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Could be the bearing, mine can be a bit noisy also but has been that way for years. So chances are yours will bee the same. Thrust bearings tend to get so loud you’d need to change for your own sanity before it a tually fails. Great work there compiling it all into one thread. I really hope this helps more owners. With my plate I used 5mm steel so no flex,at all. But that said you could probably do it with thiner then add a bigger piece over the top spot welded to the first piece, which could bridge the recess the first plate sits in. That way the load would be spread even more over the substantially stronger bulkhead. Using that method I cant see it failing before the car is no longer road useable or they just out right ban petrol cars from the road. Looking at other manufacturers who used similar gear box set ups a d in some cases actual VW gearboxes none I have checked used VW’s Polo/Lupo method add used a bulkhead brace or thick plate bolted to the bulkhead. What I-see here is VAG dropped the ball and then just pretended it was ok.

If you go the welding route, make sure it’s not stick weld (arc) as this is very heat intensive and will lead to uneven thermal levels in the two bits of metal, and its a crappy weld. There is a reason we call them tractor welds, so often used on farm machinery, where its more about getting it stuck together and appearance is irrelevant. Mig is better as you can dial down the power and weld with minimum power and heat, and its stronger. Tig is far better as its like mig but even cleaner and thermally stable but many garages don't have that option. Absolutely don't get it welded in the car. Your welder person will for starters have to be some kind of miniature contortionist to get in there and the risk of a fire is very real, seen a few peoples cars go up, because they thought they would be ok with a bit of damp rag and some luck. Decent garages will 100% not weld inside the cabin of a car without removing seats and carpet at a minimum due to the risk. A friend of mine can bear witness to that when the restoration his car was undergoing went up in flames because they cur corners on the final assembly after a 4 month rebuild, the whole rear of the car was burnt to a crisp, and their insurance didnt cover it as the cctv showed the mechanic welding with it all assembled. One VW with some rare OEM options reduced to scrap.

Ok so welding is a real take a chance, I know several people who weld professionally, and I dont mean just weld a few bits of 2mm body steel on to old cars. One is a coded welder who does it for the military. All agree it can work but unless the weld is even thickness and doesnt thermally change the metal it will stress along the weld and break again. Thats part of the reason the original is spot welds witn a small seam weld performed by an N C welder. My option, both versions negate the need to remove the pedal box. You only need to remove the under dash cover and the clutch cable, fit the adaptor and then refit the cable. That way there is no need to mess with the security bolts and the brake pedal clip. when you disconnect the clutch cable chances are the clutch cable ear will fall off as the bang when it breaks is the weld failing on it. Once the ear is gone you have room to reconnect the cable and you are hood to go. I tried the spanner approach as Rich suggested but mine failed any way. Two different senior mechanics at two VW dealers stated that VAG see it as a disposable, so the fact that you can save it with a bit of luck and some know how is not what VAG wanted.

Cant belive its been a year since i posted on this thread. The replacent box is still working but is at time starting to creak like the original one, so I fear it will go at some point. To be fair I would no way pay that amount of money to get mine fixed. Yes is a ball ache of a job and the money is time. But the only difficult bit is removing the security bolts. If you are in no way mechanically minded then thats a different matter. Welding wont work unless you spend a lot of time and effort welding in extra strengtheners and supports. The metal will be stressed to much and its crappy steel to start with. To do it properly it would require a lot of fitting then removal to make sure you get clearances right. By the time you did it it would be quicker to make a new one, which you can still buy from VAG. Provided you can even get the brake pedal clip as I supposedly had the last one the VAG UK had, you are going to need to pay the eBay scalpers prices. There is no way round it AFAIK when removing the box as the part is sacrificial Not a worry if you want to swap the whole lot out for a Willwood set up instead. Just get a competent engineering type to maker the adapter as I did for my Polo. Lupo and Polo share the same genesis so its not that much different. The adaptor took me about 30 mins to make including a cardboard prototype template. The metal cost IIRC was about £10 for enough metal bar to make about 50 of them. I did cad up a potential prototype, which if made would make a it a drop in fit for the Polo, returning the clutch to the correct pedal hight, which would far out last the OEM. I need to dig out the cad and publish it here so someone might try it out or improve on it. I was going to 3d print one to test size etc then get one made in metal. Never did as the box still works, currently.

