Outofthi5world

I got a great response when I emailed Skoda uk about the bonnet on my Fabia Monte Carlo. A couple of days after I emailed them the manager of the dealership rang me up apologising about the problem and inviting me round to check and book it in to be fixed.

I am, and the plate would be perfect. Just a shame I bought my Ibiza when I did or I wouldn't have negative equity to pay off too.

Wish I had some spare cash. But I've got insurance and tax to pay. Just about to buy my first VRS.

Finance people didn't like the negative equity on the Seat so said no, but plan B is still open and to be honest, plan B is a lot better if it works.

Bad news, might not be happening any more.

Yep, but a decent one this time. I will probably posting pics when I get it.

Went in there yesterday to see if they had any Mkll Octavia VRSs in at all as I was looking to change my Ibiza for a VRS, I only wanted a Mkll Octy BRS and wasn't desperate to change. Had a look round and couldn't find any, a salesman came up to me and asked if he could help to which I replied I'm looking for a Mkll facelift Octavia VRS but it doesn't look like you have any. He looked at me with a snooty expression and said "we don't sell old cars" and that they only sell cars maximum 8 years old. I said I saw one on DM Keith's website that was a 2011 plate then he said "we're not DM Kieth" in a snotty tone and asked me to come in side so he could look on their system, went in and he tried selling me a brand new Fabia saying it had a powerful 110BHP 1L engine and had a nice red stripe, I politely turned him down saying I wanted the size, towing ability and power of the VRS, he looked on the website and the cheapest he could find was over £16,000 so I left.

Ha ha, well it is a car yes.

Just been into the dealership and re-joined Skoda, I'll be picking my new car up in a week or two. Until then anyone want to guess what it is?

As a final update and closure to this thread the original scrap man never came to pick the car up on the arranged date and basically wasted my time despite me buying all my spare parts off him. I left the car for a while as it stood and about a month later there was a flyer on the windscreen from a scrap man. In any other situation id be cursing them but because that was my intention I rang them up. They came with their own set of wheels, swapped them over so I could keep mine and took the car. I wasn't there but my dad was, apparently they were very interested in the engine. So I'm pretty certain that the engine lives on in another car somewhere now. Id like to say a massive thanks to the guy who sold me this car 18 months ago, unseen off Ebay for the tiny price of £171. Id like to thank all the people on here who got me into track-days, Richard, Ben, Phill, Dave, Jason, John, Andrew, Dan and all the rest of you, Colin for the forum that started everything off in the first place and organizing the Brisky meats where I first got to know about and take part in track-days and the people that make this such a great community. The car was great fun, passed its MOT last year with the only advisory being slight play in the offside front wheel bearing, it managed to do track-days at Bedford, Croft, Croft again and then finally Snetterton with the only real maintenance being oil changes and break calipers. The car had 199,900 miles on it when I got it and 202,500 ish when I sold it. In those 2600 miles it had 4 oil changes, one of which was with tractor transmission oil, 2 new sumps, both due to over ambitious test driving, 2 and a half sets of front break pads a few sets of tyres a couple of liters of break fluid and 3 "new" break calipers. If I was to have put it through its MOT again and got it back on track it would have needed 2 front wheel bearings, rear wishbone bushes changing and new suspension plus anything I didn't see, so I deamed it uneconomical to continue. I've changed headlights, rear bulbs, installed a new tailgate, removed a tow-bar, changed a door and a wing, gave it a custom paint job stripped the interior to its bare bones, replaced the sunroof with a piece of roof from a Golf and filled the hole where I removed the aerial. I've sold bits, bought bits and made some bits myself, I've expanded my tool-kit and learned a lot of stuff on the way. I've had great fun with this car. I've spent a bit of money on it and while it may not have been to everyone's taste and some people may not agree with allot of the things I've done to/with the car but I loved it, I liked tinkering with it, I liked bodging it up, I likes the fact that if it went wrong I could scrap it and not really lose anything yet in reality when I scrapped it I felt like I lost allot, I've had to focus on other things recently, since New years I found a girlfriend, crashed the Monte Carlo, got an 02 Octavia estate to replace the Monte and used a few parts of the Croctavia to fix the estate a bit, then got a new job in Appleby that came with a house so moved out of my dads house to here with my girlfriend, then traded the Octavia estate in for a Seat Ibiza FR with the same 1.2 TSI engine as the Monte, so things have been busy. The insurance have only just payed the finance company for the Monte last week and I found out that I have 6 months to pay the remaining balance. Luckily if I keep paying as Iam now it will be paid in 3 months anyway so that's good. Then I may not be in overdraft any more at the end of the month. As soon as things settle down financially I intend to be back on track with something else. I plan to stick with the cheap and cheerful approach and aim for something like an older Ibiza, Mk 1 Fabia, Golf Mk 4 or something like that, partly because of the wheel sizes and partly because it will be easier to fit on our drive than a barge like the Octy. But we'll see what I get when the time comes. As for now I have one car, and one car only. 64 plate Ibiza FR, great car and feels a bit better than the Monty to drive to be honest.

