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In the UK though the chances are they will charge for the diagnostic then charge it up and give you the car back. Best to have done that yourself before taking it in.

Maybe the danger is that if they can use the VIN and home and email addresses to get through the app go to his house and unlock the car?

Personally I've never had any issue with hiring an ICE car overseas and I've been doing it every year for about 30 years. I've never been charged to top up a tank as I return them full but then I always use local hire car companies and not the rip off big names... Basically people know the score when they hire the vehicle as i is spelled out and people are told - so if they are stupid enough to get caught then more fool them!

A bit of a time warp review , thanks for posting. The recurring theme is the quality of circa 10-15 yer old cars is superior to todays higher priced alternatives. The thunk of the drivers door closing, the clear ratchet of the seats and the buttons for everything are features I enjoy everyday. It sure is hard finding a new car that is as good!

IIRC, when there are enough button presses while the key is out of range of the car, they will lose sync with each other. The car will relearn if you use the key in the door lock and then press the buttons. I guess the question is, did the button get pressed repeatedly or is there a fault with the fob causing false presses. There have been plenty of instances where a key fob in a pocket has caused buttons to be pressed, normally resulting in the windows opening I had it once when I got off a flight and couldn't remember where I'd left my car. Whilst wondering around the car parks, I pressed the fob enough times to lose sync so had to do the relearn via the drivers door lock...

Hello I just became an owner of a spanking new Octavia vRS mk 4.5 and I'd like to share my first impressions but before that a bit of a background story. Last year I was looking for a new car to replace my Ford Mondeo Titanium S from 2009. It served me well but it was time for something newer. I guess my criteria mostly were that the car had to be practical but also a bit sportier than the previous one. Initially I was looking at Cupra Leon Sportstourers (also estate) but I was eventually mesmerised by a velvet red Octavia RS mk4 liftback. I thought I got a pretty nice deal on it as it was just barely used (~3000 km), so no new car tax to pay for me anymore, and it had ton of extra equipment as well. I was super happy with it. Then in February the facelift was announced and I admit that I didn't think much of the RS facelift at that moment. I was definitely thinking that the front lights were cooler on my current RS, I mean the fog-lights were a separate unit and the front bumper was also much more aggressive and edgier. Also nothing really bothered me too much about the infotainment system. But....as time passed the design of the facelift had started growing on me and in addition some of the improvements here and there (a bit more power, newer infotainment system). And by July I managed to convince myself that I want the facelift RS, so I ordered one! It arrived at the end of September. However, by that time I still hadn't found a new owner for my mk4. I had some offers but nothing good enough yet so I asked the dealership to wait a bit and give me more time to sell my mk4. Then I finally found a buyer and told the dealership as well that I'm now ready to receive the new car. But I guess I jumped the gun there a bit as the deal to sell the old car hasn't been quite finalised yet. So that means that I'm in a unique position where I currently own a mk4 Octavia vRS and a brand new mk4.5 Octavia vRS and they are both velvet red! But it's a good opportunity to compare them. So finally, here are my thoughts on the differences: The specs Both of my cars have a ton of extra equipment but there are slight differences (just some quality of life extras really). I really liked the extra features on the old car so I mostly copied them when speccing the new car as well. But most notable ones: Both cars are liftbacks Both are velvet red mk4.5 has 20 extra horse power but cannot test it yet if I can actually feel the difference (still break-in period) Both have DCC, Adaptive Lane Assist Both have Suedia (leather) seats (as part of Challenge Plus package on the old mk4, separate option on mk4.5) Both have 19" wheels (Altair on mk4, Elias on mk4.5) Both have a Heads Up display Navigation was a separate option on mk4 but I think it's part of the base RS spec now. I couldn't spec preheating for mk4.5 in my region (wasn't available in the spec sheet and still isn't in the configurator) I added Canton sound system on the mk4.5 (yet to review it properly) Exterior The biggest difference between mk4 and mk4.5 is the front part of the car (as you've probably seen from pictures yourself). As I also mentioned above, it took some time for the new design to grow on me but I really like it now. The rear lights are also a bit different (the shape/light bar of the turning signal is now horistinal and straight, see picture). Also the stripes/trails within the rear lights seem to be illuminated (more). The design of the 19" wheels is different. I don't like the aero cover (or however you call it). I think the Elias wheels look much better without it so I removed the covers. However, beware that if you decide to remove the covers you need to purchase a set of centre caps and lug nut covers. Otherwise it's a bit ugly still. the vRS logo is different, I think the new one is better in the sense that you can actually understand that it says vRS (I remember one of my friends asking what VIRS means and the old logo can absolutely be misinterpreted that way) Door sill protectors have "Octavia" written on the, not vRS. Interior Interior design is mostly the same but there are more and less noticeable differences: The biggest difference (literally) is the size of the infotainment screen. It's 13" on the new one vs 10" on the old one. However, the larger screen size is in any way disturbing. The upper edge is still below the dashboard and isn't blocking the view in any way. Coupled with the upgraded infotainment system it's a really nice upgrade. Some of grey coloured pieces (door handle, the plastic around the gear shifter, rotating knobs on the steering wheel) is dull/matte whereis it was shiny on mk4. The design of the wireless charging pad/compartment has changed a bit and it feels like it's holding the phone a bit better in place. The icons on the physical buttons have changed a bit. Infotainment system/Virtual cockpit That's the big change on the inside and in short, the improvement is huge. The infotainment system is very responsive. The new style feels a bit more modern The digital instrument cluster is a more customisable as well (The right arrow on the steering wheel now switches between different display modes eg map, trip info, gear info (D, S, M), while the left one chooses between display style (with tacho and speedometer or without) No custom vRS animation on the instrument cluster when entering the car anymore, it's mostly black with SKODA fading in. 😞 The gear information (D, S1-S7 etc) can now be displayed with a huge font between the tacho and speedometer (vs being displayed in the bottom left corner on mk4). That's super awesome now. The normal gearbox mode (D) will still display only D and not D1-D7. The Adaptive Lane Assist button is now gone from the steering wheel but the option to switch to it from ACC is now hidden in the same menu (left upper button on the right side of the steering wheel). When I first saw that the button is missing I thought that they forgot to install it and actually had to double check that it's there. There's now always an indicator bar visible in the speedometer dial that shows how much range you have left to go, so now you can select something else to display in your speedometer dial. The physical button for selecting your driving modes now toggles through driving modes, that's nice! There's a ton of customisable shortcuts at the top and at the bottom of the screen (eg can set shortcuts for car, assists, lane assist, heated front windshield at the top; media, phone, navigation, android auto/carplay shortcuts at the bottom) The widgets on the infotainment screen are slightly less customisable but that doesn't really bother me: there's a couple of templates that you select from when creating pages/screens, previously you had more freedom here. I wish the HOME button was slightly bigger though. It was easier to press it on mk4 infotainment screen as it was actually a separate "button" on the left of the screen in mk4. Now it's an icon on the screen. The style of the integrated navigation system feels more modern but haven't used it that much as I'm more of an Android Auto user. Audio As mentioned, my new mk4.5 has Canton sound system. My initial reaction is that's it's not much of an improvement (still), let's see if I can figure out some good settings for it. I did have to check whether the subwoofer (squeezed into the spare wheel compartment) actually worked. Yeah, you can feel and here the vibration when you open the boot but not that much in the driver's seat. I do hope that the only result of the subwoofer won't be the body panels falling off in the back and that I can at least feel the bass when that's happening. There is an extra setting to adjust the subwoofer in the Sound menu. So in short, default settings seem a bit lacklustre but I still need to play around with settings before drawing a final conclusion. Some missing features/changes I've encountered some inconveniences on the new mk4.5 (not a deal breaker though) I think the biggest feature that's missing on the mk4.5 and that I found quite useful as well is the lack keyless lock/unlock on the rear doors. In other words, when you previously could unlock the car by just pulling the read door handles and it would unlock (and could also lock it using rear doors) then that's now gone. You have to take an extra step to touch the front door handle. Another annoyance that I found is that the speed limit warning is turned on each time you switch on the ignition. Unfortunately that's done so to comply with legislations (manual says so). However, Skoda did add a shortcut to disable it quickly (same button and place where you can disable Lane Assist). However, not all has been perfect! When I logged in with my Skoda account into the car and added myself as the main user, it wanted to load some settings which I assume were from the mk4. It did load my seat position but also a lot of icons appeared in the infotainment menu that were just loading (had the loading animation). Perhaps there's a more clever way to solve the issues but I eventually deleted and recreated my Skoda account. I took the car for a first proper drive over the weekend and had a yellow/amber "Emission control system fault" icon appear in the instrument cluster. No errors/warnings in the infotainment menu (status is fine there) as well and car drives fine as well. I plugged in my bluetooth OBD scanner to see what it comes up with and it reported fault codes P2080 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 1) and P2084 (P2080 Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance Bank 1 Sensor 2). So now I'm taking it back to the dealership. I hope it's just an improperly installed sensor (as per repair manual it seems that both sensors are wired into the same connector) but let's see. That's it for now. Feel free to ask questions and I'll try to answer them. And some pictures as well:

EV/ PIHV etc drivers are ordinary tax payers.

Sound like warranty has a different meaning in the uk then. Here in NZ they did everything with a smile, took my photo of the warning lights I had, gave me a free kamiq Monte Carlo for the day, washed my car (to be fair it was already clean) and charged nothing.

I sensed there was something wrong with my battery and yes I could have started charging the battery or load testing it etc.. guys the car is under warranty. Just take it to the dealer and let them diagnose and sort for you.

There are two options: 1) You have a competent mechanic or automotive electrician, or whatever it's called where you live, who knows how to use diagnostic tools. 2) In my experience, it sounds like the clock spring, but I would replace the steering column switch unit and the clock spring... Don't forget to back up your data before the conversion, then code it to the vehicle.

Hi, welcome. Possibly not the answer you seek - but - you can't guess or assume with these things you need to have a scan report and check to confirm and cross reference with further diagnostics and tools. Others may be along to give you more and better information and further advice.

For what it's worth I bought my 2013 Excellence right at the end of the Classic run as I wanted the quirkiness of the earlier styling. It's the 1.2 petrol, has 90,000 miles on the clock and other than tyres, a battery and replacing the front shock absorbers (picked up as "misting" at an MOT rather than they failed) have had pretty much 12+ years of trouble free motoring. As you may have picked up elsewhere there are a few 1.4 petrol models around if you can track one down but the consensus seems to be the 1.8 petrol is for those with deep pockets. My understanding is there wasn't a step change from the pre to the post facelift Yeti, it was more building on what was a solid car from launch. One thing I have picked up from this forum, and I stand to be corrected, is the Amundsen unit in the FL seems to have more problems than the earlier Bolero so it's one of the things to look for when you are looking around but there's a lot of information on this forum and You Tube about fixing/replacing the unit. Although the car inarguably is getting a bit long in the tooth now (well, they stopped selling them in 2017) it's still a fun and versatile car to drive. Keep your expectations sensible and I don't think you will be disappointed.

I agree with this too. "If you build it they will come"

Unless you buy an ev with very limited range in the first place. because if there was no facility at your destination you would arrange your rest stop at the last one available. I cannot off the top of my head think of anywhere in the UK more than fifty miles from electricity. I have never said EVs suit everyone but there is now an EV to suit everyone but they may be out of reach financially.

Good stuff! I'm actually looking into that myself at the moment. It is for certain that you'll need a different airbag connecter, a highline gateway module and maybe a few other bits and pieces - I am not exactly sure. There are many threads on the forums. If you ever do figure it out, please post here as well!

Update: Got all the work needed done for £900, which included new discs and pads all around, brake fluid, new front control arms, apparently the nearside control arm was collapsed and was causing the excessive tyre wear and binding brake.