Got me thinking about my temp sensor. I fitted a new OEM one a few years back after the original just packed up one afternoon it rarely goes above 70 even when its a hot day. Wonder if it actually faulty. Having a few issues with tick-over on mine and like you have replaced a fair few items and no change. VCDS says its fine, next stop may have to be a garage or the dealershp to see if they can work out whats wrong.

Its been a while, the car is one the road and I have put 4 tanks of fuel through it since the fix. The Dealers were able to get the part fitted and give me a working car again. it was how ever a bit of a saga. Firstly, VW have as we know delisted the sacrificial plastic part that fits on the brake pedal. So they tried to get one and couldn't… VAG UK searched all the UK dealerships and didnt find one. They were looking at having one shipped from the states as there is a fair few over there due to them being fitted to the VR6 and it being popular over there. But postage was apparently a no-no. Eventually at the 11 hour VAG found one in the Swindon dealership, you know the one next door to the actual VW HQ. Prior to that VAG categorically would not buy one off the internet from one of the sites that has stock of the NOS parts, as they said why would we pay inflated prices for something we made and sold to the third party. I even suggested that I buy one and accidentally leave it on the parts counter where they might find it, this was also not something they wanted to do. The new pedal box is obviously better made and the welded parts are, well more welded. Again reinforcing the theory that the replacement was old stock that should have been junked, after the remake and improvements. When I got the car back initially the clutch felt high and wasn't great to drive on long journeys, when you are tall and the seat is already as far back as it will go. That soon changed once it bedded in and I now have the familiar slack before the cable starts pulling the clutch. Still get the very occasional crunch when putting it in reverse but thats more down to me than the car I think. The pedal still makes the same squeak sound, that the old box did ,which does concern me, so my fix it part is a permanent resident in the glove box just in case. The Dealers did state that if VW had not been able to find the plastic part , that under their own rules they would have to find a replacement car for me, probably something from the trade in pool that was similar. And I would still legally own my existing car so that would be mine also. That said I was told by the dealers that the pedal box was also due to be delisted, essentially making every Lupo or Polo with a pedal box failure potential scrap. So this got me thinking about the future of these cars. I have been playing with a design of part that will remove the need to take the pedal box out and will give the OEM feel back to a broken pedal box. As my plate fix was great but the pedal position was not right. The idea of the part is that someone can make or cheaply have made the part and with minimal tools or knowledge just pop it in and get back to driving. I will post the plans here once I am happy with it and then others can use them to fix their cars.

