totoro

Well, my Fabia has gone to the great scrappy in the sky. I now have a cheap Clio to keep me mobile until I find a good Fabia. Many thanks to all of you who offered such good advice over the last few years, I hope I can find a Clio forum half as good..

Thanks, I see a very low mileage example for 300 plus 50 delivery. I have a friend who is an auto mechanic, what do you reckon would be a 'mate's rate' price for the work, is it much of a fuss reprogramming ecu etc ?

Tonight the auxiliary tensioner bearing failed and the belt disappeared into the cam belt causing all manner of confusion with valves and pistons I thik, belt is still on and intact but engine spins with no compression. Where do I find a replacement or are they like the rocking horse whotsit? It would be a pity to scrap the car, just got brakes and suspension all fettled. 1.4 16v petrol BBZ 2003/4

Have you not found Hat Boy Harvey on youtube? The white bulb holder clicks out, no need to take the cluster off. I have an estate which has very much easier access.

Firstly it is a Skoda, one must accept such things. Mine will have periods of deciding, randomly, if I freeze or bake. Vigorous turning the selector knob to and fro several times will sometimes coax it to behave, sometimes not. The alternative to this is to strip out stuff and replace, I'd rather not do that.

Could you not narrow down the area via the MOT history?

I had problems with a rear brake dragging, I fitted these from eBay which fixed the problem. Easy to fit. Caliper Return Springs https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333521299428

I forgot to disconnect but did a 100 mile round trip to judge how the car was performing, it was fine, same as usual but the strange thing was that the fuel consumption was better. I did another trip about the same yesterday and, once again, far better mileage. The only other change was to change a front wheel bearing, I can't see that that would cause a 7% drop in mpg. Perhaps I should just shrug and leave the light on. I'll try the disconnect later to see what happens.

I'm getting an EGR light, 1.4 16v BBZ ; looking at prices on ebay I see that to clean it might take £12 of cleaner plus time and a replacement about £30 and far less time. Replacements are priced from under £30 to £130, it's a solenoid, how can one cost for times another ? The car has done 177,000 miles I don't think it will do enough more to justify the 'buy cheap buy twice' dogma. It looks a straight forward swap out, but is there anything to catch me out?

Standard fitting Page 4 of Symphony handbook When the appliance is switched off and the ignition is switched off the flashing LED located in button > indicates anti-theft protection.

Visibly the same as those one third of the price, there could be a difference in the wire spec and therefore the spring rate but that isn't stated for either.

Thanks, Those are the ones I've ordered, that's reassuring.

The brakes are binding a bit, I'm assuming that the springs might help. Are they standard fitting or an mod ?

I have just had my rear brakes sorted, new discs and pads, looking at videos on the subject I notice that some have handbrake return springs. Mine appears to have none, should I fit them ?

Whatever the mechanism is, a big hammer and penetrating fluid sorts it. I suppose it would be sensible to give the seats a run back and forward occasionally to stop them seizing up.

Thanks all, it was rust causing the problem. I took off the front panel, couldn't find the last screw so tin snips applied to the plastic removed the holdup, it's not as if I need to refit it, my car will never win prizes for its looks. I gave some good squirts of penetrating fluid into the rails when parked on a slope so that it would run back into the blockage , left it for a few hours ,then with me holding up the lever and a mate applying his size XL hammer to the rail at the rear it started moving forward. After a few operations back and forth and more flushing the rust and grit the rails with WD40 it got easy to operate and is now good as new.. Sorted, so I'll get the MOT for another year, new discs and pads to the rear, new droplink to the front have been fitted and all is ticketyboo. Total cost, about £68 for parts and calling in favours done for a mate who has access to a lift and tools.

The offside rail seems to be free after a bit of lubrication and banging but the inner one is solid. It isn't obvious how the lever acts to lock/unlock the seat on the rails and I can't find an illustration.

A fail point on my MOT sheet is 'fore and aft adjustment mechanism not functioning as intended. I can't remember adjusting it since I got it five years ago so it is rusted or jammed with some detritus in the track or in the lever mechanism. Is there a drawing of what the lever does ? I can lift it OK but the seat is jammed solid. It would be nice to see a picture of what I'm looking for before grovelling around with my head upside down peering under the seat.

It's a low torque application, just nipped it up plus a bit more. Having looked again at the spanner it is 9/16 Whitworth, the other end, 1/2 W would fit with judicious tapping with a hammer. My policy of never throwing away something that might be useful in the future pays off once again.

All sorted, there was not too much oil around the switch but taking the connector off revealed that the fitting was full of it, a cheap replacement is now fitted, all tickety boo. It's a good job I did not throw away the old imperial open ended spanners, the one inch one came into play Thanks for your help.

Thank you Pete, There's some oily dust around the switch and connector, I've ordered a new one. Hoping it's as easy as that. Must get to Specsavers too, from the driving position it looked like the EML shape, can't lean and peer closely when driving and it's out when you stop.

thanks for the prompt reply. My thoughts were that it was a false alarm caused by the usual Fabia wire/connector rot The light was in the display panel where circled, not the usual orange light in the speedo dial.

53 reg 1.4 16V BBZ engine Driving home yesterday I had piercing beeps and a flashing red EML light. Everything seemed quite normal, engine working nicely as usual. Stopped and checked obvious things, oil, water, lose wires etc. Drove on cautiously at first but normally after a few miles as everything seemed fine, no warning light until 40 miles later and near home when it happened again followed by a continual flashing light with no beeps. No misfires, no lack of power, no high coolant temperature so I'm a bit puzzled at the panic exhibited by the car This morning the car started perfectly well and scanning with my cheap code readers results in 'no codes' Any ideas ?

No, but I think my alarm is disabled somehow, not that it bothers me, who would steal a 20 year old Skoda ?

I thought that all Fabia Mk1s randomly lock you out, that's why I never leave the key in it even if getting out for a few seconds.