Motors North

Volkswagen Polo SEL five-door 1.4 DSG

VOLKSWAGEN’S cracking little Polo is top hole in the supermini stakes – and here’s why.

Not only has this baby sister to the Golf 6 won the 2010 motorsnorth Car of the Year category for Best Supermini but also it has attracted many other accolades from motoring commentators because of its quality, integrity and general solidity.

Volkswagen stylists are not stupid. When they came to penning a replacement for its predecessor, they realised the new Polo would lose nothing by being seen as a scaled-down Golf 6 – another Car of the Year winner in its own right.

The result is a smaller lookalike that offers more space than the Mark 4 and rivals Golfs of a decade ago for interior space and practicality.

You have a choice of four trim levels – S, Moda, SE and SEL. It’s a well-appointed quartet that includes ABS and an electronic stability programme even at entry level, in addition to a trio of rear seat belts and headrests, anti-whiplash front headrests, front and side airbags with the latter carefully designed to protect the head and thorax in a side-on collision.

You also have a driver seat height adjuster with a power steering system that includes height and rake adjustment.

Safety was paramount during the car’s development, which is why it sailed through the most recent and more stringent EuroNCAP crash safety test with a five-star result. The new Polo is certainly strong, very rigid and built to last.

Even the standard in-car entertainment system is good – an RCD 210 radio with MP3 compatible CD and four speakers.

Standard wheel and tyre fit on the modest 1.2 S (60bhp and 70bhp) petrol versions are 14-inch steel rims with soft-riding 170/70 section tyres.

My test car occupied the other end of the trim walk – a top-specified 1.4 SEL. It’s a bit too well-trimmed for a car in this sector that does best in the value stakes at sensible 1.2 Moda petrol level or, better still, with an 85bhp 1.4 petrol in SE trim and riding on well-cushioned 60 section 15-inch alloys.

However, Volkswagen’s marketing experts believe their Polo customers want to move “up market” or are downsizing from a Golf or similar and want some of the luxury and equipment they enjoyed in a larger car.

Fair enough, but I’m not convinced. Why? Because the range-leading 1.4 SEL automatic I had on test was a car ruined by the fitting of 215/45 section low profile tyres on 16-inch alloys that generated so much road noise that this fine new supermini was unpleasant at speed and rode like a cart. Why do manufacturers do this?

It’s one of my constant gripes and in this case a blatant, unnecessary and expensive addition to the car’s standard specification.

It defies logic and smacks of style over function – not a trait normally exhibited by sensible shoes Volkswagen!

More modest Polos come with 15-inch 60 section tyres and ride serenely. But with low profilers, the car rumbles and roars over the poorer sections of Highland Scotland.

That’s acceptable perhaps on a hot hatch, but ridiculous on an upmarket and modest-powered supermini hatchback.

Happily Volkswagen does provide accessories that will allow you to change the wheel and tyre combination – the sad part of it is that it will cost more money, and that’s disappointing on an otherwise superbly appointed and well-found supermini costing £15,570.

But tyre choice is the only low point in an otherwise outstanding new supermini.

The 1.4 SEL lives up to its price tag with great comfort, a feeling of solidity, excellent handling and good visibility.

And when it comes to practicality, the five-door SEL has a trick up its sleeve.

The boot floor has two positions – in the lower position you maximise overall depth, and the upper slot means that when you tip and flip the rear seat backs and squabs forward the load area is perfectly flat.

Not only that but also under the lower floor sits a full-size spare – a rarity on many modern small cars.

Luggage space with the rear seats in place is a reasonable 280 litres, and dropping the rear seats flat will boost cargo space to 952 litres with good height for awkwardly-sized loads.

My SEL came with a pair of expensive extras – a seven-speed sequential automatic transmission that added £1,240 to the list price, and an impressive touchscreen RNS 310 navigation/radio installation that cost another £810.

While the seven-speed DSG autochanger with its floor-mounted lever was smooth at modest throttle openings, it could be jerky when asked to get the car away quickly from a junction.

But if you prefer automatic to manual, it will not disappoint – but frankly the five-speed manual is such a sweet little changer that I’d be very tempted to keep it simple and swap my own cogs.

Matters are different with the navigation and radio upgrade. The RNS 310 is a great little unit that’s easy to use, and with a neat bird’s eye map that is small enough not to dominate the dash but big enough to be easy to read.

Equally, the touchscreen radio with its six fingertip “buttons” arranged in a self-explanatory arch is intuitive and handy.

It’s been 34 years since the first Polo appeared. Since then more than 10 million have been produced worldwide in hatch, saloon and even estate guise.

But in the UK it is the three- and five-door hatch that dominated the sales line-up and helped to keep the Polo a firm favourite with all age groups right up to the arrival of the Mark 5 last summer.

It deserves its reputation, and around 37,000 examples are expected to find homes in Britain this year.

Volkswagen’s baby Golf has remained ahead of the game by delivering quality and reliability, along with features that appeal to buyers who think with their heads and not their hearts.

That’s why all new Polos have ESP as standard and four airbags, and why options include items such as advanced seven-speed automatic gearboxes and neat touchscreen navigation/radio systems.

It’s “big car” features such as those, along with optional self-dimming mirror, rain sensing wipers and parking sensors, that lift the Polo into the higher echelons of the supermini.

But this roomy little debutant has not forgotten all its basic roots. It comes with a three-year or 60,000-mile warranty, 12-year body cover and three-year paint protection.

It should also prove reasonably economical to own and run with low emission levels championed by a BlueMotion version, impressive fuel consumption across the range, and ABI insurance ratings that run from 4E to 13E.

My brisk 85bhp 1.4 SEL with DSG automatic fell into 9E insurance and while it will officially average 48.7mpg on the combined cycle, it did impressively well on a run north from Moray through Easter Ross and on to Sutherland with an average over 235 largely hilly, single track miles of 44.2mpg.

And another point that is often missed from modern road tests is the car’s lights.

There was a time when Volkswagen was synonymous with poor main lighting. Those days are long gone – so long gone in fact that the new Polo has a main and dipped beam lighting set that sets this little car apart for most of its rivals, and gives it the eyes of a much larger and more expensive mid-range executive car.

Rating: 8.5/10

FINAL THOUGHT: A modest family hatchback with a ring of quality and a highly advanced seven-speed DSG transmission. Whether the automatic is worth the extra £1,240 is up to the individual – I have to say I was equally impressed by the new Polo’s manual five-speed transmission. The auto is good but, unlike its application on the higher performance SEAT Ibiza Cupra tested recently, is not nearly as satisfying on the Polo.

Volkswagen Polo SEL five-door 1.4 DSG

Price: £14,330 (£15,750 with auto)
Capacity: 1390cc
Power: 85bhp
0-62mph: 11.9 seconds
Maximum speed: 110mph
Economy: Combined 48.7mpg; Urban 36.7mpg
CO2 emissions: 135g/km
ESP: Standard
Insurance: Group 9

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Volkswagen Polo SEL five-door 1.4 DSG