DavidY

It's not just wicliffe - I do something very similar. I use a timer to timeshift programmes from the radio during the day and listen to the tapes to relieve boredom on long journey to work.Now it's getting harder find cars with cassette players - what do I? Is there a more modern technology which will let me timeshift programmes off the radio and listen in the car? I wondered about whether the much-vaunted MP3s format could help - do standard car CD players play MP3 CDs? Any other ideas?

I got my mended Fabia TDI back from dealers yesterday, after the turbo failed at 114K miles. This seems a short lifetime for a turbo - my old Citroen ZX's TD engine was still going strong at 134K. What is the normal lifetime of a turbo? Is there anything you can do to preserve them so they last longer?

If I was going to post a bad review I'd want to do it anonymously. Currently, if I did put a bad review up on a public forum, then the dealer might see it, identify who I was from other posts, and may treat me less favourably in future. Peronally I'd be more inclined to post (especially bad news) if I knew there was a mechanism for doing so anonymously - is this possible? Just for the record I'm perfectly happy with my dealer ...

Pretty sure this is actual mechanical failure of turbo rather than a sensor/ engine management fault/ something subtle. It made some interesting noises when it stopped working! :RIP: I live in the wrong place (relative to where I work). 100 mile daily commute, (plus other excursions) soon adds up.

..um 114k in a 51 reg (2002) Fabia TDI (Estate)... Was working fine until yesterday when the turbo blew :( so it's in garage just now. It was one of those with the 3-year unlimited mileage warranty - I hear they restrict warranty to 60K miles now - and it's 2 years 11 months old so I'm hoping it's covered! Actually the battery light on the dashboard failed too - thought it was a bulb but garage reckon it's an electrical fault which may need a new alternator (do these really cost

I'm so glad to read this post, because I thought I was going completely mad when this happened to me, just the once, ages ago. (On a thundery night - not sure if was connected). As flatfourburble says the central locking button failed at the same time. Switching off, removing key, locking and unlocking with the remote seemed to cure it. Is this like rebooting a PC when it goes wrong?

I think it might be (seems to be on my Fabia TDI at least). My guess is that it works out average speed by measuring the mileage (which seems to be accurate) and dividing by the time taken to do it (which I guess is accurate too). For instance if I travel for an hour, and the trip computer says I've travelled 45 miles, then it will show an average speed of 45 mph.This is a different way to measure speed to the instantaneous measure of speed which the speedometer is doing. BTW I've also notice that average consumption seems to drop by a few mpg whenever I get new tyres - I guess because the tyre radious goes up by a few mm.

Did you ever find out what caused the problem? My Fabia did something similar today (TC light & ABS warning lights on, red brake warning light flashing, beeps from the dashboard). Was crawling in traffic jam at the time, drove cautiously home, and when I switched off engine and restarted it seemed to disappear. I'm not sure whether or not to take it to garage yet as my car always behaves itself perfectly when in the garage and never seems to admit to misbehaving when the diagnostic machines ask my car what it's been up to. Any advice from all those experts out there? Thanks, David

You could be right, but I see absolute shedloads of new-ish Peugeot 206 Estates (aka SWs) around. (Mind you, this could be because I drive through Coventry a lot and I believe they're made nearby.)Also I think the definition of "supermini" is changing, as they get gradually bigger with every generation. For example - I saw a quote somewhere that the latest Polo is as big as the Mk 1 Golf. (Which I guess would be why they invented the Lupo - to fill the gap where the old smaller Polo used to be.) Assuming a Fabia is around the same size as a Polo, then the sort of customer who bought a Golf/Escort estate a few years ago might find today's Fabia estate is the same size and they don't need anything bigger. Just my opinion of course.

Just joined this forum and this is my first post - so apologies if this post is wrong because: 1 it's a silly idea or 2 it's a question that's been asked and discussed to death in threads I haven't found yet or 3 it's in the wrong area on the forum or 4 some other reason I haven't thought of. but... Does anyone know if Skoda are planning to put the engine out of the Fabia vRS hatch into the estate? I notice the Peugeot 206 SW (which I guess is in a similar segment to the Fabia Estate) has an XSi variant with 138 bhp, so it wouldn't be the only one. What do you think? David