linandal

Hi Casual Beard Grower, Thanks for your reply. Local Motor factors NBG might as well go to Tesco, how they stay in business (Romsey) I don't know.. Tried Halfords "on line" but again no luck there either! I eventually managed to purchase a set 5mm to 12mm from "Toolsinstock.com" (Googled "Spline sockets") for a reasonable price ( they do a good range of other Auto tools) so will have a go next week which means that I can take out the piece(s) of wood propping the passenger side window shut. Not too enthusiastic on some of e-bay products as sometimes not very good quality, My opinion only. A word on the Regulator, the holes in the door for the rivets are 1/4 inch (as are the 3 in the centre of the regulator plate) but the peripheral holes are 5/16 inch. An M6 bolt would need a washer under the head for a decent purchase. Adequate clearance wouldn't you think. As an ex-aircraft fitter i'll say no more. Yesterday I visited a scrapyard with my eldest who was after some parts for his Volvo, there were three Fabias within spitting distance of the car he was looking at and believe it or not there was not a single Window regulator among them. Seems like it's a component that's always going wrong. I probably have enough kit and experience for when the next regulator goes belly-up. About the rivets:- OK I can understand that rivets are much cheaper than captive nuts and bolts and no doubt Skoda saved a few pennies on each car but as far as maintenance goes not a really good idea.

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately the rivet holes in both the regulator are already 6.4mm (one quarter inch) so I cannot do that! I had considered using captive nuts which involves drilling out the holes in the door to 3/8 inches or 9.8 mm which would accomodate a 5mm bolt. Still considering this. Regarding the door lock bolts which are "Bi-Hexagon" headed, i.e. 12-point star splined, in spite of contacting my local Skoda dealer (bloody useless) and most of the local auto-factors in the town I still do not know where to obtain a tool to remove these bolts! Please can anyone help?

Hi Guys, I need to replace the passenger side window regulator on my '54 reg Fabia 1. One of the plastic clamps broke and would the cable around the pulley. Can I use a TorX wrench to remove the door lock as none of my Torx's fit! The older models had screws to hold the regulator in place but Skoda seem to have replaced these by quarter inch ally rivets. Where can I obtain them, please? I have searched the Net without a lot of success, most of what I can find are too long! Has anyone had experience with these rivets and if so what tool did you use? I cannot see an ordinary pop rivet plier doing the job unless you are Superman. Is there any way that I can perform some "reverse engineering" and use captive nuts and screws? Regards, Alan.

Many thanks for all of your replies. Yes, it would appear to be the rust that is the big enemy. I can obtain most of the running gear such as brakes and suspension from German and Swedish (and Foreign) also engine parts, and the drive belt for the Felicia is the same as one for a Land Rover all but 6mm in length. I am of the opinion that I am going to have to replace the front wings next year but will see how it goes. Meanwhile once again many thanks for all your replies.

Hi Guys, My wife and I run a 1998 1.3 Felicia Hatchback which is now coming up to its' 15th birthday. I was informed recently by a local garage that spares for this car are now in short supply and I may have to resort to breakers yards to obtain them. As I am in my mid seventies and wife is in late sixties we wish to keep the old Felicia running as long as possible because of Hospital visits etc.. Can anyone advise of a good spares supplier in the South of England? Hopefully, Alan.

There have been so many problems with this unit, i.e. the voltage regulator that I am surprised that Skoda have not come up with some sort of compensation scheme for sufferers. My ten-year-old VW Jetta was recalled as there was a fault with the heater radiator. There was no charge for this. I do not understand why it was necessary to fit a 90 ampere alternator to a 1.3 litre engine. The 1.8 VW had merely a 55 amp. A colleague in the trade suggested that Skoda's got hold of an 'end of line' batch. Comments please. Perplexed.:confused:

Hi Guys, I recently took my ten-year-old Felicia in for an MoT to my local garage and apparently it failed on emissions - the lamda reading was out-of-spec as well as the CO2 reading. The MoT tester told me to take the car back to the Main Agent (15 miles away) who could fix it for me. OK I did this and the Main Agent put the car on the Krypton and apparently all readings were spot-on, no problems there and gave me a print-out from the Krypton. Well I took the car back to the MoT Garage who then proceeded to do another emissions check in spite of seeing the print-out from the day before. Guess what - the car failed the emissions test again. The MoT tester would not accept the reading from the Main Agent telling me that the test had to be done 'On the day'. Being rather p***ed off I took the car back to the main agent explaining what had happened and requested an MoT from them. The car passed but needed a couple of minor jobs such as bulb changes. I get the impression that the original MoT tester was taking the wee-wee. Never before have I heard that the emissions test had to be done 'On the day'. In any case there was nothing my local garage could have done unless they wanted to sell me a new exhaust (or engine!!!) or even a new Cat. Incidentally I suspect that their Sun tester is not accurate, do these machines have to be tested regularly and if so how is it done? Any information on this subject would be helpful. Thanks, Alan.

