klang180

Cheers to you all for your responses. Going to give 'my man' at the garage a call now and see if he can't take a look. Thanks again to you all.

I have a 2014 Skoda Fabia Mk2 1.6 TDI (105) with 106k on the clock. The shocks are original but have recently started making quite noticeable squeaking noises when going over bumps (particularly speed bumps). This is a very noticeable noise and is definitely worse after the car has been sitting for a while and gets better after a bit of use. It is that classic knackered bed spring sound only louder. It only appears to be coming from the front. So my question is how likely are these to fail and subsequently how urgent is it that I get them replaced or seen to? Should I be expecting to have to change them by now or is this just an annoying but harmless problem? I am making a longer run to the Alps in a couple of weeks and would hate for them to break on that trip so can anyone give me a steer as to whether it is worth getting them checked out? Thanks in advance.

Cheers for your response. Ok that settles it I am going to replace them, no sense in risking it with a bigger trip in mind. It isn't just my frugalness that prevents me but also just the guilt of another pair of tyres langushing somewhere whilst being 'recycled'. Yeah he is a good guy and loves his VW group cars. Not the cheapest I am sure but he gives solid advice and will never over sell me on anything. Anyway, thanks to you both.

Cheers for your input. Yes he's a good bloke and generally trust him but just wondered what others thought. It's odd as they are only just over two years old and were previously on the front but were switched to the back last summer. It looks like undue wear but I think leaving them for two sets of 3 weeks without moving in the English winter probably hastened the rot. Anyway, cheers I think it's sensible to change.

I took my car into the garage for a service last November and my mechanic (solid chap) said I should look to replace the rear tyres in the spring. Well now it is spring and with a long trip (1500 miles) coming up I wonder if I should replace these? The tread is gfine as you can see but the slight cracking or dry rot is a little concerning and probably what he based this decision on. I believe these tyres have seen 30k miles on them so not a bad shift but reluctant to change them if they don't need it. Interested to know what you guys would do? They are Bridgestone Turanza T005 on a Skoda Fabia 1.6 105 with 91k on the clock.

Hello, Our 14 plate (Mar 14) Fabia diesel (105bhp) has about 91k miles on the clock and appears to be consuming a bit of oil. I noticed this when I checked just before the MOT end of Feb and noticed it was right on the low borderline. It had previoulsy had an oil change in November at about 85k miles and is now on 91k. I topped it up for the MOT which it passed but I think it has gone down slightly in the 500 or so miles since. What would be a reasonable amount of oil usage for a car of this age and mileage and what would be an unreasonable amount? I accept some oil consumption but want to know if something more serious is going on. As an aside we use this car mainly for long drives on motorways and A roads and rarely around town on small, cold journeys. Thanks for your input.

Thanks both, I was worried it might get a little bendy or squirly at higher speeds but provided the boot opens (and bonnet but that would be a giant box!) I am reassured. Thanks, still happy tohear any further contributions to make me feel less anxious.

Hello We are looking for a used roofbox to go on holiday with and have found various sizes available. Given the mounting points/rack will be 80cm apart and the roof is roughly 160cm long how long a roof box is too long? I have got my eye on one that is 150cm long but as this would create a 70cm overhang (35cm front and back) will this be too much of an overhang and risk it breaking off? Am I right to worry that too much of it will not be 'covered' by the rack? So over to you guys, what do you think the max dimensions of a roofbox should be for a Fabia HB?

Ah I see, that makes sense. To update on the situation it seems that Sepul was right. We phoned the number for admiral and got through to Autoglass UK who then arranged a cal back from Car Glass in France. In the end we got a replacement time set up for Thursday at 2pm for the princely sum of £115 excess. Hopefully it'll be ok but I will report back the overall results for posterity.

Actually I think the NCD might not be affected and to be honest it might be a price worth paying if they can fix it!

Ah this is interesting but a little worrying as we wanted a secure replacement for our camping trip. We did a temp fix last time which was fine when we were heading back and could do it ourselves but in this case it won't help us do our trip. Good to get your perspective though.

Thanks a lot for this, might be easy for the local garage to get their heads around a quote if I give them the part numbers directly. It also doesn;t hurt to know all these numbers for if/when it happens again and I want to fix it myself. The emergency temp fix is good if it weren't for the fact we want to go camping for a couple of weeks and I am not sure all our stuff will be secure (when out walking) with just plexiglass. It is basically what we bodged together last time mind!

Well that isn't exactly fair as not everyone buys NCD cover, I haven't got it for instance and so I wanted to know what the non insurance options were in case it was easier to just keep them out of it, my preference in most cases.

I did already try but they put me straight through to UK autoglass. I will phone the more general number tomorrow once we're not in BH anymore.

