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Old 25th June 2017, 11:54   #961
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Hi
Congratulations ! Been following your thread ever since you were in Gujarat ! Now that you are in Chennai would be nice to get to see you & your car !
Haha asking people to take a hike with regards to the emission scandal ! 😊

Anyways best wishes to you !
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Old 25th June 2017, 13:14   #962
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Congratulations on the 1L mark!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post
The stock seats’ poor comfort – the stock seats offer very poor lumbar
support and minimal under-thigh support.
I wonder if the GTI seats are better? Or if one of the other VW models like the Jetta have seats that can be used to replace yours once they wear out a bit more?
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Old 26th June 2017, 11:45   #963
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post
d. The stock boot liner is also a bit flimsy and I intend to get it replaced with a thicker ply (maybe 4 mm) covered with a speaker-box carpet and the VW OEM handle from the Golf and the likes
Thanks for the details and kudos to your enthusiasm in maintaining her in top shape .

Will suggest you to go for the imported VW genuine part for trunk floor or check on EBay for used trunk floors. As far as I know, the imported part is made of glass fiber and paper honeycomb composite, which is very sturdy, light in weight and definitely not flimsy. Ford Ecosport (not sure about India version) has the trunk floor of this material.

It will be something similar to this: https://goo.gl/NJ9bTf
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Old 26th June 2017, 13:04   #964
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Congrats Gannu on the 1 Lakh milestone.

I have always been an ardent follower of this thread and I must say that your thread has been a major influence on my purchase of the VW Polo. And I'm very satisfied with my ride. Thank you for that.

Your modifications on the car with extreme minute details of the DIY process and the way take care of your beauty is arguably a benchmark on vehicle ownership and maintenance on this forum. I try to replicate it, but me being a lazy person and lacking the dedication - I always fall short.

Once again congrats and wishing many more happy milestones for your black beauty.
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Old 27th June 2017, 10:58   #965
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Congratulations !!

Reading your post, makes me miss my GT even more. Selling it has left a void that no other can satisfy. I was so confused when I came back to India, I ended up getting a Celerio as a stop gap before I could make up my mind (Love the car though, but its apples and oranges)

Great assortment of mods and maintenance. Guess its time you start looking for a competent FNG rather than go to those VW ASS. OR, I'm not sure, going by your history with the car, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a personal garage to service your own car.

IMO the ECU patch is the worst thing to happen to the car. Its very noisy, in gear acceleration is reduced and the top whack has reduced as well.

Any thoughts on getting those wheels jazzed up.

Kudos to the steed and Safe driving.

Last edited by no_boundaries : 27th June 2017 at 11:00. Reason: Changed some lines.
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Old 27th June 2017, 14:19   #966
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post



After going for the Skoda Rapid facelift’s drive, I ended up sourcing the RCD330G Plus head unit. And now this. Not sure what else is in store!


Wanted to find out certain details regarding this

1. Where did you source it from?
2. Approximately how much duty you had to shell out?
3. I have a VW Vento 1st Generation (March 2011). Would RCD330G go with that model?
4. If 3 is yes, hope I wouldn't have to cut any wires etc
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Old 27th June 2017, 21:22   #967
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Congratulations on the milestone.

Thanks for the information about finishing at Drive Clean. I may give it a try --- although the well-known chennai CarCares is just nearby to me.
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Old 28th June 2017, 06:45   #968
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Congratulations on the 1,00,000 milestone Ganesh. Your GT is a benchmark on the DIY stuff that can be done on the Polo/Vento platform. The car running 1,00,000 kilometers without any reliability issues with all these DIY changes shows the quality and perfection of your DIY executions!

Wishing you tens of thousands of happy miles in the GT

PS: Now that you have got the original RossTech cable, it is time to get into much more serious projects
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Old 29th June 2017, 15:16   #969
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post
She has finally breached the 1L km mark
Congrats on that milestone! Man, really wish I get to meet you and your GT sometime to see the amazing DIYs that you've done. The detailing work also seems fabulous & I already have decided to go to him for my next detailing.

Wishing you many more happy miles with the GT.
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Old 1st July 2017, 20:42   #970
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post
She has finally breached the 1L km mark:
Congrats Gannu_1. Being a Polo owner myself, I have been following your posts with keen interest. Heartening to see that the German babe survived our roads, lasted 1L km and still going strong. I really wish that the people at VW-India read your posts before they roll out their next models and variants. It will be almost like an encyclopedia for them. The challenges faced by an Indian owner driving their car, the pros and cons in their design, customer care and so on.

Could not help but grin, when I read about that heavy clutch. I, myself, have grown some serious calf muscles, on my left leg, pushing that clutch all these years

Wish you many more happy miles.....

Last edited by Mithrandir : 1st July 2017 at 20:44. Reason: addition
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Old 1st July 2017, 23:31   #971
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithrandir View Post
Could not help but grin, when I read about that heavy clutch. I, myself, have grown some serious calf muscles, on my left leg, pushing that clutch all these years .
Do they make the clutches individually, by hand, for every vehicle? I don't know how else they could be so different!

Hate to make you guys jealous, but my '14 1.6TDI does not have a heavy clutch at all. There was a post-flood gap in my driving, but I never noticed any great difference to driving my previous petrol Polo. Except, of course, the many, many nice differences!
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Old 1st July 2017, 23:35   #972
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom View Post
Do they make the clutches individually, by hand, for every vehicle? I don't know how else they could be so different!

