Hi. I'm new to this forum and desperate for some help.

I have a p reg 1.6cl Polo. Recently it has failed to start from cold. The starter motor turns over but the engine does not kick in.

It does easily bump start tho, however, once you've got it going it does misfire really badly and threatens to stall unless you've got your foot on the accelerator pedal. it also has much less power than it did since this started. This only occurs for about half an hour until it is fine. and once the engine is warm you can turn the engine off and it will start back up again normally.

I've had it fully serviced since this problem started and had the fuel lines cleaned. that garage could not find anything wrong even though i explained this problem to them. i've also had the battery checked and that is fine.

I had greenflag come out once and he thought the engine was flooding itself because of the cold and putting too much petrol in???

its got new spark plugs and i'm at my wits end with it.

its only got 54000 on the clock but a lot of bumps (grandparents old car, running to the shops and every bollard on the way!)

Some people have suggested i may have moisture in the distributor cap or that its an engine management system problem. I've also read that the water pump can go and cause a problem similar to this. What do you guys think in your experience?

I'm not sure its worth spending lots of money on so was holding off taking it for a expensive diagnostic test at a vw garage until i checked with everyone on here!!!

Thankyou.

Sam