brush-head

Thanks Snow_muncher & Soot1e. I was thinking of putting the bike in the car so I can drive to different XC routes & areas so maybe that's what'd I do from now on with the odd top up on the charger (on paper the spec of the Lidl charger is almost identical to the CTEK sensing when a maintenance charge only is required). Thanks again.

Hi there. Some of you may recognise me as the chap having an issue with a batter(ies) not having enough juice to start the car after about 3-4 weeks of non-use. I think I know the cause(s). Essentially boils down to a lower than required Ah of 65 for these replacement batteries, coupled with my almost non-use of the Fabia these days (I do more mileage on my bicycle). I have bought a Lidl charger for £12.99 & it does the business. Now although the instructions say disconnect the battery if it's to be left in the car, I've looked at quite a lot of videos & stuff on the net all of which show charging the battery in situ & connected. Now of course if the car is on trickle charge mode this should be OK but the Lidl charger deals with that automatically. If I leave the battery connected thereby keeping my various settings etc & use the charger say once per week to keep the battery topped up, am I going to get any problems? Or should I be ultra safe & disconnect the battery? Many thanks.

Hi all Battery finally ran out of sufficient juice to start the car. Borrowed a neighbours very old charger. Took battery off the car. It started off charging at 3amps & seemed to stop charging 24 hours later at 1 & a little bit amps (1.25 ish). Put battery back in car. Car started up first time. Topped up the coolant, went to get some fuel & did around 12 miles half of which was on the motorway at decent speeds. All seems well. What I did notice was that the battery is 65 ah. I always thought that the 1.9 SDi came with either a 70 or 77ah battery (neither my Haynes manual nor the handbook tells me). This seems to be partly confirmed when I do on-line enquiries on battery sites for the vehicle as they all seem to come up with 70 - 70ah batteries - the Halfords site being a good example. In fact one came up with a real stonker of 80ah! So question for you battery gurus, with my light mileage (<5K pa) & 4 batteries in 18 months, & I'm assuming they were all around the current ah of 65, might this be the cause of my probs? Is there anyone (I have mailed an enquiry to Skoda but don't know if they'll get back to me) that knows what the battery cap should be? This might explain that the previous battery got through 3 weeks of non-use during the heavy snows earlier on in the year, as I had done a few hundred miles over a couple of days, then "died" a couple of months later with only very light use i.e. taking more juice out than was being put back in? This latest battery now exhibiting a similar performance. Might it not have enough power to deal with this or do I need to buy a charger that I can connect to the battery when it's in the car I have it on low or trickle charge all the time? Many thanks to all those who've posted replies to my earlier ramblings.

As one of the earlier posters said, if you have Microsoft/Windows Updates switched on you'll get the the browser chooser installed (it's not easy to stop without registry hacks). MS were forced by the EU having been fined almost a billion $ (yes a billion - not a typo) into providing a choice. This allows you to choose from about 10 or so browsers, some of which a lot of people will have never heard of as they're specialised to certain specific interests. If you are already using non MS browser as your default you won't be prompted to change but the browser choice program still gets installed & I think can then be run to make a different choice if you wish. The main ones apart from IE are Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari. IE9 is in beta but you'd need to go to the MS site to download that - current reports are that it introduces new technology features that make it a much better proposition than current offerings. As others say, play around & get used to one, it's all personal. None of them can be said to be head & shoulders above the rest as they all have strengths & weaknesses. Personally I keep coming back to Firefox but other products like Opera have a really get set of features including a bit torrent client built in. Safari provides a simple clean interface & looks good (as you'd expect from Apple). Good luck.

Many thanks for that I'll give it a go in the daylight - need to borrow the meter mentioned earlier. I noticed tonight though that the immobiliser light isn't lit, was able to open the driver's door but the central locking was having a struggle 'cos of low battery. I'm still tempted to buy one of these CTEK chargers as I'll still need to get some juice into the battery at some point.

I'll have a look at that just to be sure & investigate this exciter cable a bit more. If I drive say 30+ miles after one of these episodes, then it's OK for a few months. I never really know if I'm not going to use the car for a few weeks & then there's the aspect of things like radio settings etc to be re-done. Both garage & the battery suppliers have had a go. They say the battery is getting a decent charge. This was borne out on the last occasion. The battery people came & jump started the car. I drove it to their place (all of 2-300 yards). They later told me that when they went to it a few hours later that it started straight away! So if this exciter cable is breaking down or not secured it may be a factor. Thanks for the responses guys, I'll let you know the outcome should there be a successful one of course.

Hi there back in March 2010 I posted about my 3rd batt replacement in 18 months. I'm now on my 4th! Car is a Fabia SDi 1.9 Comfort with 104K on the clock. When I had some work done during the summer I asked the repairers (indie VAG mechanics) to look the electrics over in case there were any issues. They couldn't find any problems, but did suggest that it might be the starter motor(?!) To recap; over the past 4+ years I've dropped down from over 20K pa to less than 5K. The car often sits on the drive for 3-4 weeks at a time. I have had issues like I did a couple of days ago, get in, glow plug indicator goes out fairly quickly (2-3 secs) turn the key, battery struggles to fire the car up & no joy. I have a Maplin's solar panel trickle charger plugged in all the time but that doesn't help (or not much). Do I buy a CTEK charger from Halfords on-line & keep the battery charged up like that, or could this theory of the starter motor hold some credence? Thing is a starter motor is quite pricey & while I recollect years ago having a car where if the terminals got really dirty (resistance build-up) & stopped the car from starting, I'd be surprised if something similar would happen with a modern unit. The Scrooge tells me to buy the CTEK charger (£60 - £100 depending on the model) but if it is the starter motor (I have asked the VAG mechanics to give me a quote & tell me why this will work) I'll just have to cough up again. The thing is if someone comes along & gives me a jump start, the car starts first time & once the battery has got a bit more juice it's OK for another 3-4 months hence my reasoning with the CTEK which can be left connected to the battery in the car all the time. All ideas gratefully mulled over. This is now getting a pain - I've even considered giving up the car & hiring one only when I need it. TIA

Many thanks for your replies guys. We'll see over the next few days. The guys from the place where the batts came from is going to jump start the car lunch time tomorrow. Then put the batt on test & check the car. When I was doing a high mileage a battery kept going then just stopped. Still I'll let you know the outcome but then I won't know if the new batt is OK for a month or so yet.

