Righto, the mrs picked up her new polo last night (well new to her, its 15 years old!!).

good long drive home and it looked quite well behaved. however it is running a little rough, a bit lumpy.

At idle it feels like it is going to stall but never quite does (apart from when she pulls off in 3rd, doh! )

So I haven't had a good look at it yet but it looks like it has new HT leads, air filter is clean, had a new lambda sensor 3 or so years back and it has only done a couple of thousand miles since it was last serviced.

Looking on here I'm guessing its 1 of 2 things. Either it needs new points (easy enough to check and fix) or it is leaking at the gasket between the carb and the inlet manifold.

I guess my question is; do my guesses sound about right and is there anyway to check the gasket without taking it all apart?

Anybody ever fixed this problem with instant gasket stuff or is it a trip to GSF?

Thanks all :-D

Just found out its a NZ engine so fuel injection right?

Previous comments I made now worthless?

Help !

Just found out its a NZ engine so fuel injection right?

Yep, multipoint as well! (later ones were single point, which is more like an old carb in a way)

Previous comments I made now worthless?

erm, yeah

No points to worry about and as far as I know, there's no issues with gasket related intake leaks on these engines. In hindsight regarding my comments on your other thread, it wouldn't do any harm to check those breather pipes just in case (would rule them out anyways).

Other than that, take a look at the cap and rotor arm, see what condition they're in first. It appears to have a service history, so check through and see when the plugs were last changed. I THINK the part numbers are 92210 for the rotor arm and either 92132 or 92131 or the cap depending on whether you want the black plastic shroud or not. The people at GSF are normally pretty good at finding the right parts.

Let us know how you get on.

nice one, thanks Daniel.

I'll pop the dizzy cap off and have a look.

I'll probably change the sparks anyway for piece of mind, if only there was a gsf closer to the office...

Spark plugs are only a few pence each so it never harms to change them!

more looking around and there is lots of references to the "Blue coolant temp sender" is this applicable to the 1.3.

If so is it in the back of the radiator?

Edit - Its OK just found out this is on the block...

Edited 12 July, 200719 yr by goatboy

Also should be cheap from GSF or the like. I usually just pinch them from low mileage cars in the scrappy now, lol.

yeah, looks like they are less than a tenner from gsf, would cost me more than that in petrol to drive to the scrappy (well in my car anyway)

Righto, looks like I got it running much better so I am well chuffed :-D

Thanks for all you help.

Distributor cap and rotor arm were new, as were the leads so it looks like someone else has been trying to track down this problem.

The sparks were OK but a little black so I changed them and changed the temp sensor (the blue one). Its soooooo much smoother.

Clutch was a little heavy too but a squirt of WD40 on the peddle and down the cable loosened that up nicely.

She drives like a charm now. fingers crossed she stays that way. The engine bay is filthy so I'm going to clean her up and clean off the earth strap at some point as well.

VW didn't have the sensor in stock and wanted £18 for the spark plugs I went to GSF got plugs, temp sensor and oil filter for £17!! Last time I go to the VW parts department...

Thanks again for your advice.