Hi everyone, happy new year.

Newbie to this site, as I’ve recently acquired one of VW’s finest engineering achievements; no, not a Veyron, but its half-sister – a 1998 Polo 1.4. Ok, jesting aside, the car’s done – count them - 92,000miles, and it’s an auto. I won’t go through the long and boring story of how I ended up with the Polo, but before hand I had a RenaultSport Clio 172 from new for four years. Great car, but its brilliance was matched only by its atrocious driving position and abysmal seats.

Ok, so Polo questions – in a nutshell, is there anything specific I need to check/replace? I’m concerned about keeping the autobox in good fettle. I know that car’s been well looked after and regularly serviced, and the cambelt was change about 20k ago.

To drive, it’s fine, brakes, engine and steering-wise, and the box is even pretty smooth when cold, and very smooth when warm.

It has a demist problem which I have not yet traced the source of – the heater/vent struggles in very poor wet weather to keep the class clear (it has no A/C). There doesn’t seem to be any air coming out of the passenger side air vent at all. Could this somehow have become disconnected? For peace of mind, I’m going to run it over to a Veedub independent in the next few weeks for a health-check.

So there you go. Any top tips – esp about the gearbox - would be much appreciated.

Thanks very much,

g