Sorry for the late reply on this, but a lot has happened. Cant find the website that showed my chassis number being in the range of the recall, it was on my Wife's iPad, and we can't find it even though the history is not wiped for the browser. However, this site seems to have some information that VW seem to have conveniently lost. https://car-recalls.co.uk/recall/vw-polo-clutch-operation-may-be-affected/ Also, here is VW UK's own site proclaiming that recalls are forever. https://www.vw.com/en/recalls/recall-faq.html This is their own VIN look up for recalls, which apparently, my car does not exist as my VIN is invalid. https://www.vw.com/en/recalls.html I contacted VW UK to investigate the requirement to have to bring the car in to the dealers to have it investigated. They replied with a very badly written replies, now I am no punctuation god, but even I know that sentences work better when you use all the words needed to make one, missing out words like "and" or "the" or just connective words that help make it legible really help. The emails received all read like they were thrown into Google translator twice. Essentially, VW see no fault of their own and think it is perfectly reasonable to make me pay £150 to have the car trailered to the dealers to then have them investigate with "diagnostic systems" that only VW have, to find the fault. I as a Mechanical engineer with quite a few decades of experience, diagnosed the fault, to be fair it's fairly obvious the part was not actually made correctly. The dealers agreed with me when I took the clutch ear in to show them, as it was completely separated from the rest of the assembly. In a nutshell, the weld that is supposed to be the main structural point is not welded, and the two parts were only held by the paint filling the gap in the weld and two very under performing spot welds that were not full thickness. The only good news so far is the dealers think the £90 investigation fee won't apply. I pointed out to VAG UK that they are still bound by the UK Sales of Goods Act, where in an item must be 1. As described. 2. Fit for purpose. 3. Of reasonable Quality. This part fails two points. I advised the approach from them seemed silly, due to the costs involved being higher than just buying another part and fitting it. Their whole sales point seems to be that the dealers will fit it for free........... So where we stand now is, the dealers want the car and don't care that it costs more than the part to get it there, or they'll sell me another part at cost and say goodbye to the issue. Not a great set of options. So I fitted my own take on the Bulkhead adaptor and now have a working clutch with silky smooth changes and no notchy grinding gear changes, all with the added bonus of no slippy clutch. The car will be driven to the dealers on Monday, I conveniently work 400 m away from it. The Dealers are then going to fit a new box and let me have the car back. They seem to have forgotten that there is one part that VAG no longer stock, namely the brake pedal clip thing that you have to sacrifice to remove the pedal box. I am kind of thinking that they'll try and find something that needs fixing to try and off set things still, but as the car has done a fair few miles with my modification, I can't see that they really find anything mission ending. The Killer thing is VAG UK want me to complete a Customer Satisfaction Survey............ I'm putting that off as they probably won't like it. My previous contact with VAG was utterly flawless, although that was with VAG Germany, so maybe next time I will contact the mother ship instead. Anyways on to the pictures which should help you guys. Showing the original 1999 pedal box viewed from above, looking thorough the dash, you can see the Clutch ear is not really attached any more. A more close up view of the break, seen from above position. Close up, you can see the rust build up from years of wet shoes and the fresh tear in the metal when it finally gave up. The hole pulled from the ear when the main weld gave up (the bang noise) The view from the other side, showing the hole in the Box and the spot welds still fastened and the metal around them having failed All exactly what you would expect from the failure. Now on to the new part. The clutch ear when I removed the clutch cable, it simply fell into the footwell. You can see the spot welds are smooth indicating they did not fully penetrate both parts, this could be due to time on place or current, either way it shouldn't have happened. You can also see the slight texture to the paint on the right where the weld is supposed to be. Bad VW your QC checks didn't see this. Cant believe that I would be the only person experiencing this. If they follow standard QC of at least ISO9001 then they will have missed quite a few potentially, unless the operator noticed, beforehand. On to my Fix. The bulkhead with the clutch cable removed and the excess body panel sealer removed and sound deadening pulled back. The yellow marks indicate a recessed part of the pressing that makes this section of the bulkhead, its not visible in the picture as the light is crap and you cant get a decent angle with all the other stuff in the way. My Part made from 5 mm steel plate. The yellow lines are where I cut it to fit finally after the first cuts were made using Cardboard Aided Design. The cable on the Polo is non-self adjusting on the UK Polo. Once the 5 mm adaptor and the extra distance required to connect to the pedal is added there is not enough room to get the gear box end fitted, so a little change is required. Not my picture, as mine didn’t come out that well. The area circled in yellow is the gear box end adjuster it needs to be slid down to the end of the cable to reveal the outer cable where you need to remove 1 cm of the outer to give the cable enough length to attach to the gearbox. Not actually the correct cable but for illustration purposes the metal nut looking part in the yellow circle, which is plastic on VW Polo factory cables, needs sliding off. Once off, you can trim with a knife 1 cm of the plastic outer to reveal the inner metal bit. Then you need to cut it off. Pop the cable in a Vice with enough of the sliver metal coil that makes the inner above the top of the vice jaws then, using a metal file, file the area flat. The metal is not that hard, so very quickly you'll end up with a gap and then you can remove the little "c's" of metal easily with a screwdriver pushed into the gaps, giving them a little twist. Then it's just a matter of pushing the end back on, and you have 10 mm extra on your cable. Pop the end through the adaptor plate and hook it on the pedal, then attach at the gear box and set the clutch. Just for good measures, pop some exterior grade mastic or car body seal on to the adaptor to stop it wandering and or water finding it's way in. I fully expect this mod to continue to work for the life of the car and was expecting to refit it once the car is back with me as quite frankly I don't trust the replacement parts from VW. It's a shame that VW Heritage are not making these as I know the company they would be using to make them and their work is top-notch. There would be a very good chance they would have advised better/more welds as part of the evaluation and test manufacture stage of building a production run for the part. I will post again once VW have either fixed the car or not, as it may be.

