Volkswagen Polo Hatchback 1.2 60 S 5dr Reader reviews

My car

I hired this car in Spain for a week and drove about 300 miles including two 1.5 hour drives.

I understand it's quite an expensive car and as such I do not rate the interior plastics in the cabin highly. Considering it's trying to be a more up market car (over the Fiesta for example) the quality of the interior plastics are not the best (say for example, over the Golf MK4 which I owned from new and was the same price as this 10 years ago). The leather steering wheel feels nice though.

The drive though is very nice and assured, excellent cornering and good acceleration when needed, fantastic economy and good (but not the best) all round visibility. The brakes are quite sharp and sudden and needed to be treated fairly gently. The seats are comfortable (lumbar support would have been nice) but the angle of the headrests cannot be adjusted, the can only go up or down.

I noticed one element from the old Golf MK4 is used on this car, the door handles are the same!

Would I buy? If VW threw in some extras such as steering wheel controls, climatic aircon over the manual aircon and DAB digital radio, yes!

My car

Traded in my fox for a polo (1.2s), as I couldn't stand the way the fox handled on country roads any longer (though it had its good points). The (new) polo is a very refined car; lovely, soft plastics, gentle rumble (no whine, as in the fox) of an engine (in fact, the 1.2 sounds more like an upmarket diesel than a petrol). Arguably it is very slightly underpowered; you do have to be very careful about your gear choice, but it's not a major deal. It handles beautifully, the steering is perfectly weighted, not too light (like the fox was). It's quiet, it's comfortable, it's relaxing, it's as close to a long-distance cruiser as a small, economical car can be. And it's got a nice, big boot.

Downsides? Well, ok, a horrible(ish), spongy gearbox.

My car

I drive this car on a daily basis as its a work car. Firstly the suspension is bone breakingly hard, going over bumps is a back breaking affair! the little 1.2 engine is far too noisy and you really have to rev it to go at any sort of speed. Inside the refinement is ok, it has ESP (not sure it needs it given the power)and it doesnt have electric wing mirrors which is odd. It looks nice though, the front of the car looks nice and aggressive but sadly the engine is dull.