Hi - I have a 9 year old Fabia SDi 1.9 102K on the clock, runs bootifully (65-75mpg depending on how I drive). Replaced a 3 years + battery in Feb 2008, it failed (stopped holding a charge) a year later. Battery replaced under warranty. This 2nd battery failed same problem less than 10 months later replaced under warranty. Both batteries same brand supplied by major distributor. 3rd replacement just failed after 3 months - different brand this time - same symptoms - which I find odd. I last drove the car 8 days ago. It started without any problem. Did about 12 miles. Been on the drive since. Went to use the car this evening one sick splutter, wouldn't start. Same symptoms as previous failure. Fortunately supplier is 3 minute walk away & has been very good in the past sending someone round to jump start the car so I can get it round there. Can I be this unlucky? I don't think it's the car draining the battery (on last 2 occasions supplier has replaced with hardly any pressure from me) otherwise surely they would fail a lot earlier than this? This battery didn't let me down all through the recent awful winter. So I conclude similar issue with cells failing & refusing to hold the charge once failure occurs. Is my diagnosis correct? Any advice welcome.

Thanks all for the feedback. I'll get on my hands & knees in the morning & have a look at things & give it a further test.

:tired: Hi. For some time now I've had intermittent working of the air con. Back at the end of June (you know that week we had summer) when it was 30 deg C, I got the gas topped up & I thought it got a little cooler on a long trip. On the return journey it did get cooler but took about 2 hours to get there. Since then I've fiddled about & I came to the conclusion that there was something more then just topping up the gas. I recollected that on the passenger side near the central fascia where air is pushed out to the floorwell, sometimes the filter had dropped down couple of times. I decided to have a feel around. No filter dropped down but a piece (3 inches X 2 approx) of plastic dropped off that looked as if it slid over something. Did the rest by feel & it felt as if it slid (didn't force it) over something. Switched air con on & I felt cold air coming through the vents almost immediately & that was with plastic gloves on. Took the car for a short spin & it certainly felt cold. Haven't been out since but will check again this week-end. Just wondered if anyone knows what I might have done or am I hallucinating?

Hi there. I only do around 5-6K pa these days. Car is on the drive. Mileage mix is the odd short run locally <10 miles, otherwise a weekend of 400miles plus which of course does the battery well in the charging stakes. I use a Maplin solar panel to keep the battery topped up & combat the normal drain while it's parked. During last weeks cold spell the battery went almost totally flat. I was thinking of one these power booster type devices. Presumably they are just a small battery you keep charged so that you can get a vehicle going so you drive to charge the in car battery. If this thinking is correct has anyone had any experience of these? TIA

on a Fabia 1.9 SDI? My mileage is very low these days (<10K pa). Every six weeks or so I'm able to give the vehicle a nice long run of 400+ miles. This charges the battery OK, but the rest of the time it's just local runs that don't even get the car to normal operating temperatures. This is OK when temperatures are mild but a week ago we'd experience some very cold days with heavy frosts. Went out to the car and not enough oomph to turn it over. Got a jump start from a friend and off on one of my 400+ mile trips. Battery fine at the moment starts first time etc but I don't really want to be faced with that again. Saw the Black & Decker battery booster advertised on the box & wondered if anyone had experience of similar products & bearing in mind my car's a diesel what rating I should go for (they all seem to quote ranges of amperage (not ampere hours) of 800 - 1000 amps. Remember I only need this for topping up a depleted battery to get me going, not to charge the battery. TIA

Thanks to you both - will follow up on this when I can get time.

I'm not sure if my air-con is working properly and at this time of year it's a bit hard to decide based on temperature alone. What I do know is that the front screen, when covered in condensation, seems to take longer to clear than it did - I would always switch on the unit and it would clear in seconds and now takes minutes. Anyone got any suggestions?

Does anyone know the position if you leave your car with them for work? Is it at risk from the administrators using it as a means of paying off debt? It's a shame that we don't have something similar to California's Chapter 11 where companies get some kind of breathing space to regroup and stave off the final blow.

many thanks indeed. My new kenwood receiver is working brilliantly.

Just jumping in on this as I have a newly bought Kenwood KDC-W4034A with the same problem - radio works fine but looses settings when ignition switched off. Handbook has specific reference to VW/Audi cars and seems to imply what your'e saying. The radio side of the ISO plug (you don't seem to need to touch the car side) swap the yellow and red leads around. This should mean that the yellow lead on radio now connects to the fat brown lead on the car side (battery?) and the red lead on the radio now connects to a grey/white lead on the car? Is this right?

Hi I'll post the query on the radio elsewhere as I guess this isn't the right place to do that. Had my Fabia 1.9SDi since 2001. Now got 80K on the clock and still goes great. Hoping to take at least to 150K - anyone know what expected max mileage is on this diesel? Only thing I don't like on mine is the way the upholstery seems to stain very easily - any tips on getting that cleaned up greatly appreciated.