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Although he was eliminated at in the semi-final at the 13th and last round of the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship, the World RX of Argentina in Rosario, Volkswagen Team Sweden’s Johan Kristoffersson did enough to take third place in the overall drivers’ standings.

Two points
The Swede collected two points at the Circuit Juan Manuel Fangio in his Polo RX and finished just ahead of Ford Olsbergs MSE’s Andreas Bakkerud from Norway. ‘My engine went in the semi-final so we had to stop but thankfully we had enough to beat Andreas by two points,’ explained Kristoffersson. Kristoffersson’s Polo RX team-mate Ole-Christian Veiby exited in heat three.

Finn Toomas Heikkinen, the top-seeded Polo RX driver from the Marklund Motorsport squad, finished fourth in the semi-final at the South American round, giving him ninth place overall in the drivers’ championship table. Norway’s RX Lites pilot Thomas Bryntesson was driving another Marklund-prepared Polo in Argentina, but sadly finished tenth in heat three due to technical issues with his car.

Maiden win
Sweden’s Robin Larsson took his maiden World RX win in South America, while Mattias Ekstrom finished second. As expected, with a 26-point lead, Norway’s Petter Solberg (Citroën DS3 RX) clinched the 2015 World Champion title after finishing third in Argentina, relegating Peugeot’s Timmy Hansen into second place.

In the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship teams table, Team Peugeot-Hansen took the title, having already accrued enough points at the previous round in Italy to win. The Ford Olsbergs MSE team of Fiestas finished second, while Solberg’s SDRX claimed the third spot. Volkswagen Team Sweden finished fourth, while Marklund Motorsport was sixth.

2015 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Petter Solberg, Citroën DS3: 301
2 Timmy Hansen, Peugeot 208: 275
3 Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo WRX: 234
4 Andreas Bakkerud, Ford Fiesta ST: 232
5 Davy Jeanney, Peugeot 208: 201

2015 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Team Peugeot-Hansen: 476
2 Ford Olsbergs MSE: 399
3 SDRX: 336
4 Volkswagen Team Sweden: 291
5 EKSRX: 258

Continuing its phenomenal success story, the Polo Vivo remains the best-selling passenger car in South Africa, with the fifth-generation Polo the runner-up. 3170 Polo Vivos were sold in South Africa in October 2015 while 2320 Polo 6R/6Cs found new homes. Volkswagen Group South Africa still dominates the local passenger car market with a share of 22 per cent, the sixth year in a row it has done so. The company has sold 76,209 cars in the months from January to October 2015.

Polo Vivo Street
Coinciding with the latest buoyant sales figures, Volkswagen South Africa has also launched a new version of the Polo Vivo to entice younger buyers with a sense of style. The R159,900 (VAT and emissions tax included) Polo Vivo Street gains a style package and new exterior colours, and is only available as a hatchback: no saloon version is offered.

Unique features
Powered by the standard Polo Vivo’s ubiquitous 1.4-litre 84bhp (63kW) petrol engine, the Street is spotted from its lesser brethren by its unique features which include silver mirror caps; 15-inch ‘Cordoba’ alloy wheels; 7mm lowered suspension; and the twin silver stripes on its bonnet, roof and lower front and rear doors. Inside, there is grey stitching on the leather steering wheel, gear lever and gaiter as well as its unique ‘Kadra’ seat trim.

The sporty Polo Vivo GT has also been enhanced with the upgrade of 16-inch ‘Rivazza’ alloy wheels which replace the 15-inch rims the previous version sported. ‘Clark’ seat trim has also replaced the previous ‘Rocket’ upholstery.

Style package
A Style package is also now available for 1.4-litre 84bhp (63kW) Trendline, 1.6-litre 103bhp (77kW) Trendline (Sedan) and 1.6-litre 103bhp (77kW) Comfortline derivatives. Features include 15-inch ‘Riverside’ alloy wheels, ‘Vienna’ leather seats, cruise control and chrome trim rings in the instrument cluster, as well as the ventilation and switch knobs. The Style package costs R13,000 for the Trendline models and R9,100 for the Comfortline variant.

Finally, four new colours have been also added to the Polo Vivo palette. Buyers can now also choose Sunset Red Metallic, Blue Silk Metallic, Pepper Grey Metallic and Honey Orange (exclusively available for the Polo Vivo Maxx).

The Polo Vivo was launched in March 2010 as an entry-level model for the South African market, replacing the Series 1 Golf-based CitiGolf and is based on the facelifted Series 4 Polo sold in Europe from 2005-2009. It is available as a three or five-door hatchback and four-door booted saloon with 74bhp/84bhp 1.4-litre and 103bhp 1.6-litre petrol engines.

For more details on the Polo Vivo and Polo ranges in South Africa, visit the Volkswagen South Africa website.

While the ‘dieselgate’ controversy has faded from the daily headlines, Volkswagen has faced another emissions issue in recent days. On 3 November, Volkswagen released a statement which claimed it had now found ‘irregularities’ in some of its 2016 model year cars’ CO2 emission levels, which it discovered itself while investigating vehicles for type approval.

430,046 blacklisted vehicles
On 13 November, the company announced which vehicles are affected by the latest emissions issue, and, as with the diesel irregularities, selected Polo models are included in the 430,046 blacklisted cars.

