New Volkswagen Polo engine and variant details revealed

Volkswagen will launch the Polo on the 15th of July and has been working hard to keep details of the new Polo under wraps. That’s most likely because of the fact that Polo sales have halved from 2013 and so there’s plenty of stock piled up at dealerships waiting to be sold. With 126 dealerships spread across the country, that’s a lot of inventory to sell in a few days. And so you haven’t seen much of the facelift besides spy pics and some press shots of Polo sold abroad. But now we can reveal more about the major upgrade the Polo is getting.

Volkswagen is dumping the 1.2-litre three pot diesel for a 1.5-litre 4-cylinder engine with a variable geometry turbocharger. This most likely is the 1.6-litre Vento diesel modified to qualify under the excise duty norms. For a small car to qualify for lower excise duty, the petrol unit can’t be larger than 1.2-litres and the diesel engine should be a 1.5-litre block at the max. This big change gives the Polo a much needed boost. 

The 1.5-litre diesel will be offered in two states of tune – a 90PS/230Nm state for the normal Polo and a more powerful 105PS/250Nm output for the GT TDI. Torque is available from 1,500rpm and the engine maxes out at a high 4400rpm in the GT TDI. The GT TDI till now used the Vento’s 1.6-litre engine that meant higher excise duties shot up its price to over Rs 9 lakh on road. With this new engine, expect the GT TDI to get cheaper. The Cross Polo will also get the 1.5-litre engine making this new unit Volkswagen’s mainstay in India. This engine will become the largest capacity, most powerful diesel engine powering a hatchback manufactured in India. The petrol engines remain the same.

Of the updates to the new Polo, the front lights, grille and fog lamps will be new. The refreshed Polo also gets a revised rear bumper with integrated reflectors and new alloy wheel designs. On the inside, the fabric upholstery is slightly darker than the beige ones you get now and there’s premium looking piano black plastic inserts to pep up the cabin. A new steering wheel is part of the facelift which gets steering mounted controls on both sides and a flat bottom that makes the Polo steering feel quite sporty. The new Polo will also get ambient lighting near the footwells.  

An interesting feature on the new Polo is the static cornering lights. These are basically the fog lamps with reflectors that turn to a 30 degree angle when you turn the indicators on – a thoughtful feature that can be useful when you are parking at night.