Resolved: VW Polo 1.0L TSI engine guard rubbing with gearbox oil sump

The foam padding had done its job and prevented any further scraping, however, the noise was still present & it was bothering me.

BHPian vivek.ks recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

How did I mitigate the engine guard rubbing against the gearbox oil sump in the Polo 1.0 TSI?

I have a 2022 Polo Legend AT with me and have been regularly posting updates. I installed an engine guard for Polo in the month of December after reading the posts of many of my friends here at Team-BHP.

Post guard installation

The drive was smooth, and I did not face any issues. In the month of February, I started noticing a sound coming from the front left wheel assembly. I took the car to the shop, and after a thorough checkup, all the suspension parts were ruled out. The noise was then isolated to the gearbox oil sump rubbing against the engine guard. I got to know then that the engine guard was not meant for the Polo AT. The team at Elite Motors then added a bit of foam padding and reinstalled the guard.

In the month of April, I again started getting the noise from the front left. The car was also nearing its first annual service. I took the car and checked on the condition of the engine guard and sump contact. The foam padding had done its job and prevented any further scraping. However, the noise was bothering me, and the solution of replacing and adding padding did not seem manageable.

Meanwhile, I also read a post from sinharishi and was inclined towards making a smaller cut.

I proposed making a cut in the guard, and the service advisor suggested making a longer cut and removing the entire bumped-out area that was rubbing against the sump. Kudos to the team at Elite, especially Yashwin, who was also brainstorming on this. Finally, we went out and got the region cut from outside since the necessary tools were not available in the body shop.

After the cut, I had an idea to reverse the part and do plastic welding. Hence, I requested Yashwin not to install the guard immediately. I took the car and looked nearby for garages that do plastic welding work. I came across the National Garage next to the Singasandra bus stop and presented the situation to them. The owner, Mr. Afzal, took an active interest in the situation and got to work. He basically inverted the cut portion and finished the plastic welding. He left a small gap in front to release any water that might accumulate.

I took the guard back to the service station, and the folks there were quite happy with the end results. Yashwin installed the part and did a thorough test drive to check for any sound that might come from the sump rubbing against the guard. Thankfully, there was no noise, and I got the car home with the engine guard in place. The only downside is that the ground clearance from the front has been reduced slightly, which I hope will not be an issue.

Plastic Welding process

Here is the finished product, post-plastic welding.

Here is the guard after installation.

Place where I got plastic welding done

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