wja96

Not really, given that the SE was a parts-bin special that used up all the old unsold options from the factory. The seat upright covers were removed from the cars at the docks and the numbers were stiched into them and the backrest covers were then replaced. The car in this post has them, it’s a 55 reg, so MY2005. If your ‘53 plate was one of the initial Long-gearbox cars it’s possible it was sold before they had finalised the options. They only made a couple of hundred of those and then the MY2004 cars had a slightly different specification which ran through until MY2006 (When the ASZ engine was replaced with the BLT etc.). If the seats you’re talking about are the smooth leather type with the vRS logo stiched into the back, they’re Factory fit options.

Leather seats were always an option on the vRS. It was black and all smooth leather. No perforations.

Those are only LED for the daytime running lights. The actual lamps are halogen. Probably still crap though. The current generation of LED retrofit bulbs are pretty good. They’re not as good as retrofit xenons but that’s largely because the light output is only about half that of a retrofit xenon kit.

If he is still on here, XMan750 can do you a Garrett turbo on a BLT manifold so you don’t need to mess with the EGR or ASV. He did one for me and it worked a treat. It was a straight bolt-on.

If it’s just the Octavia ‘thin’ Spider you like you could fit the 16” Octavia Spider which was the same 16 x 6.5” dimension as the Fabia ‘thick’ Spider. They were fitted to the original Octavia vRS estates and even though you would still need to tell your insurers that the wheels were not the originals, as they are OEM Skoda and the same size and carrying the same size tyre as the originals, your insurer should not surcharge you in the same way they shouldn’t charge extra for fitting winter wheels and tyres as long as they are the same size or smaller than the originals. If yiu want the 17” wheels though, I’m afraid that will be a bit more money.

Sadly there are far too many Fabia vRS owners/sellers who have odd ideas about their cars. I sold my old vRS to a very nice man from Solihull who was going to do it up as a winter project for his girlfriend. I had owned the car from New and handed over the keys and a HUGE stack of bills, service history etc. All in my name. I was somewhat shocked to see my car on ebay a few days later, apparently repaired, MOT’d and all set to go except now it had been in HIS family for 12 years. If I was being unkind I’d say he was a lying bar-steward, but I’m sure he was just confused....

Im very sorry to have to contradict you but the Fabia vRS only ever came with one wheel option - the 16” “thick” Spider. 17” were never an option on the Mk I vRS.

It’s 99.9% to do with company car drivers and Benefit in a Kind tax rates. You pay less BiK on a diesel. Diesels generally are more fuel efficient so companies like them because the fuel bill for high mileage drivers is lower and because residuals on diesels has traditionally been better (because private buyers want the good fuel consumption too!) the lease rates on diesels is lower so pretty much every new company car in the UK is a diesel. And all the ‘perk’ company cars tend to do 2-3 miles to the train station and back and they’re the ones you see having forced regens at the dealers. And the company car drivers don’t care because someone else is paying for it.

10% fuel saving? How does that work? To make more power, they add more fuel per injection pulse but the fuel efficiency is worked out by counting pulses so the car looks like it’s using less fuel, but actually it’s using the same or more. The extra power is generally made at the top of the rev range, and the torque at lower RPM needs more fuel, so the whole argument about “more power so you use less revs to do the same job” doesn’t add up.

What people will pay for something and what it is worth are not the same thing. Mileage is not an indicator of how well a car has been treated or what damage has been done to components by driving it through potholes etc. Well cared for is a VERY relative term. I bet you I could polish up the paint on any Fabia, give the seats a wet-vac and you’d swear blind it was “well cared for”. And if I’d ragged the motor from cold and rode clutch at every traffic light you’d never know it. I’ve been tuning cars since 1984. I sold my old Fabia with nearly 300,000 miles on the clock and the only modification it didn’t have was a remap. I don’t have a problem with remaps - if you want a good one, I recommend Shark. And Ben Wardle will tell you he’s remapped loads of these at six-figure mileage’s and they’re fine. And if you ask him which two components a remap will destroy first, he’ll tell you turbo and clutch. Possibly the front tyres too! Irrespective of how you drive the car you will place some additional stress on the turbo and clutch and you should budget to replace those. It has been stated in other posts in this thread that they are items you would replace at some point anyway and that’s true. And from expensive experience I can assure that f you remap a car with 100,000 miles on the clock and then you drive it harder (and you will) you will hurry the clutch and turbo to an early grave. Cars and their major components don’t last forever.

