Old VW Polo intermittant power loss

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Thu 23 Oct 2003 13:44
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - rich_
Hi all,

I\'m having trouble with my old (\'H\' reg) VW Polo 1.3L CL. Several signs of age have manifested recently (in the last year), but the major pain is an intermittant loss of power which I\'ve noticed when motorway driving (although it could be happening at other times), which is reducing the car\'s top speed to about 50 mph even with the accelerator floored. This can persist for some time, but alternately flooring and releasing the accelerator pedal (still while driving) seems to fix it. Has anyone got any thoughts on what might be causing this? Other \'signs of age\' and general recent features have been:

- The idle jet has become blocked a couple of times. Easily cleared by AA/mechanic.

- The (2 month old) fuel filter put in at the car\'s last service is very dirty for such a new filter.

- Developed a slight oil leak. (Typically a few isolated drops on the ground below the engine after a drive).

- Developed a slight coolant leak. Both a mechanic and an AA guy have put the coolant under pressure, but didn\'t find the leak. The coolant drops significantly in level over a month or two.

Hope someone can help!

Rich

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Thu 23 Oct 2003 13:56
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - Peter D
Fuel Pump, ?? Split throttle body rubber mount. Does it just lose power or is it rough in fault mode. Regards Peter
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Thu 23 Oct 2003 14:00
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - rich_
What's fault mode? (Sorry, I'm a bit short of terminology :-) ).

Don't know if this helps, but the engine has recently been very chuggy on start-up, a feature which does sometimes persist well into the journey.
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Thu 23 Oct 2003 16:30
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - colin macdonald
whith the car running ,push down on the air filter lid (i trust it is the old banjo type) if the idle improves then as our educated friend above quite rightly states it is the rubber between the carb and the manifold that needs replaced.
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Thu 23 Oct 2003 22:38
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - Maz
Re your oil leak

Mine came from the oil pump. It carried on for a while and I topped it up now and then in a slovenly way. The engines are hardy and it will probably trundle on until you want it to die.
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Fri 24 Oct 2003 12:47
Old VW Polo intermittant power loss - Frogeye
Polos used to suffer from the fuel pipe between the filler and tank rusting, this would explain why your relatively new filter is dirty. There could be rust in the carb or partially blocked fuel pipe which would explain the low top speed. New tanks did not used to be expensive from Europarts.

Good luck

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