VW up! Common Problems: What to Check Before You Buy

The VW up! is one of the better-built city cars of its generation, and most of what goes wrong with it is small, cheap and well understood. The headline items are these: every petrol up! runs a toothed timing belt, not a chain, so service history matters more than mileage; the optional ASG automatic is a robotised manual with its own habits and its own failure points; rear drum brakes and handbrake mechanisms seize on cars that sit outside; the tailgate release switch and latch commonly stop working; and a tired 12V battery will scatter warning lights across a car this small. None of that makes it a bad buy — it makes it a car with a specific list to check.

What is actually under the bonnet (and what never was)

Every petrol up! uses a 999cc three-cylinder from VW's EA211 family. The two you will meet most are the naturally aspirated 1.0 MPI in 60PS (engine code CHYA) and 75PS (CHYB) form. These are port-injected, not direct-injected, which is genuinely good news: they do not suffer the inlet-valve carbon coking that afflicts direct-injection turbo engines, and they are simple to work on.

There is also a compressed-natural-gas version (the eco up! / EcoFuel), and from the 2016 facelift some markets gained a turbocharged 1.0 TSI — direct-injected, and turbocharged, not supercharged. The up! GTI, from 2018, is the 115PS version of that turbo engine. The e-up! is battery-electric with a single-speed reduction gear; it arrived in 2013 with a small pack and was upgraded around 2019/2020 to a much larger one.

Two things the up! never had in production, whatever a badly written advert claims: a diesel engine, and a DSG. If a listing mentions a TDI up! or a DSG up!, the seller does not know the car. On CNG cars, remember the gas tanks carry their own periodic inspection or certification requirement in most markets — check that paperwork exists before you buy.

• 1.0 MPI (CHYA 60PS / CHYB 75PS): naturally aspirated, port injection, timing belt
• 1.0 TSI: turbocharged, direct injection, timing belt — facelift cars in some markets, and the up! GTI
• eco up! CNG: petrol/gas, extra tanks under the floor, tank inspection paperwork applies
• e-up!: single-speed, no belt, no clutch — different checklist entirely
• No diesel, no DSG, ever

The timing belt, the coolant pump and misfires

This is the single most important thing to get right on a used up!, and it is where a lot of buyers get caught out. The 1.0 three-cylinder is a belt-driven engine. Both the naturally aspirated MPI and the turbocharged TSI use a toothed timing belt. It is not a chain, it is not maintenance-free, and a snapped belt on this engine should be assumed to be engine-ruining rather than an inconvenience. Because the up! is a cheap car that often does low annual mileage, belts frequently reach their age limit long before their mileage limit — and low-mileage cars are exactly the ones where owners skip it.

Ask for documented belt evidence, and check the interval specified for that car's build year and market rather than assuming. While you are asking, ask specifically whether the coolant pump and thermostat housing were replaced at the same time, because a belt job does not always include them. That module is a known slow-leak point: look for crusty white or pink coolant residue around it, and check the expansion tank level and cap.

Misfires are the other routine engine complaint, and on a three-cylinder they are impossible to ignore — a lumpy idle, a shudder at low revs and a flashing engine light. It is almost always a spark plug or a single ignition coil. Swapping one coil to another cylinder and seeing whether the fault code follows it is the standard five-minute confirmation. Lambda sensor failures also turn up and are a common cause of an emissions test failure on an otherwise healthy car.

Clutch, manual gearbox and the ASG automatic

Almost every up! has a five-speed manual; the GTI is the exception, and is the only version fitted with a six-speed. The optional automatic, badged ASG, is not a DSG — it is a single-clutch robotised version of the five-speed manual, with a hydraulic unit that works the clutch and selects the gears for you. Knowing that changes what you should expect on a test drive: a pause and a nod of the nose at each upshift is how the gearbox works, not a fault. Lifting off the throttle slightly as it shifts smooths it out considerably.