I fully agree with all the above. I am 1 year into my EV journey and so far have no regrets, coming from a very Diesel focused history. At Home it's charged. Any day when the distance is further than range at departure. When parked if there is a plug available it's plugged in. (like having to pay to park) If there is enough to get home it's not. Not once have I been worried about running out. I am only a 6/7,000 mile annual user but it would make no difference to the how only the cost.

I would much rather not spend any minutes of my holiday dealing with these. Recharging happens naturally with rest stops, doesn't take any minutes out of my trip. Just like driving EV everywhere else. Similarly, when returning, it is possible to not need recharging at all if had overnight slow charged to 100% at hotel. Stop limiting yourself to think about refuelling. EV recharging is super flexible, just need to live with one to know all the possibilities.

You cannot mis-fuel an EV A Morrisons petrol station mix-up has left several drivers with damaged vehicles and one facing a repair bill of almost £3,000. https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/25531698.morrisons-petrol-station-blunder-leaves-driver-3k-bill/?ref=rss

Very nice, I hope you enjoy and same spec apart from colour of the one I ordered . Mine has has been built apparently since August but sat at the docks, spoke to the dealer and still no date for leaving Embden, I'm tired of it and have invoked my right to cancel if they don't delivery the car within 14 days as they are 21 days over the estimated delivery

Reading Sixt's EV energy policy it suggests they have no way of charging them up. AI "Return policy Standard policy: You must return the vehicle with a charge level equal to the level at pickup, which is a minimum of 80% for most rentals. Under 80% pickup: If the vehicle was supplied with a charge lower than 80%, you must return it with that same charge level. Charging fee: If you do not return the vehicle to the required charge level, you will be charged for the missing kWh at rates comparable to public fast-charging stations." Implication is that if it is returned low it will be rented out low. Enterprise do this with ICE they take a photograph of the fuel gauge at pick up. Maybe they make money on the missing fuel/energy?

Although my Infotainment doom loop problems are no longer apparent my recently purchased OBDeleven did find 13 logged faults for the relevent period in the onboard diagnostics, the first of which reported "Control module faulty" followed by a dozen other faults on subsequent dates. My Skoda dealer is working to fix the problem.

Karoq is MQB A1 lke Ateca and T-roc ph1 cars with MQB evo are: Audi A3 Mk4 Audi Q3 MK3 Audi Q3 Sportback MK2 Audi Q6 Cupra Formentor Cupra Terramar Jetta VS8 SEAT León Mk4 Škoda Superb Mk4 Škoda Octavia Mk4 Škoda Kodiaq Mk2 Volkswagen Caddy Mk4 Volkswagen Golf Mk8 Volkswagen Multivan (T7) Volkswagen Tiguan Mk3 Volkswagen T-Roc Mk2

No, karoq is Not MQB EVO, Index H needs unece Car, you dont have a unece Car

It’s a known issue. The Elroq goes to sleep and then won’t wake to charge (or resume a charge between slots). Octopus have recently added the Elroq as a supported device and since I integrated the car rather than the charger I have had no issues. For information I have the same setup as you. Also it has been reported by many IOG users that Octopus are now not allowing a charger to be the controlling device when you have a car that is compatible (across all manufacturers and not just Škoda). Apparently this is a response to users inflating the charge level requirement as a way of gaming the system… I agree it’s less than ideal from Škoda and the reply you have posted is very similar to the responses others have received. It requires more investment in their servers and backend systems to cope with the data traffic. If you are a member of the Škoda EV Lounge on facebook then I would post your question to Škoda there. The more UK customers who complain the more chance of us getting a fix.

Good thing about Renaults, like Skodas, thieves usually don't want to steal them, i am fine with that, to me and advantage.

Thank you everyone. Actually the battery could be more than 6 years old, i have owned the car 6 years, so the battery could be even older. I did order an Exide 027 EFB EL600 a few days ago from Tayna with the same 640CCA and 60AH spec as the one in my 2015 fabia mk3. I have it and will fit it today,i didnt know about parasitic draw and its worth knowing about it now. Anyway, thank you all once again, much appreciated. Lets see how it goes.

Dirty trottle body cudnt close all the way.

unece also Index H is no longer in the extended can

Thanks, Very possible. Managed to avoid the open windows mystery although the open bootlid poltergeist was common when I first got the car. Maybe trouser fashion has chnaged over the last 8 years-or too many pies! Just praying it's not some module sowmwhere playing up.

The rear speakers in your Octavia 4 sound weak because the MIB3 unit outputs to them differently than the front speakers. While editing the sound dataset (HEX code) from the 5F Multimedia Control Unit can theoretically fix this, it hasn’t been successfully done on Octavia IV MIB3 units yet. Using OBDeleven or Car Scanner Pro to dump the dataset won’t work due to encryption or compatibility issues. The most practical solution right now is to install a high-quality external DSP amplifier, which can balance the front and rear speakers and provide flat outputs without modifying the MIB3 software.

SFD2... Wrong module for the car...

Yup. Superb mk4 - 24-plate L&K - very quiet creaking noise from passenger side when driving over rougher roads (and i live in Flintshire, so thanks to our local council we've got quite a lot of those locally!). So quiet that it's almost impossible to identify an actual source - but it's there. Can't hear a thing when on a nice smooth surface. Never thought about the door rubbers - will look into the 'Gummi Pfledge' mentioned. Having come to the Skoda from a couple of BMWs, what's become obvious is that, while the Skoda is a great car in many respects and represents much better value for money than the BMW, it's simply not quite as well put-together. The BMWs were more 'solid' cars in terms of the build quality. Never got any sort of noise of this nature on either of the Beemers.

All my modern cars (from 1979 onwards) speedos have read fast by up to 10%; strangely my 1937 Morris 8 is spot on at 40mph!