@JWvrs25 - no, I’m not on Facebook. And I’ve run several remapped cars (my de-DPF’d Shark CR170 Audi TT quattro was especially quick) but none of them were over 4 years old. Remapping old cars is a mugs game. The PD130 is probably the most remappable engine ever made, but anyone who remaps one at 10-years plus really does need to budget for the bits that will be stressed and quite likely break. Turbo and clutch. And the fundamental advice remains the same. If you want a faster car, sell the Furby and buy a faster car. There are plenty of 6-7 second 0-100kph cars for the same money as a Fabia. Especially when you add in the cost of a remap, a new turbo and a new clutch. To run a speeded up Fabia you want better suspension (and I’m not talking about some crappy lowering kit), ideally a stiff rear anti-roll bar and potentially bigger brakes (although you really need to run a bias kit with the 312mm fronts or the rears never kick in at all). To do all that made sense when you had an £11,000 new-ish vRS in 2006 but to drop £2000 to tart up a £1500 car isn’t smart. Buy a £3500 car instead. You’ll be a lot happier in the long run.

Getting a remap on a 10-year-old+ car is asking for trouble. A remap places stress on the turbo and the clutch primarily. So as well as budgeting for a remap, budget for a new clutch and turbo as well. You may not need them, but then again, you should be aware of the potential for issues. Cars ‘bed in’ so if you suddenly change something major, it is possible it will have unintended consequences. If you want a faster car, buy a faster standard car. You’ll be better off in the long-run.

Could you please confirm the Centre bore, Offset and PCD to save me looking it up? Thanks!

The two fronts are on 3/4mm and the rears are 5mm across the width of the tyre. They are all worn evenly. These are the original wheels and tyres from my old vRS. The wheels are as near as darn it perfect. Delivery is feasible depending where you are. Collection is possible from various locations but the wheels are currently in Norwich.

If yours is a very good BLT engine (155bhp stock) and you got a conservative remap then you may well not notice a huge difference. I've yet to see a BLT engine vRS that didn't make at least 145bhp or more from stock. The best ones made almost 160bhp when they were new. If it's a conservative remap (160-165bhp) with very little torque increase then you might not really notice anything until the car is doing over 4000rpm when it will pull to 4800-5000rpm as that's where it makes the extra power. Most people confuse torque with power. It's the massive low-down torque that makes the car feel like its pulling hard. But the power that actually makes the car faster is developed at the end of the rev range long after the "Whoah" torque has disappeared. You generally have to rev a remapped car to get the extra power. Many people talk about the torque boost hanging on until later in the rev range, but there are limits to what can be achieved on a BLT. And you are sure the clutch isn't slipping and limiting your gains?

This is a bit of an odd one. I want to sell my Fabia vRS mkI PD130 BLT. I've owned the car from new (1 owner). It was bought through Drive the Deal from Simpsons in Colne on the 8th of August 2006. It's never been crashed, or significantly damaged in any way. It has a few small marks on the bodywork (it's an 11-year old car) but fundamentally the whole car is in pretty good condition. For the first 2 years of it's life the car was driven only by me and I racked up 80,000 miles in 2 years. Almost all of that was motorway. Since then the car was driven only by SWMBO who somehow managed to keep up the good work and the car is now showing 237,000 miles on the clock but the truth is that the car ran for at least 45,000 miles with a Maxidot dashpod in it and the true mileage is nearer to 290,000 miles. It was never remapped. It made 148bhp on Poqwer Station's rolling road with 5000 miles on the clock and it still pulls well today. SWMBO was very happy with it, and it was always serviced every 9000 miles by Skoda main dealers (almost all Robinsons in Norwich). In April this year, SWMBO came back from the shops to discover that the front driver's side shock absorber had failed and the car was sitting on the driver's side tyre. While I immediately had all 4 shocks replaced by Robinsons in Norwich she couldn't shake the image of the shock failing at 70mph on the A11 and in June of this year we bought a new Polo GTi 5dr which she is VERY happy with. Essentially it's the same basic car with a petrol engine. So, the car sat in my garage and I didn't renew the tax or the MOT. I was working in Germany for the last year so it was unused. This morning I got back to the UK to discover that it had sprung a coolant leak from the passenger side of the car are SWMBO had put a big basin under it. So, it's obviously not doing the car any good to sit in the garage unused. I could get £5000 for it against a new VW Golf GTE or slightly more or less against other cars under the various scrappage schemes but fundamentally this is a good car and I don't want to scrap it. I love it. I want someone else to love it and enjoy it and use it. The car has cruise control, airbag deactivation switch and it's Black Magic in colour. The car has some modifications. Seat Cupra Air Intake JabbaSport RARB (the really stiff one) Audi TT 312mm front brakes Eibach springs (25mm drop) (2nd set fited at 120,000 miles) 17" Octavia Spiders (a bit rough, but the tyres are good). Kenwood DNX7200BT Head Unit (Garmin satnav) Alpine Integrated amplifier and sub under the front passenger seat XMAN750 Hybrid Garrett turbo on a BLT manifold so the EGR works as it should I also have all the original bits (turbo, brakes etc.) to put the car back to standard if anyone wanted to do that. I'm also utterly convinced the car would pass an MOT tomorrow if the coolant leak was fixed. I want £1000 for it. Which might seem outrageous for a car that you can't test drive and needs a coolant leak fixed, but I'm 100% sure the first person to come and see it will take it away and pay all the money. I can get photographs for anyone who wants them.

