muckyduck

Thanks for the info guys. Both cars are 6 years old and on around 30k, although we bought my wife's eighteen months ago and it had only done 17k! I didn't know the 1.2 had a maintenance free cam chain. Since running it for a week the engine note is sweeter, I believe it had been standing for a year. I'll change the oil and air filter too.

My wife has a 1.2 Fabia and I recently bought a similar one, both are on approx 30k miles. I noticed the latest one sounds slightly different, we're not talking rough here, just not as subdued as the missus' car engine note. It has a full dealer service history but I'm wondering whether the cam tension needs checking? Thirty thou seems a bit early for a major service and the engine pulls fine. It was last serviced fifteen months and four thousand miles ago but no ticks on the cam box on the service sheet. Any advice?

Rear left.

Is replacement tricky? I want to know where to get another belt and how difficult the job is before I set about it (the car, not the pup!) Any advice welcome.

Me too. Handled like a pig on skates. Ocean yacht racing would've been cheaper.

Just been tracking a very clean Fabia vrs on ebay. The highest bid was three and a half grand, reserve not met. With SH prices at that level you'd have to be mad to buy new, or 'pre-loved' off a forcourt.

I normally use Morrisons but have a bit of a downer on them. I filled up about three weeks ago with the warning light on but I hadn't driven far. The Fabia fit almost £50 of fuel in. The most I'd managed with petrol dearer was about £45 from bone dry, I even gave the trigger a quick squirt out the car at £48 to see whether it was working! Being in a hurry I thought it may be imagination but when I filled up a week later at the same forcourt and a similar fuel level it wouldn't take £40. I told the guy on the till and he shrugged and said the pumps are checked regularly and no-one else had a similar issue. Not regularly enough IMO.

93.9p in our bit of West Yorks. That's two bits of luck - I fancied a diesel but settled for a petrol Fabia and nearly changed to a fixed rate from a tracker mortgage and decided against it. There are benefits to procrastination it seems!

Well, being the OP on this thread and deciding half way through to go for something different, I'm now looking at an Octavia estate!

Clearly, the end of civilisation as we know it.

Mine started doing the same last winter, regular floods, didn't believe it was the screen either. During another repair I got the garage to put black sealant round the rubber, haven't had a drop in since. Oddly enough my wife's Felly which is cleaned oh, at least twice a year and has a Jurrasic forest in the window rubbers has never let a drop in.

This one was south near the Derbyshire border, looked like a new pin in emerald green.

What made me post was that I'd noticed Felicias round here (West Yorks) looking a bit tattier these days. They used to be immaculate, often had a 'mature' driver but I suspect they are now on 4th, 5th, 6th owners and aren't getting so much tlc which is usually a prelude to a stack at the scrappy. Our two have 90k and 120k on the dial and though they've always cost buttons to run have been expensive this year and we're looking at something newer. I agree with the low mileage comment, I paid £3500 from a Skoda dealer for an estate with 20k on the dial which would have cost 10k or so new but that was nearly five years ago. Saw a Favorit in good nick the other day, any sort of Fav is a real rarity now. I expect Felicias to start heading the same way, sadly.

I don't have an answer so there's no prize but all the Felicias are getting long in the tooth now. What percentage of all the Felicias sold in the UK are still on the road? I'll guess 35%.

Bought two Skoda's, one new, the other used, from two different Skoda dealers. Both gave very good/excellent service. Neither are still Skoda dealers. The few times I've had a nosy round local dealers at new cars since, I've left signally unimpressed, either patronised by not very bright people or been given acres of flannel. I still like the cars but I'd buy a s/hand one out of warranty and take it to my local garage just so I didn't have to deal with the chumps. My experience seems par for the course with a few notable exceptions. It's something Skoda really need to get a handle on before they lose the goodwill they spent a decade building.