What is a fault is a gearbox that refuses to select a gear, won't engage reverse, throws a warning symbol, or smells hot after ordinary town driving. The ASG's wear points are the clutch itself (it is doing all the work in stop-start traffic) and the hydraulic unit — its pump, its accumulator and the clutch travel sender. Another quirk worth knowing: after clutch work, or sometimes after a flat or disconnected battery, an ASG car needs its basic settings and adaptation re-run with a diagnostic tool. Skip that and you can end up with a car that will not select a gear, or will not crank at all, with nothing mechanically wrong.

On manual cars, clutch judder pulling away from rest — worse on an uphill start — was a recognised complaint on earlier up!s. Distinguish it carefully from the mild three-cylinder background rumble that all these cars have. A vague, notchy gearchange is usually worn linkage bushes rather than anything internal.

Brakes, suspension and steering

The up! uses drum brakes on the rear axle, and the handbrake mechanism lives inside the drum. On cars that live outside, do low mileage, or get parked with the handbrake on in damp weather, that mechanism seizes. Symptoms are a handbrake that doesn't hold, a handbrake that won't release, one rear wheel that drags or won't turn, or a hot rear drum after a gentle drive. Treat this as a safety item, not an annoyance: get the drums off, the mechanism freed and the cables checked properly rather than adjusting around it.

Front suspension wear is the routine consumable. Drop links, top mounts and front lower arm bushes all produce knocking or clonking over bumps and speed humps. On a car this light the noises are obvious, and the parts are inexpensive — treat a knock as a bargaining point rather than a reason to walk away.

The up! uses electromechanical power steering, with the assistance motor at the column. There is no hydraulic pump and no fluid to leak, so steering problems here are electrical: a steering warning light, assistance dropping out, or fault codes in the steering module. The clockspring behind the wheel, which carries the horn, airbag and steering wheel buttons, is another item to check — press every button. Any steering, ABS or airbag warning light should be read properly and understood before you buy, never cleared and forgotten. The up! has been subject to airbag-related recalls over its life — earlier cars were included in the industry-wide Takata inflator campaign, and there has been a separate airbag and belt-pretensioner recall affecting some later cars — so run the VIN through the official recall checker for your market.

Battery, electrics and the e-up!

A tired 12V battery is the most common cause of 'the electrics have gone mad' on an up!. Low voltage produces a spread of unrelated warnings and stored codes across several modules at once, and the first symptom is usually stop/start quietly refusing to work on BlueMotion Technology cars. Important detail: on stop/start cars a new battery must be registered and adapted to the car with a diagnostic tool — its serial, type and capacity told to the energy management system. Fit one without doing that and stop/start stays dead, the charging strategy is wrong, and the new battery wears prematurely.

The boot release is the other classic. The tailgate button and its latch micro-switch fail on the up! and its Škoda Citigo and SEAT Mii siblings, leaving a boot that will not open from the button. Sometimes it is corrosion or a broken wire in the loom, sometimes the switch or the latch assembly itself. Always press the boot button when viewing a car — it is easy to miss and irritating to live with.

Two other electrical items are worth knowing about specifically. Early cars used the removable dash-mounted 'maps + more' unit, later ones a phone dock and a fitted radio, and the removable units are worth checking are actually present and working. And cars with City Emergency Braking have a laser sensor at the top of the windscreen behind the mirror; that sensor needs the correct glass and correct refitting, so a cheap aftermarket windscreen is a common reason for a permanent warning.

On an e-up!, the small 12V battery matters as much as the traction pack: if it goes flat you may not be able to release the charge flap or start a charge. Get a state-of-health readout on the traction battery before buying, particularly on the earlier small-battery cars, and check what rate the car actually pulls on AC rather than what the brochure claimed.