This is the extend of the Renault data breech, officially from Renault. I am affected because I was in contact with Renault for my parent's Megane purchase. • First name & surname • Gender • Phone number • Email address • Postal address • Vehicle Identification Number • Vehicle registration number ID fraud, yes; phishing attack, yes. Just like every other data breach. How could those information open up an avenue for car theft?

I have the same problem. Mine weems to go away if I open the window a crack. I've tried lubing the door seals but it still happens.

My 2023 4x4 Sportline was supplied from the factory with the 125/70 R18 space saver. See photo below - the 135/80 might be too big to fit in the polystyrene storage that goes around the spare wheel.

I had one as well (2.5 XteN version) but it had the slower auto box. Drove well but my 2.0 Turbo PPP Impreza wagon is still borderline hilarious when I let it out on a dry day 😉

So its been a good couple years since I've posted on Briskoda and I never actually created a thread for my build, so I'll start from somewhere near the beginning, it's a wild ride filled with pain and success, and the project is still ongoing. For anyone interested in heavily modifying their Skodas with EA211 engines, I have a shop opening soon specializing in motorsports and EA211 engines with all the knowledge I have gained over the last 5+ years, and I will update this post once the store is live and engine building services are available at my new unit. (will be speaking with Briskoda about club discounts) Now back to the start, I bought the car stock in 2019 as my first car, I figured if I was going to pay silly money for insurance, I'd rather be paying £2k a year for a nice car vs a cheap dinger. I didn't do much in the first year an a half, just some small cosmetic mods such as tints, stickers, some red pin-striping, a sun strip, yellow fog lights and an MST induction kit. End of 2019/start of 2020 I started to get a taste for track days (I had been professionally sim racing for a few years and wanted to get on track in my own car) so started with Three Sisters in Wigan and went from there. 2021 is where it really kicked off for my project. At this point I had only ever done some simple mods and regular servicing to my car. I had no idea what I was doing, when it came to fitting suspension or anything more complex. so I researched and watched some YouTube videos, bought some more tools and had a go at fitting powerflex poly bushes and upgraded the suspension to coilovers. This went quite well, I even bought a welder and taught myself how to weld to make my own custom exhaust. I even painted the calipers red along with a few other small modifications here and there, including a rear wiper delete. Now that I had sportier handling and noise, I wanted more power. So in the summer of 2021 I figured instead of spending money on a stage 1 remap, only to pay for a more powerful map later down the line, I decided to go all out and bought a bigger 1.4tsi turbo and fitted it to my car with the aim of going straight for 170bhp ish. I also swapped in colder Denso ixu27 spark plugs and paired them with APR coil packs. Went to get it tuned and the tuner blew it up 🙃 The tuner basically hit the page up button on boost and fuel, rather than properly remapping it on the dyno and got the numbers wrong. Ironically I had a P0234 overboost sticker in my engine bay, and thats exactly what happened. The engine ran too lean, too much pressure was put on the turbo and it overheated, which warped the turbine shaft causing the internals to explode, sending fragments of compressor through the engine. At this point I could've should've scrapped the car or had it written off by insurance, or I could put a fresh engine in and keep going..... i chose pain... I figured if I had to replace the engine, I may as well go bigger and picked up a cheap CXSA engine with around 50k miles on the clock, drove to London to pick it up and transported it back to Manchester in a mate's Audi A3. Little bit of info on the CXSA engine, it's an updated version of the CMBA engine which had oil consumption issues with the cylinder head, but the CXSA engine was preceded by the newer and somewhat improved CZCA engine. I went about striping down my car ready to remove the engine and started swapping some of my mods onto this new engine, I spent an additional £500 on various service items, new spark plugs, fitted a fresh clutch whilst I was at it and painted the cam cover red. Interestingly, the cam cover on the EA211 engines for those who don't know, is also the cam ladder, as the camshafts are built into the cover, so it can't easily be removed without having to remove the timing belt, so I had to mask everything off in order to paint it. Once I had the new engine fitted, I rebuilt the front end of the car, and fitted RGB demon eye lights in the projector headlights whilst I was at it. The swap between the CJZD to the CXSA was relatively straight forward, the high pressure fuel pump is identical between the two engines (both identical Hitachi HPFPs with the same plug - this will be important later on), using the original engine wiring loom and ECU from the 1.2 CJZD, The 1.4TSI engines have an additional oil pressure switch and solenoid at the back of the engine to switch between low oil pressure and high oil pressure, for performance and an easier swap, these can be left disconnected. The engine will always run with higher oil pressure, like the 1.2tsi engines. Once the car was running, I booked it in at a different tuner who were able to apply a base map for the 1.4tsi and tune it to around 180bhp and 260nm of torque, I even got pops and bangs *sigh* I now had the first engine swapped MK3 Fabia in the UK. (Mid 2021) Somewhere during all this I fitted 15mm spacers on the front and 20mm spacers on the rear for better fitment, and realized I needed some wheels. So after getting the car back on the road, I went on Facebook marketplace and managed to pick up an almost new set of JR29 wheels for £200, no cracks, buckles, welds or damage. Fitted a nice set of Pirelli P-Zero tyres and got some tuner bolts as I had snapped the locking keys for my standard bolts. I also fitted black badges and some rubber strips to extend the standard Monte Carlo splitter and sideskirts. The car was now in a good spot and looking good, so I took it to Santa Pod for USC with some mates and went down the drag strip, followed by a road trip round the NC500 a few weeks later. The quarter mile time was 15.8 seconds at 86mph iirc. The road trip round the NC500 was a lot of fun with great roads and scenery, but in true project car fashion, the spirited driving took it's toll as the exhaust shifted, kevlar heat wrap failed, and a heat shield got loose, resulting in a slightly melted fuel tank. 1 week later, I had a new fuel tank and replaced the damaged one, and took the car to Trax car show, where I got some track time and met @Monkey_Dan in person for the first time. I also got speaking with a few other people getting more ideas for my car. It was around this time I