simontwithers

My hand brake has been sticking due to the mechanism in the rear calipers, i have crawled underneath and loosened both side up with WD40 but once again they are sticking. GSF dont keep VRS calipers but say they can get them from elsewhere for £75 + VAT each. They are also listed as being specific to the fabia VRS ???? surely not ??? what about polo's and ibiza's, especially the FR ??? Looking for a cheaper option to save me taking the car off the road whilst i strip and rebuild them, where as i can swap a pair of calipers on a Saturday. any help will be much appreciated. Car is a 53 plate 2004 Regards Simon.

I call my self a skoda owner but due to having a MK1 Fabia VRS i have not really looked into the MK2 fabia. whats the diff between the fabia 2 and 3 i assume the 3 must just be a later version of the MK2 as i didn't think there was a MK3 fabia. just a quick overview please. thanks. cant believe i had to ask this !

My experience of the whiteline bar can be found here. Still loving it See my pdf fitting guide in this post before buying. http://www.briskoda.net/forums/fabia/possible-group-buy-rear-arb/90606/

Thanks guys, will have to look into the locking tool, will be going the haynes route and making my own, all kitted out with ramps and jacks etc. will be the best part of a month before i get chance to do this tho. Thanks again Simon.

Due my 4 year service and cambelt change in the next month or so, hoping to do the belt myself. I have changed cambelts before but any advise on the task would be helpful before i start, ie "its a complete dog of a job, dont bother". No seriously, i have searched the threads and will be changing the water pump at the same time, just looking to find out from someone elses hindsight whether its easy enough on the VRS. whats the access like ? special tools for the tensioners and rollers? Regards, SIMON

my VRS has started doing this too, the car has always been parked facing down my steep drive and the prob has only started since the cold weather. Turn the engine off and back on, light is gone. has happened on 3 mornings now. Not too worried, but now you guys know its not just you.

At the release evening of the new fabia, one of the technicians told me skoda were having issues fitting the engine they wanted in the fabia for the new VRS, i instantly thought of the twin charge engine (supercharged and turbo) engine from VW's line up, Are Skoda going petrol with the new VRS ?? hope not, maybe diesel and petrol options like the new octy VRS. just my 2p's worth.

A rough idea of what is involved in fitting the whiteline ARB whiteline.pdf oh and the whiteline tech department is really helpful.

i have been running the whiteline rear arb for a few months and it performs really well, there are 3 settings with the stiffist giving big lift off oversteer for the tiff needels out there and the other settings could be used for the not quite so confident. With the bar on its stiffest setting the car takes tight corners like never before, the front has sooo much bite and my vrs regularly lifts the inside rear wheel on islands, even in the wet. the bar also seems to hold the front inside wheel down giving less wheel spin on the exit to the corner where the diesels torque is doing its best to spin the wheel. my only gripe is that the fit out of the box is not great, i had to reshape the brackets and open up the holes to get it to fit around the rear beam. i think the jabbasport one is a better design with the straps around the bar instead of the u-clamps that the whiteline one comes with, but for £100+ saving its worth it if your willing to tweek it during fitting.

Whiteline automotive,

UPDATE: The oil level has dropped significantly, although there is no oil in the header tank and the car is not smoking badly so i can only assume it is coming out of the breather as smoke. HELP.

Have been through pages on searches but haven't turned anything up so...... Due to the crap i found in the inlet when i previously took the EGR valve off to blank it, i decided to fit an oil breather filter to the rocker cover breather and blank it at the inlet to keep it cleaner (venting vapour to air instead of engine). Now when the engine is running smoke pours out of the breather filter like a chimney. I have never seen smoke like that from an oil breather before. What do you think ???? This is worrying me so please help. Thanks, Simon.

you could always drop it in my wheely bin

this thread caught my eye, a few q' is this conversion a whole new xenon setup inside the headlamp, ie another of the dome shaped lenses next to the other with another ballast etc, or a way to get full beam (maybe dual filament bulb) from the existing unit. im assuming a complete additional unit located in the main beam section of the headlight. but just checking. thanks simon.

thanks for clearing the fog light issue up, i forgot about those (oops now i feel stupid). Just started a new job and i happen to work with an electronics wizard so he's gonna sort it for me. Cheers anyway guys. will let you know how i get on.

