colkai

Well I got my car back but it's booekd back in as now the left one is repaired, you can tell the right one is almost as bad as the left was. Assuming of course it wasn't coming from hte right all along. Cars Humpphh. I suppose the only thing I can draw from this is once it's done, I know both bearings on the front are good. Don't think my bank manager would be comforted by that fact though, especially if the right one is as much a problem as the left was. :( I long for the days of my old MKI escort, replacing the bearings on that was a total doddle and dirt cheap.

Well, count me in the same 'expensive' group :( Put my car (Fabia 1.4MPI) in to Andys VW Centre at St Helens for a replacement nearside front bearing. Initial quote, 130 plus vat Hub was seized on the CV - ended up, final cost to replace a bearing, a few pence under £360 - bit of a subtle difference in the end or what! Worse, they are saying the drivers side is noisy too so that will need replacing, saying "hopefully it won't be as bad" ARGGHH Expletives abound at the moment, seems this year, everything is falling apart.

I had my engine light come on with consistent regularity, (read once every week or two). Last time she was in for a service, I asked them to clean the throttle body, since then, (some 6 months ago), it has never come back on and no faults have been logged. May be worth a shot before forking out for sensors, (that said temp sensor was one of the sensors I replaced and is pretty cheap). These were definitely the two "favourite" codes my car came up with.

Dang, mine must be a one off. In really bad traffic, (read first gear avg 8MPH for my whole 25 mile journey), I returned 28mpg. Normal driving in rush hour, I average 38 - 42mpg, motorway driving around 60-ish I can actually get 53mpg or a bit more, though at my 'normal' speed, it's more like 48mpg. I tend to boot away through the gears to get up to speed pretty quickly so I'm not exactly chugging. I guess even so, my right foot ain't half as heavy as most folk. :P A tank normally returns, (from full to the fuel light coming on) around 380 miles.

Average about 350 miles on a tank, which lasts me one week, thanks to the ..ahem.. "joys" of commuting to Manchester, plus a fair bit of weekend motorway driving. At present, my fuel bill is a bit better than it was, but when it were more expensive, the fuel cost per month was more than the loan payment on me car!

Ahh, that's alright then, I checked my receipts from the work I've had done since I bought the car, (I do like to keep all paperwork ). I had new plugs fitted in 2006 not long after buying it so they've done about 20-25K since then.

Yup, I've had that replaced last year. Here's a question, would you expect a standard 10,000 service to include replacing the plugs? Just I am wondering now if they have ever been touched / cleaned / replaced. Personally, I would of thought it should, but bar putting some hidden marks someplace, it's hard to tell, especially as the invoice jsut shows "full service".

That's the odd thing. Apart from the "normal" hunting at idle when stuck at lights / traffic, it's fine and dandy, getting upto 55mpg driven on M-ways at around 60-ish, around 48 if driven a bit more sharpish. Returns around 36-38 in heavy urban traffic, around 41-45 in "normal" traffic. The only thing I have noticed, which has done since I bought it, is a slight lack of smoothness on the flow when going up hill and accelerating, but I'd hesitate to call it a misfire, just as, if anything, it is running a little lean. That's why, until I saw this EVAP fault, I'd not been overly concerned as if the light came on, it inevitably went off again a day or two later of it's own accord. Apart from all the "known" sensor faults it's had, the car drivers very nicely, go figure. Funnily enough, the garage is an independent VW garage. :P

Thanks for the information! EDIT: Just noted, one of the possible causes is an improperly seated dipstick, it could be nothing, but I have noted sometimes, the engine cover seems to "lift" the dipstick slightly and I have to push it down slightly to fully seal it, but I mean, I'm talking minimal here, it's not like the stick is hanging out or anything. (oo-err missus!)

So it would say specifically that the probe was faulty? The intermittent rich problem does re-occur, but I'd not had the throttle body cleaned before and the car has now done just over 55,000 miles. I've never even heard of the charcoal cannister solenoid before, are they on the 1.4 petrol engines as well as diesels? (Sorry to sound dumb here, just everything I'd heard so far kept bringing up the lambda sensor as a likely fault, the garage said 'bank 1' represented the first lambda probe, but I'd thought it meant bank 1 of the cylinders / fuel system).

Hi, I've got a 2001 1.4MPI 8V Fabia. Just had my car serviced, the garage said that it looks like I may need a new front Lambda sensor as the vag-com came back with; 16825 - EVAP Emission Control Sys: Incorrect Flow P0441 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent 16556 - Fuel Trim: System Too Rich: Bank 1 P0172 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent I had them clean the throttle body and check the air pipes, just in case it was that, but am waiting to see if the faults return. They have quoted me 200 quid to replace the front lambda, is that right? (they reckon the sensor itself is around 140 quid). (Personally, that sound a tad high, but what do i know?)

Sounds like the roll bar bushes to me, mine did the same when I got it.

Sounds like a good deal to me, I paid more than that for my 2001 1.4MPI, which had done just about 28K. A lot depends on what sort of 2nd hand warranty your dealer will give. Things to watch for, make sure the Air Con works, make sure the front bushes aren't knocking. Check your PAS is ok, if your headlights are flickering when you get it, could need a new sensor. Make sure your doors don't leak, plus a few other 'gotchas'. Mine ended up going through all of those and it's cost me more than I expected. That said, I do like the little thing and i'm overall happy with it. If your dealer agrees to a warranty period of 3 to six months, then you should be fine, though with the door leak thing, most folks seem to get better results doing the fix, (if needed), themselves, I know I did. The only things the car has ever let me down on is sensors, be it temp, pas or otherwise. When you look at the list of "known faults", it's off-putting, but really, at that price, I'd be happy to get the car and spend on sensors if needed, which, when all is said and done, they may not be.

Yup, found this quite noticeably on my way home yesterday, a definite drop in power on my small 1.4 MPI, happily though, not too much of an impact on MPG, only some 3 or 4 mpg over the course of the journey, which, given the temp outside, I was more than happy to "pay".

Eek a beak! I've got a 2001 1.4 MPI and the only time I get MPG like that is stuck in very big traffic jams with the aircon on. Normal 'busy but not static' journey to work gives me around 41 MPG, busdy traffic and that's down to around 36 MPG. Tootling down to Staffs on the M6 at 70-ish (from Merseyside), returns around 48 MPG, if I'm more careful with the ole right foot and keep it around 60-ish, that goes up to around 54/55 MPG. Before anything else, I'd suggest getting you car checked out as that seems, well, crazily low.