Well I managed to remove all of the screws one way or another, but the problem that I have now is that I cannot get the inner and outer trims apart. It would appear that some clown has used something like 'Superglue' to stick the trims together I am afraid to use force to attempt to separate the trims for fear of damaging the roof. It looks like it will have to be 'Plan B' the Silicon rubber treatment. My wife's old Fiesta had a much better sunroof in that it had a built-in gutter with drain pipes running down the door pillars. Why Skoda could not come up with somthing similar beats me, talk about 'Spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar'. But in my opinion that just about sums up my Felicia.

I spent a couple of days cleaning the rubber seal with some Silicone rubber cleaner as the seal appeared to be in good condition - I could not get a 5 thous feeler between the seal and glass anywhere so I reseated the seal with some fresh Silicone rubber and initially it appeared OK. Well the seal/glass interface was OK but the leak is coming from between the plastic trim and the roof. I do not know what sort of a job this is to do as for a start most of the screws holding the inner and outer trims together have corroded (Plus-Gas not successful) in and I am reluctant to go any further because of the danger of snapping them off. Has anyone else had experience of this problem, and if so how did they go about solving it? As the car is now over nine years old and I am unlikely to trade it in (short of winning the Lottery) I am now considering running a fine bead of Silicone rubber around the affected area and leaving it at that.

I've tried Butts, in fact I downloaded their catalogue (Adobe) but I can't find the relevant part there. Am I missing something? All I can find is 'sunroof and blind for

Hi, My 1998 Felicia suffers from a leaky sunroof, but only when the car is moving. (Yes, I do know about closing the roof!) This is the third time that this situation has occured thr first time being 'fixed' under warranty by Wrynhams of Salisbury while they were Skoda dealers and the second time by a local non-Skoda firm. The roof is a non-sliding type fitted to standard 1.3 Felicias. It would appear that the rubber seal around the plastic landing had perished in places and although the seal is good enough to keep the rain out when running there is enough vibration to cause it to leak. Does anyone know where I can get a new rubber seal - I have tried sevaral Skoda dealers on the internet but do not seem to having a lot of luck in that direction? Yours hopefully, Alan.

I took my 1998 Felicia in for an MoT and service after another local Skoda dealer failed the car on the 'Headlamp Adjusters'. Although it passed following a few adjustments I thought they were were a bit 'nit-picky'. One 'advise' was that the service schedule was missing, the last guy that serviced the car having 'lost' it!!!! My main criticism was that they seemed to know less about the Felicia than I did which did not give me a lot of confidence. On the positive side at least the car runs better now and the air bag light is finally off so they must have tweaked up the ECU. On the negative side they do not appear to be very interested in the older Skodas like the Felicia, wonder how I'd get on if I took a Favorit in? Total cost for MoT and 10K service plus odds and ends was £230, prbably a bit steep bvut I feel that I had my money's worth.

Get the car into the Garage right away. The voltage regulator has gone. If you don't do something Pretty Damned Quick you'll end up blowing up the battery like I did and probably the ECU the Radio and other bits of electrical equipment. Mine cost me nearly 2K Euros to fix in France, and you could be looking at

Hi, I recently had my 1.3 Felicia (1998) fail its MoT as the Headlamp Adjuster was found to not be working. As a matter of fact it hasn't worked for at least 2 years as the fluid had leaked away. The Garage in question asked ninety odd quid for a new unit and then wanted another hundred for fitting. "(Not a job for the average owner, Sir)." I got over it by using another garage, no problems here. I can get hold of another unit but I don't know if the Adjuster is worth the trouble of fitting - its not a difficult job to do, about a couple of hours I reckon. I see there are two types, listed as 'HLA2 Felicia RB' and 'HLA3 Felicia Non-RB' Can anyone enlighten me as to the difference. Thanks, Alan.

Hi, Thanks for the info. Unfortunately I cannot find any bits of the clip as it seem to have broken up completely. As the water pump is situated fairly high up I don't see any problem with the broken parts going through the pump, but will drop the bottom hose to see if they have ended up there. Alan.