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Overheating Fabia vRS


Mr OCD

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Ok, so a couple months ago the Wife's trusty vRS overheated on the motorway up to Yorkshire. I was in the car with her and suspected the thermostat as the bottom hose was stone cold from the stat to the radiator... RAC man turned up (I had no tools) and I talked him to removing the stat... sorted that and it was fine with no stat despite the temperature gauge being all over the place.

 

Bought a new stat (circoli thermostat from euro car parts?) and fresh coolant a few days after that and the car has been fine since. The Wife did the same trip to Yorkshire on Saturday and it overheated again in pretty much the same place! RAC man out ... who I had to talk to over the phone and tell him where to find the stat and how to remove it :| ... and all is fine again. RAC man said the stat was shut. Got the Wife to bring the stat home (although the base of it was cut out for the seal to sit properly in the engine upon removal of thermostat) and I tested it with some boiling water to find the stat doesn't seem to work? i.e. I'd expect the plunger / copper part to move? 

 

Before I buy another stat (genuine or gates this time?) is there anything else I should check?

 

Car doesn't lose water, cambelt, water pump, etc. were all replaced last year... radiator was flushed out when I did the thermostat replacement a few weeks ago. Car otherwise drives fine.

 

Wife is very upset... she loves that little car!

 

Any help appreciated. ​

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Thermostat is an "always buy genuine" part.

 

Yeah, not heard good things about Circoli stuff. Go genuine.

Edited by TMB
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Chuck that circoli thermostat in the bin, i had one ran it for about a week and swapped it out for a genuine from TPS. Was around £25. The difference was night and day! Them ECP thermostats are not worth the time and effort!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, so an update ...

Replaced the thermostat with a genuine Skoda one ... spent a long time getting it bled to remove air locks and ensure heater working, etc.

Also took it for a good drive up hills on motorway, etc. All sorted so I thought ...

Yesterday. Car loaded up, hit motorway and within 15 miles or so on motorway the temp starts rising past 90... within another couple miles it's in the red and temp light comes on ... pull over and coolant is boiling...

- thermostat pipe is hot (so it works)

- fans come on

- return to header tank shows water pump working

Cooled down and off we drove ... within a few miles it overheated again... so clearly something seriously wrong.

I reckon head gasket is shot. Thoughts?

Car has done 145k miles, been mapped for 50k miles.

Wife loves the car. But I think it's time to call it a day.

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Quite possibly a head gasket as the cooling system should self bleed. All you need to do is allow it to come up to temperature with the cap off and then check the fans cut in.

 

It took a LOT more effort than that to bleed properly... got a mate who is a mechanic to sort for me to ensure it wasn't something I was doing wrong. 

 

Now the car is pretty much un-driveable once up to temp and under load on motorway as it overheats... if I remove the stat the car can be used but obviously temperature all over the place.

 

There is pressure in the header tank, but not sure if this is down to the coolant bubbling due to be boiled.

 

Not sure what to do next in all honesty... I'm happy working on cars... done head gaskets, etc. before ... but the timing on these cars scares the **** out of me. :)

 

Easy job? ... worth changing the cam as I think its getting a tiny bit noisy, but then its done 145,000 miles :)

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I think someone's done how-to thread for the vRS timing belt haven't they?

Have a dig around in the Fabia tech guides section.

 

Go for it, be brave.  :)

 

 

It seems timing kits aren't expensive anymore ... so I may just do that and save myself the cash to spend on the other bits the car needs as opposed to labour costs! 

 

The rest is just an 8v engine! 

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Good call but given cooling system works fine till the car is on motorway / underload I'm pretty certain head gasket / cracked head...

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Could be a blocked/collapsed radiator core? Mite be worth chucking a new one in it,they are very cheap for what they are. If your handy with the spanners they are kids play to change.

 

New Radiator is £30 from ECP... so I'm going to throw it on anyway! 

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New Radiator is £30 from ECP... so I'm going to throw it on anyway! 

Yup, for £30 its got to be worth a try, even if it turns out not to be, least you know for 100% it wont be that part of the system.

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Yup, for £30 its got to be worth a try, even if it turns out not to be, least you know for 100% it wont be that part of the system.

 

Agreed. Just a shame the whole front end needs to come off to get the radiator out! Joy!

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Anyone got the coolant diagram for one of these cars?

I've removed the thermostat, back flushed the engine and radiator and even without thermostat out the bottom hose is cold when the engine is at 90 degrees?

Something odd going on here... I'm not 100% on how the coolant system works on this car.

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Well it would be a poor radiator if it didn't decrease the coolant temperature, but that seems like a biiig decrease, consistent with slow coolant  flow rate through the rad perhaps?  As WP is recent, that's hard to understand, unless air/gas pockets are interfering with normal flow/pumping due to HG leakage? 

 

Check #15 in the morning if you get a chance.

Edited by Wino
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Good point! I was referring to the difference.

No pressure after being left overnight that I've noticed but will certainly check in the morning.

Head gasket is being costed up along with cylinder head rebuild. Might as well do it properly along with a new camshaft.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So the saga continues ... I'm still not convinced the head gasket is to blame given it drives fine, doesn't lose oil or water (until it overheats) ... so I picked it up from the garage yesterday and drove it home nearly 30 miles of motorway. It drove fine... just the usual temp increase when going up inclines ...

So I thought I would seek a second opinion ... I spoke to Awesome GTi a couple times. They don't think it is the head gasket and they say they've never done a head gasket on a Fabia vRS PD.

They did give me some ideas that is still pointing to a cooling issue ... so can someone confirm the following:

- Does your return pipe to the expansion tank constantly flow water back to it?

Could someone check for me?

I've a gut feeling the water pump is to blame ...

I reckon a new header tank and cap wouldn't be a bad idea either as the cap is a pig to remove. Very tight!

Edited by Mr OCD
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It's rare for the pumps to fail, but I've heard of other VAG group pumps having issues with the plastic impellor slipping on the main shaft and not flowing enough

It's the same pump as on the other 1.9TDis, and it can fail, if not as often as on the 1.8T (I suspect the 1.8T coolant runs hotter, which is not a good thing for plastic).

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It may be totally unrelated, but bear with me. My old Disco had a similar issue, was fine driving normally, but when loaded up with gear/trailer etc anything over 50 it would do exactly the same as your Fabia. Tried everything, rad, stat, flushed the system, none of it worked, until I found that there was an air leak into the fuel lines. Under normal driving it wouldn't cause a problem, as it wasn't pulling huge amounts of fuel, but when under full load, it would drag air in, weakening the mixture, and causing the temperature to rise rapidly to the point of boiling.

It may be worth checking fuel lines for damp patches, and also the fuel filter connections too.

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