started looking into getting the R5 rally wide body kit (about £3.5-4k), but then the project car curse struck again 2 days later and engine number 2 went pop as I left Tesco with full tank of premium. At this point, I start looking for another car, very nearly bought a slightly rotten mk1 MX5... I wish I did. Instead I bought a Toyota aygo as a cheap daily and decided to turn the Fabia into my weekend/track car. I contemplated the Idea of swapping in a 1.8tsi from the Polo GTI or a 2.0tsi from the Golf GTI/R, the 2.5L TFSI RS3 engine also crossed my mind, but these were all out of budget. So another 1.4tsi it was. The engine was stripped down to find out what went wrong, this time I took the cam ladder off and removed the head to get a deeper look now I was more confident in my mechanic skills. As we took the intake manifold off, we could see one of the intake valves missing in cylinder 2, I didn't expect to see it embedded in piston 2 when we took the head off... As much as I hated it, seeing the Fabia with the front end fully disassembled was a familiar sight. After some further inspection and sifting through data logs, my best guess for what happened is a perfect storm of a spark plug failing, mixed with a poorly looked after engine (remember I bought this engine cheap off the internet), a lot of carbon buildup, and some damage likely caused by the pops and bangs. (yep, I'm getting old, pops and bangs are not cool) I ended 2021 with a second blown engine and a cheap daily. This time I bought a CZC engine with 30k miles on the clock in better condition, had it shipped to me, and repeated the same process as last time, swapping good parts over to the new engine, including the clutch which only had about 12k miles on it at this point. (yep, engine 2 lasted 12k miles) Whilst I waited for the new engine to arrive, I went about heat shielding the firewall with gold insulation tape from funk motorsport. This time round I didn't bother painting the cam ladder, instead I had problems getting the car to start due to fuel pressure from the HPFP. Remember how I mentioned the Hitachi HPFP earlier? The CZC engines use a different HPFP to the CXSA and CJXC/D engines which wouldn't work with my wiring loom or ECU. Eventually after much trial and error, I modified one of the Hitachi HPFPs to fit the CZC engine which required some re-drilling and adjustment with the dremel to move the bolt holes. It was a bit of a bodge, but it worked. The Hitachi HPFP can also be upgraded using the EA888 HPFP upgrade kits. The fuel pump workaround fixed all the issues, and the car was back on the road for a few months until a HGV propshaft decided to ruin my day on the M6 by damaging the subframe, front suspension, destroying an alloy, ripping out an abs/wheel speed sensor and a causing some other damage underneath. Insurance were kicking their feet about fixing the car because of how heavily modified the car was, so after 2 months waiting, I took the car back and fixed it myself. Unfortunately I couldn't find any more JR29s so had to settle for a single bola b25 to fix the car as cheaply as possible. Fitted a new subframe, new control arm, re-terminated the abs sensor wire and treated the damaged metal to stop it from corroding. With the Fabia fixed again, I went back to modifying, going even more track focused. I fitted an aftermarket steering wheel with a custom wheel boss and quick release setup. Doing this meant I lost the steering wheel controls, so I came up with a way to keep them, I removed them from the standard wheel and zip tied them to the wheel boss kit. Somewhere along the way I installed a boost gauge and volt meter in one of the center air vents too. Seeing as I was going full track car spec, I had been looking at the OMP WRC-R seats for a few months and found a pair with 4 point harnesses on marketplace which I was able to get at a bargain £650, vs £1400 for the pair of seats and harnesses new. I went about stripping out the standard seats front and rear and fitted the new seats. Getting the seats to fit required making up some custom brackets as the standard seat mounting is offset. Installing the seats straight onto the default mounts resulted in being sat a couple inches left of the wheel, making for an awful driving position. I temporarily bolted the shoulder straps for the harness to the standard rear seatbelt mounts whilst I waited for a custom harness bar to arrive. The harness bar arrived, and to mount it, I cut away the rear seat mounting loops and boxed in the bar mounts with 2mm steel and a lot of weld to make it as secure as possible, if I crash, I don't want that harness bar coming loose. The whole thing was painted red to match the interior and adjusted to fit, and the harnesses mounted to the bar. When fitting harnesses, they need to be fitted correctly in the right position and with the right angles, don't mess around with safety when your life may depend on it. As part of removing the standard rear seat mounts, I removed the centre mount which had 12 spot welds and panel bond - absolute pain to remove. (Drop the fuel tank if you do this, the tank sits directly below and you dont want to drill into it) Whilst I was at it, I also started removing some of the bonded sound panels from the boot area (ADHD got me on a side quest there) The next addition came mid 2022 when I decided it was time for a race car livery, earlier in the year I designed some liveries for my car, and went about doing it as cheaply as possible. I went to a local vinyl supplier, bought £80 of sign vinyl because it was cheaper than proper cast vinyl and spent every evening after work for a week cutting vinyl with a ruler and pair of scissors and applied it to my car. I also used a vinyl plotter to cut out some additional stickers to complete the race car livery look. After the livery, it was time for some Nurburgring prep, full service again and walnut blasted the intake valves, I fitted a 2-step controller for flat foot shifting and launch control with an aftermarket wiring loom and went to get the car remapped again, this time for a slightly safer map running 170hp and 250nm of torque running less boost but with better fuelling. The pops and bangs were gone, and replaced with anti-lag which doesn't come in until 5k+ rpm, and the redline was raised from 6500 to 7000rpm. The Nurburgring trip didn't quite go to plan, we were staying in Belgium for the week for Spa 24H, and went to the ring on one of the first days. My car decided to start misfiring and wouldn't behave, so I took it on for a lap anyway, managed to get a 9:58 lap on 3 cylinders. Later on diagnosed the issue to be the aftermarket wiring loom for the launch controller, managed to fix it and got home just in time for USC at santapod again, this time I entered the autosolo and won, then entered the flame show for a laugh. I got some more track time at Silverstone in September in 2022, and got bored in October so made a bonnet exit exhaust for fun (not for road use - car shows only) The Fabia then decided it wasn't done being a project car, snapped the dogbone mount which also snapped