garethw

The diesel model will have much stronger springs and stiffer dampers than a 1.2 petrol especially if it is a turbo diesel. If your car is a 2003 then you will be due a set of shock absorbers and springs it is also good practice to replace the strut top bearings at the same time. If one spring has gone the other side won't be far behind it. Given the cheap cost of new parts these days and the fact there are no nearly new cars to take parts from it is not worth fitting scrap yard parts.

From what I remember they are 8mm or 10mm nuts on the inside. I don't see how you can drill up from inside the car so good luck with that. You will need the gutter infill rails from the donor vehicle as the roof bar ones have plastic blocks inset to stop water leaking. I ended up having to buy new ones and they were not cheap. Just release the A B and C pillar trims , peel back the inner door seals and then you should be able to get behind the head lining. Its a bit of a fiddly job

I am just awkward then.

Unless you tow or continuously overload it, the fronts will break quicker than the back IMHO especially with a diesel. However hard I try I can;t justify why all the ones I have seen go break at the top on the front.... I know the back ones break at the bottom because of corrosion. When one has gone you just know the other won't be far behind.

The combination of modern springs and speed bumps makes them a consumable item. I have two of these cars, one went through all 4 springs between 95k and 100k and the other broke both front springs within a year at around 105k. IMHO replace in pairs and change the strut top bearing when you do the fronts.

You have a PM

IMHO its perfectly feasible to fit a towbar, you may have to be slightly creative as the VRS rear bumper is not the same shape as a normal bumper. The only problem you may have is with type approval and fine print in your insurance. If you are towing a small trailer with a motor-cross bike on I can;t believe it will be that stressful. When I talked to the dealer their excuse was that SKODA were worried about DMF failures. Quite how that pans out when equivalent VW models use the same engine/gearbox/clutch combination I don;t know. There are pluses and minuses to a swan neck type that you show. The main one being that you can typically get a removable version. The minus point it is slightly less convenient to mount your electrics connector and if you want a stabiliser you have to use the type that bears on the ball. This is not a bad place to start :- https://www.pfjones.co.uk/tow-bars/tow-bars-for-skoda/skoda-fabia-towbars/tow-bars-for-fabia-hatchback/skoda-fabia-hatchback-towbars-1999-2007.html

There will always be a certain amount of flickering from the headlights under high load situations and if the sensor to the PAS pump is faulty then it could cause the pump to work too hard. Another thing worth checking the alternator load wire connection is not broken at the connector on the front of the gearbox.

If the lack of communications error is to the PAS pump then it is also possible the CAN bus wiring is damaged under the battery tray. However I have replaced 3 pumps and typically the fault is caused by the pump electronics being degraded by water ingress. Replacing the pump is not a hard job and replacements are now more reasonably priced than they used to be.

I a log with one of the faults you have to my local expert and they recommended changing the motor(s). I am not certain how the flap position is sensed, if it was a pot then that would explain the limited life. 5 years later the spare motor is still on the shelf....... I have the controller memory error aswell and my theory on the controller memory error is that too many errors have possibly corrupted the EEPROM area in the controller module.

In reply to the OP. If you have a standard 130 bhp VRS and don;t plan any other mods then a fancy filter is going to do almost nothing. One of these kits that puts a cone filter on the end of a hose instead of in the airbox, will quite possibly loose performance because the air is going to be pulled in from the engine bay at a higher temperature and the amount of fuel fed to the engine is regulated in proportion to this. Although I run a K&N filter on my PD100 I am pretty certain you could get the same result by changing the standard element more often.

What @sepulchrave is not pointing out is that is that on mark 1s if you want low mileage car most of those are now going to be saloons. Because the prices have almost bottomed out you really are just buying on condition and service history not the age. Also there is the issue of how much motorway driving you are going to do i.e. a PD100 is way better suited to the motorway and fast A-roads than town driving IMHO. On short journey the PD100 is giving 38mpg compared to 52mpg for the SDi.

No brainer, there are several people on here that would be interested.

So barely run in. I have used the PD oil in mine with no problems just on the basis one of my cars is a PD. But I have also used lower grade oils.

Having been involved with engine swaps back in the day where you didn't have the electronic constraints of modern vehicles the only time they make sense are :- 1. You have the new engine for free i.e. written off vehicle. 2. Competition reasons to meet some class requirement. 3. You are trying to make something that is a rare option or not available. In general you need both vehicles stood together buying individual parts is typically not economic/time effective. So given this just get another car, whether it is a PD100 or a VRS is dependent on how much you have to spend.