Peterstanding, it would be good to see your revised box so I can compare it to mine. I suspect mine is old stock. Currently The dealership want the car into investigate. For this privilege they are going to charge £90 odd which is apparently refundable if they find a fault. This would be fine if I didn't have to pay £150 to get the car trailered there, which they will not cover. Apparently if they find it faulty they’ll fit a new one FOC. Well thats nice of them essentially I pay £92 for the original one and £16 for the brake clip. £90 for the investigation and £150 to get it there so a minimum of £258 for the fix. Provided the dealer doesn't decide the flux capacitor is broken and want to change it as part of the “deal” I asked that I remove the broken part and bring it and the original so they could compare them, but they are not really interested. VW Uk have been asked about their take on this, and through badly written replies it seems they don't actually care. The VW website says that recalls are forever. The recall is listed on the recall list and my chassis number is in the range listed. currently waiting for another reply from VW UK. This weekend I am going to see about fitting the modification listed here and other forums. At least that way I can drive the thing to the dealers, then worst case its a loss of 90 quid if they decide its all my fault, I kind of expect this will be their angle. Despite being a qualified mechanical engineer the impression I get from VW is that they consider all who are not trained by then as totally incapable of fixing thing more complex than light bulbs. The total irony is this should all be encompassed in the Sales of Goods Act, as a UK retailer VW are bound by this. If my TV breaks Currys just want the TV back not the house its fitted in. I have had plenty of time to take a look at the pedal box workout where and how it breaks and think I can modify it to prevent it failing again. However I will leave off modifications until VW have no requirement to see the original box, either way. I will post the next install of this saga as soon as it happens

Just wanted to chime in on this, already old thread. 100% more helpful than the clubpolo site. Its 2023 and this is still an issue for some cars. My 6N2 developed the clutch pedal creak a few months back. At the time I just put up with it not knowing any better. All my 6N2 and Lupo owning friend have never had pedal box issues (yet). So with much excitement (not) I went to my local VW Garage to buy a new pedal box. So to start with they are still the same part numbers as listed in this thread. The price has somewhat gone up. They are no longer £40 ish for the box and £5 is for the brake pedal clip thing. The pedal box is now £92 and the brake pedal clip is no longer available. The price hike is apparently due to some Russian guy bombing the factory In Ukraine that VAG have many parts made. The dealers who are always honest with me showed the cost information on the part. Essentially they made £8 on it. I bought it because I was thinking that the last one made 108k so a new one should out last the car. I was able to get the brake clip thing via a VAG parts seller on eBay for £16. So pulling the car apart on Saturday to get the job done for Monday. My shear bolts just didn't want to play ball so I ended up unbolting the mount via its fixings behind the wiper motor. Then spent a fair bit of time convincing the assembly to get our of the car. Once out the shear bolts didn't last long when I introduced them to my grinder. Putting it back together is certainly easier when you know how it comes apart. All back in and set the bite point on the clutch, to be fair its bang on where it was prior to the box killing itself. So not really that hard. After the first push it felt silky smooth and I was eager to get out and drive. Clean hands and phone in pocket (just in case) start it up push the clutch and bang it went. So precisely two presses of the pedal. This box the clutch “ear” just snapped off all the welds. To all those reading this, VAG have not redesigned this part unless you count painting it a slightly different colour. My 1999 one was exactly the same as the 2022 on I bought. So they are substandard still. I now have the exciting task of speaking to the dealership and VAG UK about this. To find out exactly what they intend to do about it. Im sure they'll Just tell me to go away, and spout some shite about no parts warranty unless a qualified fitter put them on the car. I will post here so others know what to expect. Currently my options are :- 1. Get another one and fit it and hope it was just a dud. 2. Get VAG to some how decide to fit one for me as a sorry for selling shite parts. 3. Fit the mod described above and get on with it 4. Scrap the car and never buy another VW, and sell all the others we own.