Papez

Says someone who's on their.. fourth? Steering wheel? Show how it looked liked, how long it lasted and how much did the new one cost? It's just worn out. Better than disintegrating foam. Leather wheels can be repaired and there are plenty of shops who do that.

You seem to be fixated on one aspect and ignoring everything else. This is the last thing I have to say and ignore the rest. Be careful

Did I talk about hard plastic or wood steering wheel? Are there PUR foam or leather pistol grips? That's not like Felicia wheel at all. Or any other option I've mentioned. Irrelevant, as always.

Not a question for me, but it happened on a few occasions, didn't even need mountain roads or high speed for that. The Combi likes to throw its rear out.

Well, a definitely bit better than thin, sharp piece of metal. At least it won't cut parts of the skull. Another reason why motorsport-like steering wheels shouldn't be in a road car.

By regime, I meant literal political changes - 1989 was fall of communism, subsequent years meant transition from state-owned economy to private owned and it hit economy hard. Since I wasn't born in that time, I can only imagine what effect it had on employees and management, even before VW came in. Question is, whether it was truly profitable. I believe that exported goods were sold at loss, western currency was more important than profit. What has crappy plastic in common with a pistol grip? Nothing. Leather has much better grip than PUR foam, no matter how many bumps you add.

That makes sense. Before the fall of the regime, the cars for export were picked out of the better batches and then inspected and "adjusted" at UKs importer (I even read some report about cars being stripped aut and build again, but that was probably exaggerated). Either Skoda themselves or VW put the end to this practice - the quality didn't drop, you just got to experience the cars how they came out of factory 😁 The 1993 Favorit model was when technical changes by VW came into practice and it was major improvement.

Is it really worth to risk safety and having to regularly change cheap steering wheels instead of getting a proper one because of slight discomfort (especially if you never even tried the OEM leather wheel)

This just proves that you don't pay much attention to what I wrote: The material is one of them. This is closer to the Alfa wheel than the aftermarket one you are using. Also, it's made of proper material instead of cheap plastic.

I didn't say thin rim, but thin spokes that don't obstruct the rim. Which of those cars require 4 turns going from lock to lock? Once you need to get hands off of the steering wheel, you need a regular shape. Any big variation may cause lose of grip when you change hand position. Those indents are to make the standard 9:45 position more comfortable, bumps above may help with grip at that position, but they are useless once you need to turn the steering wheel more than 180 degrees. Here's the only modern Skoda that's meant to drive fast and as you can see, there are only decent bumps on the steering wheel. Not saying that this is a steering wheel that should be in a road car (it shouldn't for many reasons!) but shows what's the most basic, functional shape.

And yours is...? It's what a steering wheel should be - round, thin spokes that don't obstruct the outer diameter, if there's any feature around resting position, it should be decent, no excessive bumps.

Quality went up after VW takeover. First Favorits were awful, because Skoda was nearly bankrupt after it's development. It's the opposite, Felicia is improved Favorit, with some VW parts thrown in. Some parts are better than VW, for example, the gearbox doesn't self-destruct with 1.6 and 1.9 engines, unlike the models where those engines came from. It was optional - standard wheels were two-spoke, Favorit similar to Felicia. You mean the Golf MK3 one? 😁 The leather found in sportline version is nice, the basic plastic is worse and the two-spoke was awful - every single one I drove had separated foam part from the frame.

Interestingly it was VW who designed dashboard in Felicia and the original steering 4-spoke wheel comes directly from 6N Polo. Unfortunately outside of chinesium and the rare Momo wheel, there aren't many alternatives to the original steering wheel that don't come from VW. This steering wheel comes in various styles, sleeker non-airbag version is a bit closer to the momo design: But once you get airbag, it has to go somewhere. There was "sport" variant with fake spokes to mask the airbag bulge behind: While standard variant, also available with Skoda badge, looked much fatter: You're right, it's matter of taste. The Lupo variant is closest in style to modern sports cars, while also being period correct for Felicia. IMO it fits the rest of the interior. The badge in the centre can be swapped, as VW brands shared design between each other. The texture is in line with texture found on window switches, heater dials and window cranks. For reference, this is what original basic Skoda steering wheel looks like: Ironically probably the most exotic steering wheel that directly fits into Felicia comes from probably the least sporty VW of all time - magnesium alloy wheel from Lupo 3L: Well, there was also 4-spoke steering wheel for Skoda Estelle/Favorit...

Iirc, it's from MK4 non-CAN Golf. 6N1/Pre-FL Arosa luster might be similar, 6N2/Lupo has different style with large cylindrical dials.

I found a picture of a Lupo/Polo steering wheel in Felicia. I'd say it fits pretty well (Link to the topic that shows modifications needed to fit Felicia slip ring) Maybe even nicer than the original Momo and it can be done with functional airbag.

Sorry, got it confused with other VW engines, which have lambda closer to the engine Either way, you'll need a correct exhaust. Or get someone with a welder to weld a nut for the probe. As to what happened - maybe someone tried to fit a Polo exhaust pipe from an engine that doesn't have lambda probe in there. I found a few aftermarket different variations for Felicia, but all had the hole in front of the cat. Do you have any pics of the exhaust manifold and exhaust? Maybe there are more changes than that, since you also mentioned missing heat shield.

Iirc, the lambda is in the exhaust manifold in front of the engine (there should be a hole in the heat shield) not on the exhaust pipe under the car. If you meant that, then it's probably an exhaust manifold from a different car.

I don't use the horn to show emotions. Not sure how it's elsewhere, but in Czechia it's allowed to honk on the overtaken car to gain attention - and unfortunately it's needed quite often here, when there's no line in the center of the road, because the same people who are likely to drive slowly also tend to move away from the edge of the road and not paying attention to the traffic behind at the same time. But that's not the case I talked about, what I wanted to say is, that easy to reach horn button can make difference between innatentive pedestrian, who's running right in front of your car, getting a bit scared, or rolled over by your car - that's my personal experience... People can be unpredictable and sounding the horn at the same time when you're doing evasion maneuver can gain needed attention. But you can hardly do that if you need to get a hand off the steering wheel to sound it.

Matter of taste, but fits Felicias interior and it's not as ugly as wannabe sport wheels Just like the Felicia itself It's same PUR crap as the one you got there instead... If you want non-slipper steering wheel, at least get a leather one. I never noticed a squeaky noise, but liked that horn button is right under the thumb and easy to push. A little button in the middle is second worst thing after horn on the wiper lever. Anyway, since you don't need to care about airbag, you have pretty wide selection of VW steering wheels, which have better build quality and can be found quite cheap. An Ibiza 6k2 steering wheel with non-airbag center cover would fit pretty well.

The post was about replacement heater valve. Felicia doesn't have one, because its heating system is different. Including hoses. Installation of the valve creates even more difference. So your post is entirely irrelevant.

How does this relate to the rest of the thread?

This has been answered before... The recommended plugs are Champion RC89PYC, Brisk DR15TC and NGK BKUR5ET-10. I had the best experience with Brisk plugs.

Have you checked engine's grounding wire? Sounds like if the engine movement randomly connected and disconnected it.

Have you checked compression after valve adjustment? Was there any change?

No, the hose is somewhere around the small grill. It doesn't need to be directly in the airflow, there's no ram effect around legal speeds, the holes in the bumper cover are enough to equalize pressure behind the bumper.