the clutch line, so I replaced it with a thicker dogbone from a 1.8tsi Polo GTI and fitted powerflex inserts, along with replacing the broken clutch line. (I dont seem to have any photos of the new dogbone mount. Next up was some Trackday prep for Oulton Park. I switched out my old P-Zeros for NS2r semi slicks, I didn't want to go full fat semi-slick as I still wanted the car to be drivable in the wet. I also put fresh discs and pads on the car with j-hook disks and EBC yellowstuff pads. The pads were properly broken in for track use, some suspension adjustments were made and the spacers were removed for clearance over practicality. I also swapped out the white #97 on the side windows for proper MSA spec DayGlo yellow numbers and name on the side windows. It was also around here I stopped bothering with centre caps on wheels as they just melt off on track with how hot the wheels and brakes get. The Oulton Park trackday was wet, glad I chose the NS2r tyres. By the afternoon I was getting some good laps in (I wasn't timing) and I was chasing down and overtaking 2 of the 3 GR Yaris' on the track - impressive for a little 1.4 powered Fabia. The EBC yellowstuff brakes didn't last... After 1 day at Oulton, I had burnt through all 4 pads on the front axle. An EBC rep got in touch and sent out some Bluestuff NDX pads to try on the rear and RPX pads to try on the front on my next trackday. On the way home from Oulton my gearbox blows up. Driving along in 6th gear and it suddenly becomes a neutral. As I nurse it home, it starts popping out of 5th gear, then stops going into 5th completely. Last few miles im having to hold the gear stick in 4th. I order a new 6 speed PRQ gearbox from a scrap yard, get my car trailer-ed to a mates unit and swap the gearbox over the Christmas holiday. Merry Christmas to me I guess 😂 I did also strip the box to find what happened, diff casing exploded, lost oil, 6th gear was smoooooth... The dogbone mount on the gearbox was also cracked so It's possible that the dogbone snapping couldve also caused some damage there. Now we're in January 2023, the new gearbox is in, and the car is serviced. I get home from a Tesco shop and my car sets on fire. No I'm not kidding, despite all the heat shielding, it caught fire. It wasn't the common fuel rail failiure that caused it, instead the heat from the turbo and exhaust melted through the brake fluid line that goes from the reservoir to the clutch master cylinder. The line that failed, I had upgraded with a fuel resistant silicone line and jubilee clips during a previous engine swap. Luckily, I had a powder fire extinguisher in the glove box (seriously keep a fire extinguisher around if you have a project or track car) and I caught the fire early enough to put it out. To top it all off, I had a trackday booked just under 6 weeks away The fire took out the clutch master cylinder, clutch position sensor, some wiring and part of the clutch line (which I had only just replaced a few months prior) I replaced almost all of the damaged parts, other than one part of the clutch line. When looking for this part, it turns out only to be available with the whole clutch line kit, which Skoda had also updated to a new version which would require me purchasing a different clutch master, different clutch slave and the whole line kit. Instagram came in clutch (no pun intended) and someone sent me some 90° connectors which I needed to fix the clutch line. It took a month to find this part. So now its crunch time, the car doesn't run and I have upgrades planned before the next trackday, I get the fire damaged parts replaced, fit the new RPX and NDX pads which EBC kindly sent over and the big ticket upgrades - Vibratechnics engine and gearbox mounts, a front mount intercooler setup and a battery relocation. At this point, no one in the UK had fitted a FMIC on a MK3 Fabia, so I ordered a 610mm 12 row universal intercooler along with a universal pipe kit and a selection of silicone hoses. I also ordered an RTMG charge cooler blanking kit and some miscellaneous pipes to bypass the charge cooler. I also ordered a battery relocation kit and a battery tray for an 063 Aygo battery because I had one laying around and it's 3kg lighter than the OEM battery. I also repurposed parts of the MST intake to relocate it and used the dremel to cut out a section of the plastic radiator shroud to direct air straight to the intake. Once I had everything, I chose my final routing for the intercooler, installed all the parts and my car became the first MK3 Fabia in the UK with a FMIC - managed to beat @Monkey_Dan to it by about a month. (sorry) With the car prepared and ready, I drove down from Manchester to Snetterton for the first of many trackdays organized by @BossFox to shake the car down and see how it behaved with the new additions and lots of abuse, doing about 50 laps and also meeting a couple other Briskoda members, @Volf included. The Fabia did handle the abuse quite well, pulling 1.3G in the corners and 1.2G under braking, I did notice an issue with braking performance straight away. When slamming on the anchors after being on wide open throttle, I had no power assisted braking for half a second before the brake booster came back in. This was consistent through the day and post trackday diagnosis uncovered the vacuum line from the engine to the brake booster had been damaged from the fire just over a month earlier. The RPX pads were easily able to take on the late braking, and a full day of driving with no brake fade. The car did eventually start to overheat in the afternoon so I had to back off a little and do more mid session cooldown laps. Jumping forwards a few months, I start working for a motorsports team racing in the UK Time Attack Championship, Racing Hondas Championship and 750MC Club Enduro Championship as a race mechanic. From this I started gaining additional mechanical and motorsports knowledge and started making my Fabia even more un-usable on the road. The bucket seats came back out and I started removing the carpets, rear door cards, more sound insulation and also removed the dash for a DIY flocked dashboard. At this point all airbags were removed, along with the airbag controller to remove the airbag light on the dash, all wiring in the roof of the car for lights, airbags and the radio were removed to kick off the start of a more extreme diet. After flocking the dash in the living room I fitted an electrical cut off switch and wrapped the carbon effect dash inserts with carbon fiber wrap. I also dropped the gearbox again to replace the clutch, flywheel and pressure plate after burning them out driving in the snow with semi-slicks 🤦‍♂️ Next up on the extreme diet was removing the standard bonnet catch, cutting holes and fitted aero catches, because race car I guess... Whilst I was at it, I also removed the standard bonnet catch, welded in 2 brackets cut away a lot of metal from the boot and fitted more aero catches. Why the boot too? a) Race car. b) Whilst at Snetterton, something electrical went quite wrong, the boot started unlatching from the wiper stalk and the front