of that VW hasn't brought in the new generation until a few days ago apart from a few minor facelift features the exteriors/interiors of the car hasn't changed at all. For a good 7 years I never felt I was driving an older generation car. God saved me from buying an i20, else I would have felt like a great grandpa now. 3) Outstanding Paint Quality : The paint quality is the gold standard in its class I'm surprised the car shines like brand new after a simple water wash. This after getting exposed to coastal weather heat and high humidity. 4) Mileage : The mileage is a constant, within city it is around 10-14 and on the highways a constant 16-18kmpl. It has a 45ltr tank and range is super awesome too. When on long drives the DTE goes on increasing and increasing along with the distance covered, baffled right  Its true. Highway mileage is very very good and is more than what is claimed by VW.5) Ride quality: Best in the class, you get the feel of an expensive sedan. 6) Driving Pleasure: For a normal driver this car is tailor made. Feels perfectly normal and is responsive both in cities and highways. For the Enthusiast in you, it feels heavy and underpowered like a tank in the first two gears. But overall I must say VW have got it right for a family car. Highway manners are very impressive. 7) Brakes: They are good and have proper bite for the 1.2MPI at least. I realized this after driving my friends swift and our Tiago`s, Polo is far far better. 8) Service : The best experience so far. VW Pune and VW Mangalore have been great, we have used their pickup and drop facility as well. No complaints at all, rather compliments only. The car comes out of service as if it were coming out of the factory. Touchwood here, scary stories from other parts of the country. The not so good list: 1. Rear leg room as mentioned earlier. 2. ABS sensor failure, had to replace all the 4 of them at 5 years. Coastal region salinity and humidity to blame. But this seems a common problem for some cars in VAG stable. They were not cheap either, around 10k in total. 3. The radio antenna rubber has corroded as well, this one`s on the beach too. 4. Steering rack has got some play now, the service advisor suggested to replace it in the next year. We had bad roads previously, maybe that's a factor. 5. Shifting at higher rpms is not recommended or rather not comfortable, this goes against the smooth driving nature of the car. Maintenance cost is not really high I would say. 7-8K for yearly service which includes oil, filters, fluids, wheel alignment and balancing, wash and wax is a wholesome package. Parts are expensive no doubt when you compare with MS . I would say that Polo MPI is really underrated in the market. Its a safe and strong family hatchback with one of the best ride quality out there. If you are power hungry GT/TSI is the one for you. | |
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23rd April 2021, 16:24
| #9 |
| Newbie Join Date: Apr 2020 Location: Hyderabad
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23rd April 2021, 22:06
| #10 |
| BHPian  | |
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24th April 2021, 23:45
| #11 |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2020 Location: Telangana
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25th April 2021, 11:56
| #12 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Pune
Posts: 50
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| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
If you do get it and want to DIY, I can help you over the phone | |
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25th April 2021, 16:26
| #13 | |
| BHPian Join Date: May 2020 Location: Telangana
Posts: 94
Thanked: 149 Times
| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
 We were planning to go for another car in an year or so. That might be the time to modify the Polo. | |
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26th April 2021, 22:11
| #14 |
| BHPian  | |
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29th April 2021, 11:15
| #15 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Nov 2016 Location: Pune
Posts: 50
Thanked: 144 Times
| Re: 5 satisfying years with a VW Polo 1.2 MPI Quote:
I am so jealous of you having a turbo attached to your engine, a remap will unlock a sizeable amount of performance! | |
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