stevekerouac

Thanks. I'll get the mechanic to look at that.

I have a usually reliable 2003 1.9TDi Fabia which has 185k on the clock. Recently it's doing a weird thing. When I start from cold, everything is normal, but after driving for 5-10 minutes in 4th and 5th, it becomes very hard to get into 1st and 2nd. Seems to get worse the longer I drive. Turning the engine off when I stop doesn't help, but what does work is I try to put it into reverse - I then get 1st! I have to push the stick down and it stays in the locked down position just like reverse except its in 1st. Getting into 2nd requires a waggle as I bring the stick back, to release it up and out of the pressed-down lock. It's all still very stiff and hard but it works. Getting into ACTUAL reverse is near impossible. I'm not sure if I'm doing any damage driving like this. 4th and 5th are pretty much normal and I'm not driving around town so hopefully ok. I'll be taking it to the garage asap but just wondered if anyone had any pointers. Thanks in advance. Steve

Yes It needed the inline booster on the back of the head unit. I dunno why I leapt to the conclusion that it was the aerial base, perhaps because the previous radio had seemed OK. Oh well another tenner wasted! If anyone wants an aerial base for a fiver send me a PM!

I have just fitted a new JVC KD-X250 BT Head Unit to my '03 1.9TDi Fabia and subsequently a new amplified aerial base unit but I cannot get a good enough signal to the radio for it to find FM stations when in search mode. The previous Sony unit seemed to work OK… I think… it developed another fault months ago and I stopped using it, so can't be entiely sure if it was auto-tuning or not. I have tested the new Head Unit with a simple length of copper wire pushed in the antenna input and that works 100%. I removed the head lining in order to install a new aerial base unit, and as a further test have attached the same copper wire to the loose connector in the head lining (to test the wire that runs through the car body) and this also works 100%. However, when we plug the connector into the new base unit the signal is much weaker - a previously tuned local station can still be heard, but auto-tune fails entirely, or occasionally finds just the strongest local BBC station. I have tried with a different aerial from my Dad's Nissan Note, and tried my aerial in his Nissan, and there is little change in either case so I don't think the aerial wand itself is faulty. I have read that the Base Unit requires a pulse width modulated voltage - at the moment my Dad's Oscilloscope is out on loan so we can't test for that right now but should be able to in a week or so. It is almost as if the base unit is having the OPPOSITE effect of amplifying the signal. Is it possible that the Head Unit requires a NON amplified aerial, perhaps like this one ? Or could it be that I need some kind of booster like this, even though the previous stereo worked OK?

My '03 Fabia had worsening PAS problems for a couple of years - at first on very cold days, then most of the winter. Usually the warning light would come on and the steering would be heavy. Once in a while it would sort itself out after a few seconds but usually I had to drive 50 - 100 yards and then turn the engine off and back on, and it then it would be fine. Last winter I put a new battery in the car, and since that day it has never happened once. I am convinced that low output from the battery (which would be even lower on cold days as it required more power to turn the cold engine) was the cause. So, if you have similar symptoms, check your battery output is good before spending time and money on other things.