wiper was stuck on unless the rear wiper was turned on (which was already deleted) and it was easier to simplify with aero catches, than spend ages messing with electrical issues. (i still have to leave the wiper stalk in the rear wiper on position for the front wipers to work normally to this day) Along with the aero catches came a livery update, working for a team racing in Time Attack gave me access to the championship sticker packs which I applied to my car and I started considering building my car for Time Attack. Once this idea got in my head, I haven't been able to shake it for the last 2 years at the time of writing. Regulations have been studied many times and from this point, the car is going in the direction of the Pocket Rocket class in Time Attack UK. Next we jump from mid 2023 to September 2023 going for more performance upgrades and some additional maintenance. I rebuilt the driveshafts, replaced the seals and packed them with fresh grease, then dropped the gearbox again to disassemble it and upgrade the standard diff with a plated LSD conversion from Racing Diffs, this required some custom machining of shims, to make it work. This is a much cheaper option than a quaife or wavtrac LSD at £300 vs about £1200, the main trade off is the Racing Diffs plated conversion kit requires rebuilding once a year. To improve handling, I finally purchased a whiteline rear anti roll bar and fitted that to the car on the same weekend which I set to the stiffest position. I also converted the front wiper setup to a single wiper, because race car of course. A month after the diff rebuild was more trackday preparation, I picked up a slightly used set of Hankook RS4 semi slicks cheap from the racing team to see how they compare to the NS2r tyres. At this point I needed new discs and pads again so upgraded the standard 288mm discs to 312mm discs from the Audi S1, had a set of caliper brackets machined and fitted a set of Porsche 987 4-pot calipers with another set of RPX pads from EBC. The calipers I purchased from ebay were damaged and unusable so a second set was ordered and I had a friend pick them up for me and drop them off same day as it was now 2 days before the trackday and I had no brakes... A set of HEL braided brake lines was acquired for the caliper upgrade and we fitted them in one evening, followed by immediately bedding the brakes in. To improve the geometry setup on the Fabia, I ordered a set of solid adjustable top mounts for a MK4 Golf which can adjust camber and castor, which I set up for maximum negative camber and shimmed the rear hubs in the same way it's done on many race cars for some negative camber and a little more toe in to control the over excitable rear end. We now come to the next trackday, November 2023, another hosted by @BossFox. The day gets off to an exciting start with BossFox right behind me in his Subaru P1, already pushing the car when the tyres were still a bit cold and I hadn't got my tyre pressures up, only to have a couple of very sideways moments 😅 A few laps later and the car already starts overheating, I take a cooldown lap and go at it again only for it to start overheating again 2 laps later so I come in to find the coolant boiling over. The rest of the morning becomes a battle over coolant and oil temps and trying to keep them down. come the lunch break and I've removed the front grill and fog lights to no avail, so I take the front bumper off, grab the angle grinder, and start cutting out the blanked off part of the upper grill in an effort to get as much cooling as possible. Straight after the lunch break I jump out on track and push too hard on cold tyres sending me off after turn 1 and straight into a wall, didn't even get to see if my "cooling upgrade" works. The good news is the harness bar is still solid as ever, so my welds are working great, and wearing a harness with a helmet and neck brace meant I was unharmed. However, the Fabia looked a little worse for wear as it gets dragged into the pits. Over the next 30 minutes I remove the front bumper, pop it back out and tape/zip tie it back together, I then rip off the damaged wheel arch and take a mallet to the front fender, bashing it out to make it a bit straighter and to clear the wheel. Put the car back together, check the alignment and get confirmation from track control to take the car back out. From crashed to beaten back in shape took just 30 minutes - skills as a race mechanic coming in there. My favorite comment of the day was someone saying it was like watching a rally team patching their car back together. The handling and tyre and brake upgrades now meant I was pushing 1.4G in corners and 1.4G under braking and made a massive difference to how the car handled. The LSD conversion also made a massive difference in corners, being able to put power down earlier without wheel spinning, though it did come at the cost of introducing more torque steer. Lap times only 6 seconds slower than a Golf R around the Donington GP layout. (as for the sticker on the last picture, i had to joke about it otherwise id be a bit miserable) Next challenge was repairing the damage, which I managed for under £100. Bought a new wing and some headlight tint, removed the damaged wing and fitted the replacement, had to bend the mounting bracket back into place for it to fit properly. I then re-taped the front bumper and reinforced with zip ties. The £10 tint on the headlight saved me £500 on having to replace the whole unit. I had to plastic weld a couple of tabs on the headlight for where it mounts, and once I removed the damaged tint, there was only one scratch in the lens, vs having a completely ruined headlight. New tint fitted and the car is ready for the next trackday. There are some scuffs on the bonnet, a couple dents in the door and more scuffs along the side of the car and wing mirror, I like to call those battle scars 😅 As for the next trackday, that was a day after fitting the new parts. Donington GP again, but this time it was just an afternoon session and very, very wet. This was actualy a no noise limit trackday with everything from track cars, to supercars and even full on race cars. Being overtaken by an LMP3 race car in a hatchback is a surreal experience. I found myself gapping a lot of the supercars as I was one of few people actually pushing in the rain, most people were struggling to gain any traction so this little Fabia was actually showing up cars it shouldn't even be able to touch... until it wasnt and the car aquaplaned going into craner curves, spitting me off into the gravel. At the end of the day, I also got the car weighed at the track, and it comes in at just a fraction under 1000kg. To finish off 2023 I felt a bit seasonal, wrapped the grill in red tinsel and wrapped the whole car in 1600 LED christmas lights (about 80 meters of them) Most people seemed to love it, along with a lot of coppers - except for one... The Fabia spent the first half of 2024 sat on the driveway doing nothing, and I did nothing with it until a week before Shed Fest, 2 of my old NS2r tyres were fitted to replace the bald RS4 