Hi guys any information on this would be much appreciated, my 1l polo has been having intermittent problems for a while and now I'm not running it because it's just too annoying having to wait 10-20 minutes to let's it cool off before it runs.... 

 

It has been serviced and has had lots of parts put on it such as new leads, a complete new distributor including rotary arm and cap, new coil pack I've drained the cooling system completely and refilled, it's had new temp sensors put on it and I've tested the fan works with a hair grip across the terminals and it runs, have swap out the sensor in the radiator with another one I have which hasn't helped, there are no fuses blown so I am a bit lost with it now. 

 

Before I changed the distributor it wouldn't restart straight away but now it fires after cutting out and runs until it cuts out with no warning, my temperature gauge stopped working after swapping out the temp sensors I don't think this is related in any way, the car used to bunny hop a little bit now and again ages ago, it also had a loss of power while driving in gear and cutting out... 

 

That's all I can think of currently if I think of anything else I will add it in later!

 

Thanks in advance for any advice, Billy.

The cutting out and restarting after a cool down sounds like classic hall sender failing in the distributor 

 

If you short the temperature sensor signal wire to ground the gauge should read full hot if it does that proves the wiring and the gauge

The hall sender came with the distributor and now it restarts straight away,  could the gauge not working effect the radiator not switching on? 

No there is a separate thermal switch on the radiator that controls the fan nothing whatsoever to do with the gauge, are you getting both rubber hoses from the radiator hot ? If not you might have a thermostat sticking or poor flow through the radiator 

 

It still sounds like a failing hall sensor

Both hoses are getting hot, I'll run again tomorrow and check again and feel the blowers as they didn't seem to be getting too hot when I ran it up today.. got a brand new one installed with the new distributor so would be pretty unlucky to get a faulty one, the radiator fins were hot so flow should be good 

Hi just got a bit more information, ran it up a couple more times. The first time it cut out before the pipes could get warm and the second time it got hot enough to feel the pipes top and bottom got hot, only thing I could notice was the bottom pipe got cold towards the thermostat housing, fan didn't engage again.

 

I took unplugged the blue temp sensor and the engine cut out pretty much straight away, tried this a few more times running without and plugging it in and it cut out as well, one time it didn't cut out when I plugged it in and stayed running at a slightly higher rpm

 

The blowers still didn't warm up even though all pipes leading to matrix were hot.

 

Thanks Billy.