cliveb

The flaps are opened/closed by other cog wheels that engage with the cog wheel on the motor. The "spindle" I'm referring to is just the axle of the cog wheel. It certainly doesn't operate the recirculation flaps. PS. I don't have climate control. The heating/aircon in my Fabia is manual.

I don't think the spindle is there to drive anything. The cog wheel moves the recirculation flaps. Can't think what else needs to be driven. I opened up the replacement motor and it's a completely different design inside, so the cog wheel can't be swapped over. I'm pretty much done with this. I can live with a car that has no working recirculation.

Thanks for your comments. Although the motor casing is slightly different, the three locating lugs are in the right place to fit the cradle. As far as I can tell the only part of the motor that touches the rest of the car is the cog wheel, so the casing shape being slightly different shouldn't be relevant. The thing I'm interested about is if anyone knows whether the spindle needs to go into a locating hole. As I said, I think I can feel such a hole, but have no idea if it's for the cog wheel spindle.

The new motor arrived today. I tested it before attempting installation and it worked. But then the fun started. Well, it wasn't fun. After about 2 hours of struggle, I gave up. Getting the damn thing back in place was impossible for me. You can't really see what's going on and have to try and do it by feel. Then I spotted something. The spindle on the new motor is a bit wider than the original: I *think* I could feel some kind of locating hole which might possibly be where the spindle should go. Is it possible that the slightly bigger spindle was preventing the motor being able to be seated in place?

Update: I decided to have another go and this time managed to get the motor out. One of the biggest issues is getting adequate lighting in there so you can see what you're doing. For anyone else attempting this, I have two pieces of advice different to YRSCupraNut's suggestions: Just disconnect all three wiring connectors from the glovebox. It's pretty straightforward and then there's no danger of the light switch assembly falling apart. To get the motor out, cut off the cable tie that VRSCupraNut says you don't need to remove. This allows the motor cradle to drop down and access is then WAY easier. Like lewiswal47, I discovered that the motor casing was not fully closed, allowing the black cog wheel to move out of alignment. After various different attempts to get it all back together and stable, I decided the chances were that it wouldn't stay that way for long, and have ordered a new motor from eBay for £15.

Firstly, thanks to the OP for his guide to replacing the motor... However, I have to say that when he says "it's a bit fiddly" that seems like the understatement of the year! There's a great big metal strut bang in the way of getting to the motor cradle and its connector. I did manage to undo the torx screws, but getting the motor out was beyond me. After much huffing and puffing this nearly 70-year-old decided that he'd put up with the recirculation no longer working rather than continuing the contortions and having to make multiple visits to the chiropractor. So to anyone thinking of attempting this fix, be warned that it's not a job for anyone without a flexible skeleton. And of course I now have the airbag fault popping up every time I turn on the ignition. The message goes away after a few seconds, so I'll just ignore it until the next service when hopefully the garage can reset it. I take it that the airbag will actually work in the meantime?

Sorry for the delay in replying - I've been on holiday. The microswitch was fixed under warranty by a Skoda main dealer, so I'm afraid there isn't an independent I can suggest. We were lucky that there was still 1 month left on the warranty when the issue arose.

Just a quick update to say that the faulty micro switch was replaced by a VW/Skoda dealer under warranty. Let's hope it doesn't go wrong again - the warranty finishes in September. edit: Forgot to mention in my original post that the most irritating thing about the fault is that the car refused to start, because it thought it wasn't in park (when it was). My wife had to wiggle the gear selector back and forth many times before it eventually let her start it. Irritating in the extreme.

Car booked into an approved Skoda repair centre for later this month, to be fixed under warranty. Thanks to all who have responded.

Thanks for confirming. She did say it seemed fine going up the M1 to daughter's house in Hemel. Fortunately, it's still in warranty (registered Sept 22, so not yet 3 years old) so we'll take it to a Skoda main dealer to have it fixed.

My wife is currently in London for the week and has just had this well-known error message pop up on her Mk3 Fabia 1.0TSi DSG She's understandably a bit worried whether it's ok to drive it all the way back (to Devon). From what Googling I've done, it looks like it should be ok, but just wanted to get confirmation from the experts on here.

My wife just bought a 2022 Fabia estate. It has a Swing Radio. We were disappointed to discover that it only appears to support MP3 and WMA files on SD cards and USB sticks. My own 2017 Fabia has an Amundsen radio, which supports a wide variety of CODECs. Is there any firmware update for the Swing that adds support for other CODECs? We are particularly interested in Ogg Vorbis, since that supports gapless playback (and which the Amundsen does play).

OK, so I got a Yuasa 65Ah 027 from Tanya. (Excellent service from them, BTW). Fitted it without any problems and assumed the problem would be sorted. But no! The alarm went off on its own again yesterday. Now wondering whether to even attempt to get the problem diagnosed. My guess is that it could take a long time and cost quite a lot of money to have it traced by a pro. Or might it be that the car's data system keeps info about what caused the alarm to trigger that can be easily read by a dealer? Given that most people ignore car alarms, perhaps it's simpler to just unset it when locking the car. But would that invalidate the insurance?

Thanks for the chart. The only battery that has the same dimensions as the existing original is 027, so weird that everyone says the car needs 012. Agreed that 11.9V is very low. Amazing that the starter motor even turns over! But the car does still start fairly easily. Go figure.

I think my wife's 2012 Fabia Elegance estate 1.2TSI petrol (105PS) needs a new battery. The alarm has been going off randomly, and it doesn't start quite as easily as it used to. I checked the voltage and it was 11.9V, so I reckon it's on the way out. I suppose having lasted 8 years is pretty good going. Everywhere online that I try seems to think it needs an 012 battery, but they are 210mm long, whereas the original one in the car is 240mm - I think that might be an 027. I can't see any obvious model number on the existing battery. Anyone know what the correct battery is for this car? Thanks.