Price drop to £525 incl.

I am selling an unused EE upgrade iPhone 7 256Gb. As required by EE, I have waited 6 months after receiving the phone to sell it. I have checked with EE and there is no problem with getting the phone unlocked if required. £600 £525 incl. RMSD with payment by Paypal (cleared funds or you play the fees). The phone will come with an unused Catalyst IP68 waterproof/dustproof/drop-resistant case. Any queries, please ask. Checkmend Report No. CM11629087-60011

I’ll be in Salford for the next couple of weeks. What do you need doing?

Really? I thought the only benefit to swapping the standard KKK for a Garrett was that you could hybridise the Garrett. I’m not aware of any known weakness with the standard KKK turbo that would put me off buying a vRS. Turbos die. That’s a fact. When you buy a vRS you’re buying a car that is 10-14 years old. Don’t expect faultless reliability unless you get one that has REALLY been looked after. And even then, parts fail. There is very little that really goes wrong on these cars except wear and tear items. At 10 years old, if the clutch and turbo haven’t been swapped (not uncommon on low mileage cars) then you need to budget for these, especially if you’re going to really put some miles on it.

Yes. It's not the power, it's the torque and how you drive the car that destroys the clutch prematurely. if you get a high torque remap and you leave the car in 5th or 6th gear at 1200-1500rpm and floor the accelerator then the torque will rapidly wreck the clutch. If you drop down at least one gear and dial in 2000-2500rpm then it's much more sympathetic to the clutch. You have to drive it much more like a petrol and rev it out. If you get a good remap it will pull all the way to the redline anyway, so it's also much more satisfying than revving the standard car where the torque drops off and the car feels like it's slowing it's rate of acceleration.

They're not that scary to look after. It's mainly VW Golf components in a nice dress. As has been stated, the dash clusters failed so check that has been replaced or modified so it doesn't fail again. Again, as said above, 4WD system is also infamously expensive to repair. Depending on which one you buy, the Haldex system may not be able to cope with more than 3mm difference in tyre wear which means you may need to replace all 4 tyres at the same time if one gets punctured and they were all quite worn. The 1.8T engine is strong if looked after and there are plenty of specialists about to look after it for you. They are, however, VERY old cars now and Audi haven't dropped any of the spare parts prices so be aware that the cheap TT you are looking at buying with a fresh MOT may well need more than you are paying for the car spent on it to get it through its next MOT. Check all the advisories very carefully! A Subaru Impreza for the same money is a much safer bet. Albeit not as pretty.

The problem (if you can call it that) is that turbo diesel exhausts are quiet. Diesels themselves aren't that noisy but then adding the turbo quitens it still further. Most of the noise from the engine is the clatter from the high pressure rail fuel pump. So so you can stick almost any exhaust on a vRS and you won't get any more noise. You might get a slightly different noise, but it won't be any louder. If you just want a nice noise, Kufatec and Active-Sound make speaker kits for the vRS so it can sound like anything from a straight four petrol to a V12 Lamborghini. But some of the configurations are getting on for the price of a complete vRS.

If you're stripping them off a Mk 1 vRS you may as well get the 256mm rears as well, they're almost as big as the fronts on a stock vRS and you probably won't notice the difference, but it's always good to have more than you need.

Surely that depends on whether or not you've declared the aftermarket (sub 2000 lumen H7R HIDs) or not - if not then I would suggest it doesn't matter if they're legal or not, they won't pay out. If you did, and they sold you cover, then you're rock solid and they'll pay out.