Water in the boot, the glass roof and the air-con

Damp in the boot is the up!'s recurring water complaint, and it comes from the tailgate rather than the bulkhead. The usual suspects are the seal behind the high-level brake light at the top of the tailgate, the rubber grommet the rear wiper spindle passes through, and blocked drains in the tailgate itself. Lift the boot floor, pull the spare wheel or foam tray out, and put a hand right down into the well — a musty smell or a damp carpet edge is your clue, and left alone it corrodes and upsets the rear wiring.

Cars fitted with the fixed panoramic glass roof are worth a second look, simply because a large glass panel and its seal are one more place for water and wind noise to get in. Check the headlining edges and the sun visor mountings for staining, and listen for wind noise at speed. As with any used car, run the VIN through your market's recall checker and see what is outstanding on that specific example.

Air conditioning that blows warm is very often a leaking condenser. It sits low at the front of the car where it takes stone chips and road salt, and pinholes it through. Run the air conditioning during the test drive, in the cold setting, and let it work for a few minutes — if it never gets properly cold, budget for it.

Fault codes that commonly turn up on an up!

Most of what matters on an up! does not live in the generic engine module that a basic OBD-II reader talks to. The gearbox, ABS, airbag, steering column and energy management modules each store their own faults, which is why a car can read 'no codes' on a generic reader and still have a stored airbag or ASG fault. A full-system tool that talks to every module, shows live measuring blocks and can run the adaptations these cars need — VAGPULSE, the Windows software and cable sold on this site, is one — is the right tool for a pre-purchase scan on this model.

The codes you will genuinely see most often:

• P0300, P0301, P0302, P0303 — misfire, random or per-cylinder. Coil or plug first; swap a coil across to confirm.
• Lambda/oxygen sensor circuit codes and catalyst efficiency codes — a frequent cause of an emissions test failure.
• Lean running codes — usually a split breather or vacuum hose, or a perished intake connection, rather than anything expensive.
• A stored gearbox fault reporting that the transmission basic setting has not been carried out. ASG cars, typically after clutch work or a battery disconnection. Needs the adaptation re-running, not parts.
• Gearbox module codes naming the hydraulic pump, pressure accumulator or clutch travel sender — the ASG's real wear points.
• Single-corner ABS wheel speed sensor codes; less often an internal ABS control module fault.
• Airbag module codes covering side airbags, crash sensors or belt pretensioners — never just clear these, and check the VIN against open recalls.
• Undervoltage and energy management codes appearing across several modules at once — nearly always one worn-out battery, or a replacement that was never adapted.
• On e-up!: high-voltage battery management and on-board charger codes — specialist territory, don't ignore them.

The test drive and pre-purchase check

Start it stone cold if you possibly can, and listen. A three-cylinder always sounds busy; what you are listening for is a persistent rattle, a misfire shudder, or a whine that changes with revs. Check the engine light actually illuminates at ignition-on and then goes out — a bulb removed from the cluster is a very old trick and still worth ruling out.

Then work through the model-specific list, in this order:

• Service history first: documented timing belt evidence appropriate to the car's age, not just its mileage. This is the biggest single financial risk on the car.
• Coolant: level in the expansion tank, and look for dried coolant crust around the pump and thermostat module. Ask whether the pump was changed with the belt.
• ASG cars: pull away, stop and restart several times, select reverse, and drive it in traffic. Shift pauses are normal; refusing to engage, a gearbox warning light or a burning smell is not.
• Manual cars: pull away uphill and feel for judder; check where the clutch bites and that it isn't slipping at high revs in a high gear.
• Handbrake: park on a slope and test it holds. After the drive, carefully feel both rear drums — one much hotter than the other means it's binding.
• Press the boot release button on the tailgate, and try it from the key.
• Lift the boot floor and check the spare wheel well for water.
• Run the air conditioning properly cold for several minutes.
• Glass roof cars: check the headlining edges for water staining and listen for wind noise at speed.
• Bumps and speed humps: listen for knocks from the front suspension.
• Run the VIN through your market's official recall checker and see what is outstanding.
• Finish with a full-module diagnostic scan, not just an engine scan, and read the codes before you clear anything.

Common questions