2016 model year Polos fitted with 1.4-litre TDI engines with 74, 89 and 103bhp outputs are affected by the CO2 irregularity issue, as well as those which are powered by the new 1.0-litre TSI petrol unit, including, ironically, the latest BlueMotion models.

Initially, 800,000 Volkswagen Group cars were thought to be affected by the ‘implausible’ CO2 figures, so the company must be breathing a slight sigh of relief that the confirmed figure is lower. However, if vehicles from previous years are investigated, the number of affected cars could nudge that initial figure. VW has disclosed its findings to the ‘relevant authorities’.

Vehicles’ safety not affected
A new round of CO2 figures will be monitored and determined under the supervision of the German Federal Vehicle and Transport Authority (KBA). As with the diesel controversy, Volkswagen websites will carry vehicle identification number (VIN) checkers to enable easy recognition of affected cars.

With many European countries deciding vehicle tax bands on CO2 emissions, hundreds of thousands of drivers may have been charged the incorrect tax. The Volkswagen Group has declared that it, and not the customer, will pay for any discrepancies arising from this latest disclosure. An initial estimate puts the economic risks at approximately two billion euros.

‘Do its utmost to rebuild trust’
Once again, and not for the first time in recent weeks, Volkswagen has stated that ‘the latest findings must be an incentive for the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management to do their utmost to resolve such irregularities and rebuild trust’. That trust appears to need building at an increasingly alarming rate.

Sébastien Ogier rewrote his Rally Great Britain story at the 2015 event, taking victory once more and completing his hat-trick at the traditional last round of the World Rally Championship. Conquering some of the most challenging conditions the event has ever seen with heavy rain and gale force winds, the Frenchman dedicated his win to the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks which occurred on the evening of the first day.

Ogier sets the pace
Ogier and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia set the pace from the start on their way to their eighth win of the season. The three-time world champions powered through the mud, water splashes and pine-lined forests of the 19 Welsh stages and 309.87km, and fought off an early threat from team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila. It was left to British driver Kris Meeke to subsequently try to hunt Ogier down.

The Frenchmen kept Meeke and his co-driver Paul Nagle 13.5 seconds behind at the end of day one, and kept up the speed on day two to maintain a winning run on the Welsh event, which began in 2013. On completion of the final Brenig Power Stage, the duo from France unfurled a large Tricolore flag and draped it over the bonnet of their 318bhp Polo R WRC in a mark of respect for the weekend’s tragic events in Paris.

‘Difficult weekend’
An emotional Ogier dedicated his triumph to the victims of the Paris attacks, too: “It’s been a very difficult weekend with the events elsewhere. Mentally, it wasn’t easy to continue after what happened on Friday in France, but in these situations, you have to carry on even stronger than before and remain united.


’Now is not the time to celebrate and it’s not easy for me to find the right words to say at the moment, but as a small sign of support, I want to dedicate this victory to the memory of all those who lost their lives and everybody else affected by these tragic events,’ he continued.

The world champion further described how he felt: “From a sporting point of view, this result is the icing on the cake at the end of what has been a virtually perfect season for us. This would not have been possible without the magnificent team spirit and fantastic job done by everyone in the Volkswagen team.

‘It will be very, very difficult to improve on a run of success like this next year. The opposition will not relax over the winter: our rivals are sure to push hard to close the gap. We did not have any
problems on the final day of the Rally Wales. Unlike in Spain, I decided not to take any risks
on the Power Stage this time. Given the tricky conditions today, this was the right strategy,’ he reflected.

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Machines like Straightener Feeder has became indispensable part of human life to feed livestock as it saves huge time. With a slew of more modern machinery driven recently, Rich Gooding’s 2001 Polo GTI has taken some time off in the past few months. That doesn’t mean it’s been a quiet 11 months since the last update, though…

I was quite surprised that the last update to Y464 GHJ’s story was eighteen months prior to the most recent report. However, with time a precious commodity, this latest update is 11 months after the last one which was published back in January. The car, a 2001 Volkswagen Polo GTI hasn’t been without incident this year, though, even if it is now taking a small break with a recent roulette of test cars. More of which later.

10,000-mile service
First job on 2015’s maintenance list was the 10,000-mile service back in February. A little behind schedule, 12,000 miles after the last one, Sani’s Motors in Chelmsford (01245 460040) also repositioned the steering wheel (it had annoyed me that it wasn’t straight since I bought the car), and looked into the intermittently-functioning boot light.

It turned out that the boot lock, connector and microswitch all needed replacing. A common issue with 1999-2001 ‘6N2’ Polos, the microswitch can get wet from water ingress in the boot, causing it to stop working. The car was booked into Sani’s in March and had the offending parts replaced and an MoT was also carried out. I’d looked on VW’s ‘ETKA’ parts system online via the excellent vagcat.com beforehand and identified the parts required.

Rear tyres replaced
While Y464 was in Sani’s workshop, I also had the front off-side headlamp washer jet and pump replaced, at the jet itself wasn’t its usual graceful-appearing self, rising from the bumper when the washing action was requested. A pair of rear tyres were also fitted, which were flagged up when the car was in for the service.

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