A tale of woe (emissions, heater switch, washer fluid puddle in the back)

[JUV]

My wife and I just bought an 02 plate Polo 1.2S on Saturday, with 62k on the clock. This was possibly a big mistake! We could really do with some help/reassurance on this one...

We bought it from an independent dealer in Auto Trader for £2250, no warranty. The service history seemed fine, and we knew it had recently (at about 56k I think) had a new timing chain and coil pack fitted following a failure, which meant (we hoped) the known problems with this car were dealt with.

On Monday night, two days later, driving home on the motorway, the exhaust emissions light came on - solid, not flashing. No noticeable change in performance. We had it booked in for a precautionary full service anyway for Wednesday, I did a little research on the net and thought maybe a bad probe at worst, not a big deal.

So it went in for the service yesterday, they gave it a fairly clear bill of health after a little brake work, until they got to checking that error code - and it's a catalytic converter failure. The system says it needs replacing. They confirm this with an emissions test (which was apparently "too low" and would fail an MOT). Bearing in mind the car came with a clean MOT complete with emissions test done just two days before we bought it, this was a shock! The price they quoted (Nationwide Autocentres) of £600 was a lot more shocking though. We took it down to our friendlier local garage and they quoted £280 instead, and also reset the error code for us to see if it came back on instead (it hasn't yet, after 50 miles so far). We spoke to the dealer and he's open to a "contribution" if it definitely needs doing, but I'm worried there may be other problems here - I'm no expert by any means (in fact I'm pretty ignorant on cars) but I'm surprised a cat should be going after six years average mileage?

There are a couple of other niggles with the car. For one thing the "Climatic" heater control seems incredibly slow - it's an A/C model, but regardless of the A/C on or off, it seems to take an age (as in several minutes) for a change from either hot to cold, or cold to hot on the selector to actually change the temperature of the air. It gets there eventually, but something doesn't seem right with it.

The other problem is washer fluid in the boot. I've not inspected this closely, but yesterday (after lots of rain and use of the wash/wipe) I noticed a dark wet patch in the boot carpet (near the back left corner, looking at it from the back of the car with the boot open) that smelt a lot like washer fluid. I could see no sign of it anywhere around or above it - no obvious leaking from the boot door itself, or the ceiling etc - it's almost as if it's bubbled up from the floor itself, is that possible?

If the dealer foots the bill for the cat (or most of it), and we sort out these other niggles easily enough then £2250 is still a good price for the car, but I'm a bit worried we've got a lemon - or is the 02 Polo just a lemon generally?

[iallen1@btinter]

I think the pipe from the front, runs down the passenger side floor and has a bullet connector under the rear seat behind the front passenger side, this is a common problem ive had, keep ann eye on the rear seat as well. for dampness

[JUV]

Thanks - I actually found the joint in the washer pipe that had come apart in the back of the boot on the passenger (left hand) side - I had to pull away the carpet, and found the open join just below the window, tucked behind some very wet electrical connections! The pipe snapped back together easily, and I taped it all up to hopefully keep it together. Rear washer works a lot better now!

For the record, we're sticking with the car and getting the cat sorted out at the garage today. I think it must have been damaged by the earlier problem with the coil packs (misfiring can apparently foul the cat), so hopefully the new one will last.

The heater switch is a minor PITA in the scheme of things, and seems to work most of the time, eventually at least.