First off, noidea why it changed haha to babe on my last post and second, never had any reliability problems with any of the Skodas I've owned, even the 202,000 mile Croctavia that got ragged round tracks and changed down to 3rd at 90mph ext.

Babe, I said I was impressed, not buying a 10 year old Renault

So, I'm sat in a dealership now, I'm impressed with what's on offer. Anyone guess what I'm doing?

Sorry it won't let me do this properly on my phone, not much going right at the minute. :(

So yesterday morning we came back down from Appleby to Catterick to start stripping bits off the Croc that I wanted to keep, I rang the scrap man on Thursday and arranged for the car to be picked up on Saturday.

Na, paint them different colours and make 'em stand out! In fact, fit three.

Phill does though because it has to pass an MOT as he drives to and from the track. So yes, he'll need a handbrake.

Big news to come regarding the Croctavia, will update you on Saturday...

So, I've been here since the 16th of last month, several car loads of stuff moved in, girlfriends granddad gave us a 3 piece suite and her dad bought us a cupboard unit, boss lent me the cattle trailer to go and get them, a very interesting trip from Appleby to Catterick to Bridlington then Bedale, back to Catterick then back to Appleby again with the cattle trailer on the back of the Octavia. Finally got broadband set up today so I'll be able to upload my Snetterton video Katty spent a week here then had to go back for a week, will be coming back on Thursday so stay for a bit before going back for her last couple of days at work then coming back permanently. All is going well so far, well, apart from the fact I'm so far into overdraft that the bank has blocked my card and I put 7 of the last £10 I had in the Octy tank and the fuel lift is on. Luckily work is only 2 and a half miles away and I'll get paid some money in a few days.

That's basically what I was thinking, and why I'm considering scraping the Croc. For not much more money than fixing the Croc I could buy a VRS.

@andsoutham looking closer it just appears to be raised because it's further away, my bad.

@andsoutham That must have been right at the start, before the signing on was it? My Octy is up on stilts from the sump change.

So, back on topic, I test drove the car on Sunday afternoon, found the gear selector cable must have stretched or something while it was parked in 1st all the time and reverse couldn't be selected any more. Which was nice But it could still go forwards so it wasn't a massive disaster. Took it out for a test drive, took off over a bit of a crest and landed into another hitting the sump off the floor putting a crack in it. Luckily it was only a tiny crack unlike last time so I just drove it down to the track as it was. Luckily @DanHarper had an engine at home with a sump that fit so he kindly brought it along and I collected it at the Premier inn on Sunday night. Monday morning I set off to the track at 6 am and picked up some oil on the way, managed to get the sump changed over, wheels swapped and oil in before signing on time, so all was good. Surprisingly the car still had nearly a full can of oil in when I drained the sump. The car ran alright after that, I'm not sure if it was down on power a bit of if that was just me not feeling it but anyway, it doesn't matter. Brakes worked well, 2nd gear was hard to get until after dinner, reverse was selectable now after parking it in 4th over night. The front right wheel bearing chewed its self up before dinner time which cut the day short but I've just looked now and it reads 410 miles including 230 miles home, and about 10 miles of faffing about going to Tesco this morning and a couple of other bits. Yeah, it's insured till dinner time I'm gonna use it. So about 160-170 miles on track. 54-57 laps. I started with a full tank at the track and I put £15 in on the way home last night and it's at just below 1/4 of a tank so not bad. Wheel bearing needs changing but other than that there's not much else, obviously we already know about the wishbone bush and the fact it wants lowering. But its MOT is due next month and it won't pass it, not a chance. I'm not bothering with it anyway as it won't be used for a while now. The top and bottom of the wheel had at least 10 mm of play when I left the track yesterday, I think it's got worse since though because it vibrates in a straight line now. But anyway, it hasn't fallen off yet and it can be fixed. The question is though do I want to fix it? And I don't think the answer to that question is yes to be honest. If I bought some cheap coil-overs, got both front bearings replaced and got the poly bushes fitted to the rear of the wishbones then I'd probably be looking at about £500, so I might as well put that towards a VRS. This might be the Croctavias last appearance on track unfortunately.

I didn't crash

Yes, it was a good day and despite my wheel bearing chewing it's self I had a great day and got home safely.