Cheap runabout: Polo or Punto? Opinions?

[sifty]

Hey,

I'm curious to get some opinions on a early 2000s Polo Vs Punto for my wife. 

The main goal to replace our 2002 Renault Scenic with something smaller and cheaper to run. Not that the Renault costs that much to run, but it's a 2.0 and it seems a bit excessive for sitting in traffic twice a day.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Simon.

[SOFTLAD]

My wife drives a 2001 fiat punto 1.2 ELX manual
She travels from Glenfield to Albany & back every day and the car gets used for most after work running round. $75 of 91 lasts us a month.
The only problem is it is a little guttless, to be more precise hills mean you have to go down through the box.
Normal motorway driving isn't a problem you can wind it up and it will sit at 110 all day.
She really likes it and has stated she will not be happy if I sell it

[Y0RKI]

My wife drives a 2001 fiat punto 1.2 ELX manual
She travels from Glenfield to Albany & back every day and the car gets used for most after work running round. $75 of 91 lasts us a month.
The only problem is it is a little guttless, to be more precise hills mean you have to go down through the box.
Normal motorway driving isn't a problem you can wind it up and it will sit at 110 all day.
She really likes it and has stated she will not be happy if I sell it

Why are you running it on 91?!
has it not started pinking yet?
probably find you will not need to drop down quite so many gears if you run it on the correct fuel 

[the phantom]

wife has a '96 1.6 5spd Polo, NZ new has done around 100,000 ks, which she loves

we had a diesel Grande Punto with a single clutch electronic shift manual, piece of junk with geological ages between gears

[Filx]

I drove a 6N2 Polo 1.4 16v for a few months - super cheap to run. Facelift 6N2 is a nice little car as well. Auto boxes can be troublesome on them and general advice is to change the cambelt, water pump, etc at every 60kms. A manual 1.4 would be great if there is such a thing?

Polo GTI might be an option as well. My wifes Lupo (basically the same engine as the Polo GTI) averages around 8.2L/100kms around town and is easy to get into the low 6s on the open road.

[sifty]

I was looking at the 6N2 1.4s, but this 60,000km cambelt sounds a bit crap?
There are very few manual ones around, but they do exist. There was one on Trademe last week.

Currently the Renault is returning 8.1L/100kms. That is on a pretty consistent diet of open road and motorway with a little round town. We live in Helensville and my wife works at Auckland Hospital. Luckily with her start times she doesn't have to do 'rush hour' very often.
But it's a 105km round trip, so the economy is worth considering.

More importantly, I think she is bored with the Renault too.

[Mike1410]

We had a 2000 6N2 1.4 16v manual Polo SE in UK which we sold to a family member when we left UK 2 years ago, and also have a 1999 Lupo 1.4 S auto (same engine) which we brought with us to NZ. Owned Polo since it was 3 years old and Lupo since new.

Both cars have been utterly reliable (the Polo travelling way more than 100km a day on average). Both needed a new ignition barrel at about 7 years of age, the electric window lifter mechanism also needed attention on the Polo passenger door, and a rear wheel abs sensor failed (also on the Polo) . The Lupo sits happily at well in excess of the legal speed limit on SH1 when it needs to come into Auckland and is certainly no slouch around town, and always returns a min of 40 mpg  (not used to calculating mpg in litres per 100km figs but I think 40 mpg is about 7ltr/per 100km?)

Our next door neighbour in UK had a 2001 1.2 Punto (was previously her dads and was mint/low mileage) - used mostly for school run and short commute to work. It broke down several times, head gasket went at least twice (once on her dad, once on her - we were told by garage it was a common problem on this 8v 1.2 Punto engine) - when ever the Punto was in the garage she borrowed our Lupo and loved it.

From memory the cambelt is due on these 1.4 Polo / Lupo at 80,000 miles (128,000km)  - VW reduced the change interval on the the 6N2 GTi (I also had one of those in the UK) to 50,000 miles (80,000km).  My 1.4l 16v was a much more comfortable car to travel in than my GTi ( which had very hard standad suspension), and although the GTi was quicker off the mark it was 25% more thirsty on fuel and not that much faster than the 1.4 when flat out.

[BB]

They are a peice of piss to do a cambelt on the polos.
Even if they are a fruity two belt horror its the bits that cost so much not the labor.
If you get a whole kit tho or do it your self you don't always have to replace every bearing and gas tensoner.
Its better to just do it and not do the bearings etc after only 60--120kms say rather than be put off till you can go the whole hog.
People freak out because of cambelts. Its because they get robbed for them.

[Eurotrash]

I know Fiats are often joke fodder in the reliability stakes but having owned a few they have been bulletproof for us. I've had a Polo too and if I needed another small hatch I'd go the Fiat any day. They just seem more fun to thrash. Do run it on 95 or higher though. It is not more expensive. You will recoup the extra 10c a litre with better fuel economy (and a little more oomph)