Hello We are from the UK and are over in France on holiday. Unfortunately someone thought we had left valuables in our car and so smashed our passenger side rear window and quarter glass in order to access the boot (through the rear seats). Having found nothing they left the car and left us with a bit of a headache. We are staying at a friends house at the moment and this actually happened a couple of years ago too but was easily solved as we just drove back to the UK and replaced it ourselves. This time however we had planned to go to the alps for a two week camping trip after our stay here and need the car to be secure. We have a few days to spare for this and so hence why we are not rushing anything. We have Admiral fully comp insurance with 'Windscreen cover' and I think this doesn't affect your NCB but unfortunately their whole operation seems to be online and only directs you towards UK Autoglass to make a booking. We've been to a local garage and they just don't seem to be very competent in ordering the part, insisting on the manufacture date even though we have given them all the possible details and it is clearly a MK2 Skoda Fabia. I would have thought it would be easy to order glass for such a common car but they seem to be incapable of doing so. Anyway, the question is, do we just try and claim through Admiral (by calling them and making a point) or do we just do it privately through Car Glass here? We had hoped this local(ish) garage would be able to give us at least quote for the job but they just seem hopeless so I am a bit of a loss. Does anyone have experience of getting their window fixed whilst in France (Roquebrun near Bezier to be precise)? Does anyone know of anywhere in France I could buy the glass and fit it myself? Perhaps someone could tell me the exact part numbers of these windows so that I can provide this to the garage? Basically, what would you do in our situation? Any help gladly received as this is really getting a bit silly over here and doesn't seem to be a simple answer.

Cheers thanks, good to know. makes the search a little broader.

Or this? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254952052414?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338353466&toolid=20006&4236=%26customid%3Ds%3AGS%3Bgc%3ACjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSnbweVC5DCdcw2tI4m-yrJl9PpG9BOSRLqyu4zs3zBNW4nT8_ug9HhoC2tIQAvD_BwE%3Bpt%3A1%3Bchoc%3A2&customid=s%3AGS%3Bgc%3ACjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSnbweVC5DCdcw2tI4m-yrJl9PpG9BOSRLqyu4zs3zBNW4nT8_ug9HhoC2tIQAvD_BwE%3Bpt%3A1%3Bchoc%3A1&gclid=CjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSnbweVC5DCdcw2tI4m-yrJl9PpG9BOSRLqyu4zs3zBNW4nT8_ug9HhoC2tIQAvD_BwE

Anyone know if a VW polo wheel would fit? Something like this one? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143976266602?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338353466&toolid=20006&4236=%26customid%3Ds%3AGS%3Bgc%3ACjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSt8nPzponOgyBfmUtL1afEkoK0ZVGE-qUQ_t9U00lWgwCG2TxPRZXhoCuKIQAvD_BwE%3Bpt%3A1%3Bchoc%3A2&customid=s%3AGS%3Bgc%3ACjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSt8nPzponOgyBfmUtL1afEkoK0ZVGE-qUQ_t9U00lWgwCG2TxPRZXhoCuKIQAvD_BwE%3Bpt%3A1%3Bchoc%3A1&gclid=CjwKCAjw9aiIBhA1EiwAJ_GTSt8nPzponOgyBfmUtL1afEkoK0ZVGE-qUQ_t9U00lWgwCG2TxPRZXhoCuKIQAvD_BwE

Thanks for the really helpful replies everyone. I will go and source a full size in that case and get a jack whilst I am at it. Brilliant help from everyone, I am really grateful. Thanks in particular for this, really reassuring and shows it can be done.

Hello Stupid question perhaps but having suffered a blowout a week or so ago and having to wait hours for recovery it got me thinking that maybe I should get around to sourcing a spare tyre. I initial thoughts were for a spacesaver tyre but now I am wondering if I shouldn't just get a full size and be totally safe to continue at full speed. My only questions are whether there is enough space in the tyre well for a full size and jack (and compressor ideally) AND what size spare should I be looking for given that I have the above on alloys? If the latter sounds like a daft question then forgive me, I know very little about cars so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Thanks to all in advance. Regards

Just to let anyone know who might be searching this in the future. The job took two of us relative novices about 1.5hrs but would have been much quicker had we not been so thorough with glass removal (most of which was in the door panel itself). The job was quite simple in reality and made much simpler by some good engineering. The door handle release is very good and the way in which the glass clicks into place into the window winder is simple but effective. Tips: it'll feel a bit like you're breaking the panel when you remove it but as long as you take the bottom screw out and the two bolts behind the handle (itself needs pulling off) and then work from the bottom you will be ok. If your window is smashed then the retainer clip will be loose within the door itself so you will need to undo the bottom screws of the window winder bit, get a torch and fish it out with some long pliers. Lastly, when trying to get the window retainer into the winder mechanism i.e white plastic bit, it helps to have someone hold the glass from above and use the winder to push it in. At first we tried pushing the glass down into the slot but this was ineffective, use the winder and it'll clip in (loudly and rather worryingly) without much hassle. All in if I did it again it would take about 45mins but clearing the glass out can take almost as long as you want!

Thanks to you both. Have now got the glass and will have a crack (or not hopefully) and let you know how it goes.

Hello Someone smashed my side rear side window on my Mk2 Fabia and now I am wondering whether to try and replace it myself or claim on insurance? Is it even potentially possible to replace it myself? The window is hand wound and so that may make it easy, what do you think and where should i get the glass if I were to take a go at it? They didn't even take anything because there was nothing bloody in there, what a waste of time and money!

Thanks, that is reassuring. I am a real tight wad so i just wanted to make sure that is was at least competitive and not completely out there!

Sorry should have included that in the original post. I will check the service log and post later as I am at work at present. In short though 1st service was around a year at 14k, second service was about 3yrs in Sep 16 at 28k and now this service is due at 48k as the 20k limit has been reached before 2 years.