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2014 Volkswagen Polo Review in South Africa
So there’s a new Volkswagen Polo out, if you look at the picture you will see that it looks totally different to the old car (insert sarcasm here). This is in fact not a new car, no matter how hard they try to punt it as one, revised Polo, yes but totally new car, no. Now that we have that out the way, let’s talk about what has changed here.
2014 VW Polo Engines
The heart of the car is new, VW have thrown a big psssh to the normally aspirated 1.4 and 1.6 motors you used to get on these cars but have rather opted for a smaller turbocharged engine. A 1.2l turbo throughout all the ranges, those ranges being the Trendline, Comfortline and Highline. Starting off with a humble 66Kw engine and ending off with an 81Kw engine for the higher spec. Seems little right? But remember these are turbocharged motors so what we should be interested in is torque and the 66Kw Trendline has 160Nm and the higher spec 81Kw, 175Nm. Now if you’re not technical that means it has a lot of thrust power so zipping around town won’t be a difficult task, in fact it’s a little fun thing to drive around.
The reason for the change is economy and efficiency. The new engines create better fuel consumption than the older cars and the fact that you have more torque means you don’t have to rev the life out of it to get going so you use less fuel, and less is good right? Well that’s what all car makers are going for so I guess they must be right.
The look of the new Volkswagen Polo has been refined, given a more premium look now, I like it. The plastic surgery has made the car more appealing, especially because competitors in this segment have made sure that they too have their best make up on. So the Polo had to excuse itself to go “powder its nose in the bathroom” in order to stay exciting. Things that people moaned about have been resolved, like a standard service plan, even though it’s a 3 year/45000km one, it’s better than nothing. The Comfortline has features like Bluetooth as standard and fancy radio’s too so the “gloss” that some felt was missing in the car has been nicely reapplied.
2014 VW Polo Price in South Africa
What I didn’t like before was the price. Mainly because what you paid for was pretty basic but now with the better features installed on the car, you don’t feel like you’re being ripped off. The sad reality is that nowadays for a small “entry” level vehicle that’s any good you’re going to be touching the R200 000 mark. In this case for the baby, you pay around R188 000 and for highline DSG you’re three grand shy of R250 000, which seems like a lot but in my opinion it’s not bad compared to what you will spend on other small Germans.
So as a whole I think the new Volkswagen Polo version 2.0 is a very good little car and I’m sure South Africa will warm up to it as much as they did the old car. A much needed facelift, finally.