roughly how many miles does it take for your engine to warm up?

The reason i ask is that my brothers 1.4 MPI (01 or 02 i think) seems to take forever to warm up, i noticed after about over 5 miles on a the motorway the gauge still hadn't reached the middle mark.

Seems unlikely, but is this normal for the MPI?

Sounds a bit excessive in the warmer weather. Have it checked for fault codes. Probably coolant temperature sender faulty, or thermostat stuck open/missing.

thanks for the quick reply, ill chuck in the VAG diagnostics and see what it says

mine certainly doesn't take that long, sounds like the problem I had as explained by Moggy above.

Thermostat and housing I think , I had this problem and changing these sorted it out.