The sites that sell these bulbs usually warn that if they are used for a fitment where the sidelight is mounted close to the bulb for the main beam that it will overheat and fail starting to flicker. Hope this helps Simon

Decided to give my vRS the LED look with LED sidelights front and rear and brake lights, if only it went to plan. Having double checked to make sure my fabia had seperate brake and tail lights as opposed to a duel filament bulb (getting my mum to sit in and press the pedal a few times, good old mum), i ordered a pair of super bright red led bulbs for the brake lights and a not so bright pair for the tail lights, along with some smart looking front sidelights. Arrived today and i set to getting them fitted. Problem number 1 - some bright spark at skoda (pun intended) decided that even so the taillight bulb only has one function (a tail light funnily enough) they would still make the fitment for a duel filament bulb and only use one filament. GENIUS! so i have a single contact bulb that doesn't fit. Problem number 2 - one of the brakelight bulbs i ordered is faulty (although this is completely forgiveable due to the superb service i got from the company i ordered from) Problem number 3 - my skoda is too damn clever (or not in this case) for its own good. It immediately reconised that i had a bulb out even though i didn't because there is an LED in its place and proceeded to beep and flash a warning light at me. GGRRRRR ! Solutions on a postcard please ! No seriously, i now know that i can put a resitor acrss the back of the bulb to trick the waring system into thinking that there is a standard bulb fitted. Can anybody advise me of the resistor size that i will need for the front sidelights and the rear brake and tail light bulbs. Thanks for your help Simon

Went down to cardiff in the VRS, saw another Black one on the motorway and again when he pulled in behind me at the service park on Sunday morning!, pointed him in the direction of BRISKODA.NET

Just finished loading the video footage from the cardiff milenium stadium special stage onto you tube. Included footage of all the front runners but especially the fabias. Links below. YouTube - skoda fabias on stadium special stage Fabias completing the stage YouTube - subaru and citroens on stadium special stage Subaru and citroens on stage YouTube - 307 arrives at millenium stadium for 2006 rally 307 arrives at stadium YouTube - 1st fabia arrives at the stadium 1st fabia arrives at stadium YouTube - 2nd fabia and red bull fabia arrive at the stadium 2nd fabia and redbull fabia arrive at stadium YouTube - 3rd fabia and focus arrive at the stadium redbull fabia arives at stadium YouTube - 1st citroen arrives at the stadium 1st citroen arrives at stadium YouTube - 2nd citroen outside the stadium 2nd citroen outside stadium YouTube - 2nd citroen arrives at the stadium 2nd citroen arrives at stadium YouTube - subaru arrives outside the stadium subaru arrives at stadium YouTube - 2nd peugeot 307 arrives outside the stadium 2nd 307 arrives at stadium best viewed in their original size (click the little button in the control panel) enjoy !

you will have to speak to jamie at shires bout that one. can get him on, 07967377453 or 01455637964

He has rolling road facilities availiable to customers in the north london area. It is provided as a favour to him from the american car company i mentioned that he does work for.

I would just like to add to this post that i had my fabia vrs mapped by Jamie at shires last thurs. After doing alot of research here on the forums I had a chat with jamie and was relieved that a maturer sounding chap answered the phone rather than some youngster. Had a chat and he's been in the game for 6 yrs, his software is updated weekly from a guy in germany who does the mapping for the audi le man team. He provides his services to a company in the london area who specialise in american cars and is in the process of getting together with a company that provide trick parts for 4x4's. I asked about my mods (filter and exhaust) and he says he always contacts the guy in germany, so to give the best map. He is not pushing the engine that far and the increase in boost is only 0.3 bar, and it is regularly mentioned in here that the turbos are fine upto 1.55 and the 0.3 increase only takes you to 1.1bar, so i was happy there. He works from home and says he has only had 2 engine failures, the first a pug hdi which the guy put unleaded in so not his fault and the second was a cat d write off pd150 golf that some idiot put a pd130 engine into on the 150 ecu etc, and when he wrote the 150 map on it lasted 3 mins. again not his fault. He uses snap on diagnostics etc and assures me the mapping kit was in excess of 7k. I am happy with the extra power, im not sure that he has the ability to put the power where he likes in the rev range like jabbasport, but to be fair i was at work when he did it some didnt get much chance to quiz him about it. He did say if i wanted more power even in a few wks, just to give him a call so cant say fairer than that. Anyway hope this helps and if anything does go a miss, you guys will be the first to know. My main aim of adding to this thread is for reference, after all thats what we all use the forums for. Hope this helps, Simon

Just a quick one as its getting late, but i have just had a phone call from a friend saying that he has bought the kit to remap my car (amonst many others) with a flash kit called KWP2000 Plus ECU Flasher. I was due to get my car done in the next few wks (Fabia vrs TDi PD130) by a local company whose remap i was very impressed with on a friends car for £189. any info / experience of this kit or similar would be much appreciated as he has also asked me to try it on my car. The kit comes with both standard and performance maps for many different cars and also has the feature to read and save the original map. having seen how simply and quickly the pro's do it i am tempted but realise the proof is in the map its self. the litriture with the kit gives the usual 30% bhp and 40% Torque increases. Thanks again guys A bit more info: the kit is laptop based and uses the obd2 port via usb and has the ability to modify maps and change virtually any setting in the ecu.