tyres, and thats it. I took the car to a couple of race weekends with the racing team, where I managed to brake the pan roof - I'm surprised it lasted this long, and finally made the decision to take it off the road permanently. It's now a track-only car. Mid 2024 I also bought a new daily, an e91 320d which I now use for towing. The Fabia was then trailer-ed to tatton park VAG show, and Trax at Silverstone for more track time. A few days before going to Silverstone I decided it was the perfect time to strip the dash out again, this time to remove the AC lines and the heater matrix, along with cutting out some of the additional plastic behind the dash, along with removing a headlight in favor of additional cold air for the intake to try and combat some of the temperature issues I had in 2023. The day before Trax I spent putting the car back together and working through the night until I had to load the car onto the trailer. I took my full trackday toolkit and spares with me just in case, and finished assembling the car in the paddock at Silverstone with Street Skodas. The Silverstone track time was a lot of fun, overtaking a lot of hot hatches that again, a Fabia shouldn't be able to touch, but looking back at the onboard footage after the track time, I noticed I had been at full race pace with 130+°C coolant temps and 150+°C oil temps. Over the last few trackdays I also noticed the car was loosing power, so where my track times should be improving, the data was showing slower acceleration and lower top speeds on the straights. After doing some compression tests, the compression is lower than it should be across most cylinders, so I've probably cooked the piston rings and/or headgasket. After the continued overheating issues at Silverstone I decided it was time to sort the cooling out for good. I ordered a set of auxiliary fans, some wiring, relays and a switch, I also ordered a 19 row oil cooler, an oil cooler sandwich plate, in-line coolant hose sensor insert, coolant gauge, oil pressure gauge, and oil temp gauge along with their respective sensors so I could keep an eye on everything. I removed the front end, followed with the radiator shroud, I then removed the AC condenser in front of the radiator, fitted a new oil filter with the sandwich plate, fitted the sensors and gauges, it turns out the OEM heater controls cover was the perfect size to fit 3 gauges, with the hole for the centre dial cut open wider. I wired everything up and tested them, followed with fitting and wiring up the auxiliary fans onto a relay and a new switch on the dash, fitted the 19 row oil cooler and plumbed everything in. With the oil cooler and auxiliary fans where the AC condenser was, I couldnt mount the intercooler back to where it was originally, so the angle grinder came back out to cut away part of the front crash bar to re-mount the intercooler. The plastic radiator shroud also had to be trimmed to accomodate the auxiliary fans. This cooling crunch was all as a rush for another trackday... yeah I always seem to fix or modify something days before the car needs to be somewhere... Before taking the car to the track, I taped up the front bumper with colour matched tape to create an area of higher pressure in front of the car, forcing more air into the cooling setup and reducing drag, very similar to how a lot of time attack cars are designed, and similar to the R5 Fabia rally car. Took the Fabia to Blyton park with MQB Track Cars for a shakedown, no cooling issues, fans worked, no issues with the car. I then booked onto 3 more trackdays, throughout October and November, first off at Cadwell park, where the only issue I had was a boost pipe coming off the intercooler twice. I followed this with another one of @BossFox's trackdays at Donington, same again, no issues other than the boost pipe going into the intercooler popping off, this time it was 4 or 5 times. And to finish off 2024, I went to Trac Mon Anglesey. This time it didn't go to plan, the car would not behave, blowing the boost hose off every other lap until I decided to bypass the intercooler all-together because I wanted track time which I eventually got in the afternoon. And that brings us to today. I haven't touched or moved the Fabia since Anglesey in November 2024. I have no current trackdays or shows planned for the car as it's now going into a fully developmental phase. In some of the Donington pictures mid corner, I can see the tyre is rolling onto the sidewall still, despite the camber, so more negative camber is required with further geometry adjustments, and the last picture with a set of 2 month old NS2r tyres shows the tyre delaminating from overheating and the tyre rolling onto the sidewall. The car needs a new engine - it has low compression, and I want more power. I'm limited by engine size with my aim for the Pocket Rocket class in Time Attack so I'm sticking with the EA211 family of 1.4tsi engines, so the next move is possibly a fresh CZC engine, or a CZE engine as those engines have twin VVT (this will require a new engine wiring loom and ECU). Forging the engine is on the cards, along with EA888 fuel injectors, an IS20 or IS38 turbo, a custom 7K Automotive widebody/aero kit for Time Attack, a full roll cage, and many other adjustments and upgrades, including a lot of carbon fiber. Hopefully I will be able to spend 2025 developing the car and by the end of the year, shaking it down in an almost complete state, ready for the 2026 season of Time Attack. So there's work to do. The build has come a long way, with multiple evolutions, but there's more to come... project cars are never really complete.

The Time Attack regulations also don't allow glass sunroofs. I've been looking into swapping out the roof for about a year - a standard metal roof makes the most sense from a financial point of view, but if I'm swapping most of the panels for carbon, may as well do the same for the roof😅

No, there are no reliable DSG gearboxes, basic slushboxes are reliable, SOME manuals are reliable but most Tiptronic or DSG type flappy paddle gearboxes are overly complex and rely too heavily on sophisticated electronics and computerisation. They're the solution to a problem nobody was having.

I tried the "VRS CLUSTER THEME adaptation" both using the ODB11 built-in app and long coding (activating all the views) but it does not work on a MY23. The view appears but it does not have revs numbers nor a progress bar when the revs increase. It's static, so to speak. Please check the attached photo.

These problems do not exist at the level you believe them to be. I’ve done 1500 miles in 3 weeks with no issues whatsoever. This has cost around £30 in electricity compared to £225 in my previous Superb. On two journeys of just over 200 miles round trip I planned a short top up charge but actually didn’t need it (probably same journey in winter I would ). I’m no evangelist, there’s still a lot to improve, but there isn’t anything to prevent an ev being a perfectly capable car for most users.

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Karoq’s platform is MQB Evo, so H should work