barrie502

Be warned this garage have a large tank of Texaco Havoline oil which they put in all their cars (diesel and petrol) except those on extended service. I was horrified when I queried the service receipt for my Fabia VRS. I tried to explain the need for a special formula on Vag PD engines but was told that Skoda UK have authorised it. I doubt that very much. The salesman told me that "no one had complained before" and stated that they had had no oil related reliability issues with any of their cars. He also tried to tell me that Havoline was fine in all Skoda diesels. To cop it all the owner phoned me some weeks later to tell me that he wanted to ensure that I was now in agreement with the garage regarding the suitability of Havoline in all Vag diesels, I told him I was not. There could be a real problem on the horizon for higher mileage cars serviced here. If the engines fail who is responsible?

On the face of it this seems to be a call for calm and reason. But if that is so why is it written in such an offensive way? What we need to remember is to respect other peoples points of view. If a fabia owner wants to state that they feel their car is as good as anything else then they ought to be allowed to do so. We can disagree without being so nasty. Any thread that bores/irritates us can be a thread we can leave alone.

Which is why manufacturers use a more reliable means to test performance.

Apart from the decrepid 115 8v Vag lump which was pensioned off in the Fabia 2.0 The PD 130 is way faster than that, What do you drive?

Wish I went to you and not jabba then, I have 180bhp and see nothing apart from smoke!

And the okty's have to get remapped to try and keep up with remapped Cupra r's and they get remapped to try and keep up with remapped evo's etc - yawn!

The fabia does not have a close ratio 6 speed box. It is 5 plus overdrive. I do not quite understand what you are impying in the rest of your post. "use it all" suggests it is a good thing to change gears and keep the car in the optimum powerband. I agree with you. However you also feel that changing gears loses "energy". So are you suggesting not to change gear? The result of this will be to rev out of the powerband and go much slower than if you changed up.

Believe it. The power and torque "multiplyer" effect you have running a lower gear is going to be offset at some point by running the engine well past peak power and torque. Both fall away so rapidly (with diesels) at higher revs that there comes a point (well before the redline) where you are in to diminishing returns. I am not suggesting changing gear at 2500 but I do think that beyond 4000 you are not getting the best performance anymore. Petrol cars tend to have flatter power curves and can usually handle revving hard as an alternative to changing early and often give you the performance benefit you seek. On ours I suspect that all the noise and revving when you get close to the redline feels more impressive than it really is.

Wait for the astra 150 cdti's to depreciate. Have driven a new sport hatch and was very impressive. The engine is 3rd generation using fiat "m-jet" tech. Compared to fabia it was at least as fast but certainly smoother and with a wider powerband. Handling was very good, cornered flat and gripped hard. The fab would struggle keep up (pre map) on straights and be murdered on bends. Yes it is "only" an Asra but speak as you find it was good. Too pricy new - although Autoebid.com reckon the SH 150 cdti 150 can be had for 13.7k otr, with esp as standard. Bearing in mind it is one size up from the fabia and that the fabia would be close to 12k at that spec it looks ok. If you think the depreciation would be too painful them buy one a year old and benefit from it!

In practice - subject to the usual caveat regarding the fact that the CTR and 172 I encountered recently may have been: a) Not trying Inept drivers But I don't think so! Have fun

Almost bought a Thema back in early eighties, got a Mk2 Uno turbo instead. Now that was way faster than my unmodded fabia and on a par with with my jabba one. I am confident of this as my brother still uses the uno now! Must be the last one left with a floor still in it! Anyhow, sounds like I would have been very disappointed with a Thema from what you say. No faster than the stock fab vrshttp://www.briskoda.net/forums/images/icons/icon9.gif Unhappy Strange as they quoted awesome performance figures for them at the time.

The slightly quicker 0-60 of the revised ratio box model may be misleading. 0-60 is a fairly poor indicator of performance. The revised gear ratios are credited with a slightly lower 0-60 but all the in gear increments and rolling accelleration figures might tell another story. If the revised ratios are lower then the older (longer) gears might be better suited for a re mapped car which could pull them harder for longer. Just a thought.

My remap will probably take a few k's off the overall engine life. Perhaps down from 200 to 190k before a major rebuild. Then again it will be a handfull of owners and many years away from me by then. Clutch life depends on usage as well as power. I could live with putting a new clutch a little more frequently if need be. The fabia is a nice warm hatch - probably the best out there. No need to chip it - except that when you do the overtaking punch is really devastating. I don't need the rawness of a CTR or a Clio 182 but want to overtake like one - and now I can. Everything else I love about the Fabia is the same as pre Jabba. To me a result but we all have our own views on this.

Sell the 4x4 tank, buy a lovely fabia vrs and all your "issues* will evaporate

my world may be fragile but.......do they do irony in yours?

The base fuel stocks used by fuel companys are similar however the special blends used by top brands are very different. The fuel technology advancement (incl lowered sulphor levels) is one of the prime reasons we now enjoy extended service intervals and huge extra mechanical longevity. The other reason is oil, mobil one (for example) is not just comma 20/50 with "a few additives" added. Most of us would care about what we use as a lube, we ought to care about fuel too. It is a shame to spend money on a nice car and feed it mediocre fuel, just like cheap oil and tyres it is a false economy. The supermarkets started to add additives a few years ago after it was found that engines were being damaged by their products. The balance of achieving an effective detergent that also avoids causing damage by its own action is a very fine and technical one. Hope the renown chemists at Tescos (and the rest) are up to the task.

My fabia is a good car at a good price. The 3 series Bmw is better, probably as good as it gets, but at a premium price. They are not crap. I like my pd130 engine because it is powerfull, however it is also crude and now being overtaken by other powerplants. BMW 2.0d is one but even the new astra 1.9 I drove recently showed how things have moved on. Silky smooth and without the abrupt on/off power band of the pd130.

I am tempted by the Ockty, is it estate. Barrie