Volkswagen Polo III (1994 - 1999) - N-reg 1.4CL - poor cold-weather performance

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Thu 20 Dec 2007 13:44
N-reg 1.4CL - poor cold-weather performance - DozyG
My girlfriend's VW polo has been misbehaving in the cold recently. It took ages to start one morning and when it eventually did, it cut out (although it did restart after that, only to cut out again half-way down the road). Prior to the starting behaviour it would occasioanlly hesistate on acceleration while cold.

It had a new set of HT leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm last year.

I've read as many of the relevant posts on the forum and am planning to change the coil pack and check the spark plugs as a matter of course (the coil pack looks quite old). I took the air filter housing off and checked all the hose connections around the throttle body and everything seemed in order.

I tried to take it to the local VW garage to get the fault codes read but they were fully booked and said all they could do would be to give it a full diagnostic test taking an hour and a half (surely reading the codes is a 5 minute job like any other car I've owned?)

The only interesting piece of information is that on the way to the garage the rev counter seemed to be reading twice the correct result (idling at 2000rpm, even though the engine was definately idling at around 1000 from the sound of it!).

The rev-counter issue made me think that maybe the hall-sender is duff - can any of you experts tell me if this sounds feasible? If so, does the whole dizzy need replacing?

Sorry for the long-winded post but I wanted to give as much info as possible.

Cheers,

G

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 20/12/2007 at 17:51

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Thu 20 Dec 2007 13:53
VW Polo 1.4CL N-reg poor cold-weather performance - Screwloose
G

Have a look to make sure that the coil isn't tracking.

What's the engine code?
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Thu 20 Dec 2007 14:50
VW Polo 1.4CL N-reg poor cold-weather performance - DozyG
Hi screwloose,

Thanks for the reply

Forgive my ignorance but "tracking"?

The service book is a little unclear but one of these is probably what you're looking for:
AEX/DDH/LC6P/EK

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Thu 20 Dec 2007 15:11
VW Polo 1.4CL N-reg poor cold-weather performance - Screwloose
G

AEX will do fine. Tracking is the mark left when electricity flows down the surface of the coil turret.
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Thu 20 Dec 2007 15:19
VW Polo 1.4CL N-reg poor cold-weather performance - DozyG
Nope, can't see any sign of that, in fact it looks in quite good nick. Also, the local vw dealer wants 95+vat for a new coil pack!!! That's a little beyond my "change it cos its cheap and it might be the problem" limit.
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Thu 20 Dec 2007 15:58
VW Polo 1.4CL N-reg poor cold-weather performance - Screwloose
G

Oh well; worth a look - I was trying to work out the cause of that "double revs" symptom.

The coolant temp sensor is the usual root of most starting/cold-running issues on these; but not the weird false revs.

I've not seen a failing Hall sensor do that; they are usually replacable; but, as you have to strip the whole dizzy to fit them, if you can get a cheapish new unit it's worth changing the lot.
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