VW Up | Shed of the Week

Something from the sensible shelf this week in the cheeky shape of this VW Up!. At least, sensible in terms of running costs, but sensible doesn’t have to mean boring. You’ll have to excuse Shed for not including the exclamation mark in the Up!’s name from now on as the ! key on his Amstrad’s keyboard is hanging on by a thread after too many angry letters to the council over the years. 

Designed by a Brazilian and perfected by Walter de Silva, the Up went on sale in late 2011, but it still looks fresh today. The main spec choices were the top High Up, the mid-table Move Up and the bottom-rung Take Up, which is the one we’ve got here. There were plenty more like the Club Up, Street Up, Look Up and Groove Up, plus some Germany-only models that were OK over there but less welcome in the UK like the Kock Up and the F- well, you can probably guess the rest.  

Cheesy names apart, there’s still something charming about the Up, or Citigo or Mii if you’re not brand-fussy and you don’t mind having a Skoda or Seat badge on there. Many years ago one of Shed’s mates bought an Up as bridging transport between two cars, one going out and one coming in a bit later. As it turned out, he liked the Up so much he never got rid of it. They can get you like that. Between 2019 and 2023 this example was pounding out more than 20,000 miles a year but almost all of the MOT issues noted in nine years of testing have been consumable items like tyres and suspension bushes. The last test in May at 119,000 miles had one non-excessively worn ARB bush and a case of ‘ubcc’ which Shed tells us means Under Body Corrosion Concealed. How they know it’s got corrosion when it’s concealed sounds like a mystery but what they mean is that there might be corrosion there, they just can’t see it. Hopefully in this case it’s been undersealed and there won’t be any corrosion to not see. 

The Up’s 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol engine puts out 60hp and 85lb ft of torque, so it won’t quite do 100mph or take fewer than 13 seconds for the 0-60mph time, but perhaps more importantly for the cost-conscious motorist the average fuel consumption is 62mpg and the CO2 emissions number is 105g/km, meaning a tax bill of just twenty quid a year. 

Reliability wise these cars have been very good. Many of the common faults affected pre-2017 cars, most being sorted by recalls, for example dodgy ECUs for the control of the radiator fan (far from unknown across the VAG empire) and for the power steering. Through normal wear and tear you might experience difficulty in getting first or reverse gears when cold. That’s usually down to broken clutch diaphragm fingers. You might hear a bit of clutch release bearing noise when the pedal is down and the plenum chamber drain holes can get blocked, with the usual VW result of water ending up in the front footwells. Water can also get into the boot through a leaking wiper arm seal and into the doors through who knows what. Exhaust shield mounting points break off and shoes for the rear drum brakes stick on. 

On our Shed something has been clumsily removed from the dash below the fan speed knob. There are signs of a battle with a supermarket trolley or similar on the nearside front bumper, and the covers for the steel wheels have seen better days. Other than that it looks good. The fabric on the entry side of the driver’s perch has worn away but the seats have held their shape well and £60 or so will buy you a full set of covers.

Three-door GTIs with turbocharged 115hp versions of the 1.0 triple are obviously the Ups everybody wants, but you won’t find many of those for under £7.5k. In fact, they’re more likely to be on the wrong side of £8.5k, and even at that price you’ll be looking at a fair few Cat S cars. Our £1,995 five-door Shed might not have the same street cred as a GTI but besides being a lot cheaper than a GTI, it will also be a lot easier to chuck things into, like your granny. It’s got keep-fit windows too, which is one less electronic gizmo to go wrong. No rattly sunroof or troublesome digital radio either, just an old-school FM/AM unit whose aerial didn’t work that well. You can easily upgrade it of course, or just stick to the infotainment coming through your smartphone that you can attach to the dash with a suitable mount. 

Because of the name, Shed won’t be buying an Up, but he might be interested if VW ever releases a Down as he feels this will be more fitting for his life.