Hate to make you guys jealous, but my '14 1.6TDI does not have a heavy clutch at all. There was a post-flood gap in my driving, but I never noticed any great difference to driving my previous petrol Polo. Except, of course, the many, many nice differences!
It is often the case the parts are sourced from different vendors. These clutch kits are manufactured by Sachs, as well as LuK. As far as I know, they are not interchangeable too.
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Old 2nd July 2017, 00:07   #973
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by halfbytecode View Post
It is often the case the parts are sourced from different vendors. ...
That's really bad. How are to know, for instance, that the car we buy is going to feel like the car we test-drove?
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Old 2nd July 2017, 12:05   #974
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom View Post
That's really bad. How are to know, for instance, that the car we buy is going to feel like the car we test-drove?
It is hard to know. With the kind of under the hood changes VW makes, it is most likely that the car delivered would be somewhat different from a test drive vehicle. For instance, they like to use different the coil springs frequently. They have over 50 types in their parts bin.

Furthermore, I recently also had a chance to look at the clutch of a recently manufactured car, and they seem to have localized some of the components, like the flywheel, if not the rest of the components too.
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Old 5th July 2017, 10:28   #975
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re: VW Polo GT TDI ownership log EDIT: 9 years and 178,000 km later...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 View Post
She has finally breached the 1L km mark:
Congrats!! You have really made the GT your own what with all the mods and helped fellow owners like me no end. Enjoy the next 1L.

Quote:
Man, quite a feeling it is! Just couldn't get over it as we crossed Vellore yesterday. The pros here who’ve done a million km must be chuckling but believe me, I never thought I’d reach this day soon and in a VW, no less! It took about 3 years, 8 months and 16 days to cross that figure.
After three cars close to or over the 100000 km marks it still feels special.

Quote:
[list=a]The heavy clutch - couple that with the slow moving traffic here in Chennai and my left leg hurts like hell! This is like one of those tradeoffs that us manual TDI owners have to live with and I didn’t realise it until I came to a city which has maddening stop-and-go traffic! Anyways, I’ve decided that my next car would definitely be an AT – sorry but I am done with that hard-core stick-shift enthusiast theory!
The German way of forcing you to take a break while driving. Can be terrible in traffic.

Quote:
[*]The stock seats’ poor comfort – the stock seats offer very poor lumbar support and minimal under-thigh support. As for the rear seat, the short wheelbase and the floor hump doesn’t help either. During a long drive, I always make it a point to take timely breaks - step out of the car every 2 hours and stretch. Plus, the oyster-white shade of the aftermarket upholstery is a pain to maintain! Sometimes, I miss the stock fabric-upholstered seats. In this regard, the seats of our first gen. Swift Dzire are supremely comfortable! That’s one thing I love about that car when I get to drive her. Perhaps I’ll have the upholstery reworked after sometime.
One reason I did not go for seat covers was that I felt I would loose the support and bolstering from the stock seats. They have impressed my wife's bad back so much that she occasionally raises the slogan "German or nothing" as the next replacement. Thigh support though for reasonably tall people is lacking.

Quote:
[*]Poor braking. At times, I have felt that the braking was inadequate and could have been improved. VW could have easily given disc brakes at the rear which would have largely addressed this issue but no, because cost cutting. After all, when none of the hatchbacks in this price range offers disc brakes at the rear, why should they?!
Not sure if this is a result of riding on 205s but I have been very happy in this department. Of the cars that I have owned so far, the GT has been one that has given me the most consistent performance in this department.

Quote:
BUT, *touchwood* she has been extremely reliable to this day! She has never broken down, no component failures (not taking into account the wear-and-tear parts such as brake pads, battery etc.) and no replacements under extended warranty. I just pray and hope that it continues that way. I've always prescribed to the timely service schedules and have followed the replacement of critical parts as per that. And with these German cars, a little bit of extra TLC goes a long way in ensuring a trouble free ride. Ask my friends and folks, I treat her like a part of my family and not just another four wheeler to transport people from point A to B. A lot of BHPians subscribe to that school of thought.
I wouldn't so far as to put the reliability tag on VW but I feel a lot of reliability issues are related to the lack of attention to detail in VW service centers. Japanese and Korean cars are built relatively stupid proof in the service aspect but the VWs need a bit more attention. The engineering to ensure reliability is there but you need to exploit the features. However bug bears around electronics, transmissions etc still remain. Doesn't help that VW is not very committed to this aspect as well.

Quote:
Here's a step-by-step pictorial DIY on how to replace the stock fog lamp bulbs with these bulbs:
Do these substantially improve the throw compared to the OEMs?

Quote:
[*]Timing belt change – I intend to take this up within the next 10k km considering the car would cross the four-year mark by then. I might get it done from an FNG if the prices are significantly better. Will ask the VW service center for the indicative pricing for this service. I’ll take care of the rest of the scheduled services at every 15k km interval myself. A good friend of mine has his friend who works for VW and has agreed to help me source the parts. I just need to source some tools like a good quality torque wrench to tighten the drain plug (I’ve tried removing one from my car at the service center during a service and it was next to impossible! Evidently, they have tightened it manually using a ring spanner) and the wheel bolts.
I am coming up to this shortly. What are your thoughts on replacing only the belt as opposed to the pulley, tensioner along with the belt? Is that really necessary?


Quote:
e. I will be swapping the rear drum brake with discs shortly. And if my research goes well, I might end up changing the stock ABS controller to the one that supports ESP and TCS. There's some work involved w.r.t changing the terminals on the connector, changing the stock mounting bracket and a couple of new brake lines.
I can's wait to see this. Will be a fantastic mod.

Drive on,
Shibu

Last edited by shibujp : 5th July 2017 at 10:29.
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