Cheapas

Bit of an update. Did the climatronic diagnosis today. Came up 318 on left and 02 on right. 318 is the code I had last year before having it regassed. However, last year had OO on right, so not sure if 02 indicates 2 faults. With the engine running and air con selected the rad fan is not kicking in, can't see any secondary fan. Press the Auto button and blower in car kicks in full blast, starts at 22°. Dial the temp down to low and the Auto icon on display disappear. Why does the Auto icon disappear on low setting? Found a couple of inspection panels , condenser looks in good nick with no obvious damage/ signs of leaks. Sprayed some liquid on the refill valves, no air bubbles . Compressor is turning , can't actually see if the middle/ clutch? is cutting in out . Can't see any obvious signs of leaks anywhere. Presume next thing would be pressure/ dye test presuming the gas has gone. Any ideas please?

Got the same car I think, also with air con prob. Just discovered on ours if you pop the bonnet and look down, either side of the bonnet catch there are 2 square plastic covers. Take these out and you can see the condition of the front of the condenser. Quite a neat idea . Annoyingly though ours looks newish , so no obvious reason why the air cons stopped. Not sure if you're planning to diy it, if so may not be too difficult. I consider myself only a basic diyer mechanic, but managed to change condenser on wife's Megane. Bought condenser for £85 from factors and box of air con O ring seals off Amazon- £7. If you do buy one yourself I'd advise you to inspect it before leaving the shop. First one they got me had damaged fins , presumably in transit. Please let us know how you get on.

16 years and no problems? Got to be a record somewhere. Out of curiosity how many miles on the clock?

If you look at some of the foreign hgvs pulling fridge trailers and the lads doing concert haulage a lot of them have a slim air con unit retrospectively fitted to the cab roof. This enables them to punch through the night and sleep without the engine running during the heat of the day. This is what I'm after , cut a hole in the roof, bang this on , happy days. And as I run my cars till they're worthless , stick it on the next one! Presume you mean the condenser? I'll have a look when I summon up the enthusiasm, and check the fan coming on. Changed the condenser on our Megane last year ( old one near crumbled in my hands), and the receiver dryer, so know I'm capable of that, I hope. I did ask didn't I ? Or you've not had a problem because you've not got AC fitted?

Thanks Wino, Ive had a quick skim of your link, I'll have a prop read later. I know though that most of it will be beyond my feeble comprehension. Just why is it so complicated? If we can send a rocket to Mars, surely someone can design a basic portable air con system, that can be transferred between vehicles. Can't they? Sounding weirdly desperate now.....

No, I'm not talking about Christmas. It's that time when you turn the key , the climatronic display is flashing , and with a weary heart realise the poxy air con has packed up. Again. Bang on 1 year since having it gassed up. So this is more a rant than an ask for advice. Is it me or what? Since 2007 we've owned 3 different makes of car, all with air con. Despite spending money on them, none of them , the air con that is, seem to last a month past gassing up. The air con on the 2018 vehicle I drive for work has packed up also. Is it just European makes of cars that have such fragile systems? A quick Google on American sites , and you get the idea they don't have the same problems, some saying they've never had problems for years with their systems. So go on make my day. Tell me your mk1 Fabia ( mines a mk2 ) or older has working air con and you've never had a problem. Meantime I'm off to buy a clip on fan off Amazon.........

Yes and yes especially the last part. Doing it yourself at least you know it's been done. Never had much luck with brake bleeders etc, but tried the gravity method when changing brake fluid on our Megane. Ok, so it took way longer but no mess , no trying to juggle one man bleeders/air pressure pumping foot peddle etc and no reversing seal on master cylinder , all events I've 'enjoyed' in the past .

Yes, seriously looked at Dacia myself before buying the Fabia . Wanted the Logan with 1.5dci engine unfortunately very few second hand ones about at the time. I've had diesel cars now for 23 years and never found them expensive to service . Aside from the odd set of glow plugs at £30 ish for four it's just been oil and filters. Our Megane diesel is used on local trips ( no dpf) still get 55mpg with £30 road tax. Even used to run an older Peugeot on cooking oil; can't get cheaper than that! Wouldn't have thought with the more stringent MOT emissions test diesels were particularly dirty nowadays .

Your ancient Furby must be a petrol then? And that's the irony. Our low tax Fabia is not compliant purely because it's a diesel. From October it's £ 12 a day for me and presumably plenty of others if we stray the wrong side of the A406 / A205 .

Think you maybe wrong , certainly both our 06 Megane and 08 Fabia diesels are non compliant from October for travel within the North and South Circular Roads. Both our cars benefit from low tax £30 and £ 20 respectively yet are still non compliant.

Enjoy it while you can , Mr Sadiq will relieve you of that pleasure come October! Any idea what you're planning on replacing the Fabia with?

I understand the need to lower your insurance costs, not sure I'd try to get around it that way though. Insurance companies being what they are with their reluctance to pay out, always been 100% honest with ours, just not worth the risk of them finding out . Surely if you say you live in NI, have a bump in Southern Ireland , you'd have to prove residency in NI? Council tax form / utilities bill etc?

Absolutely crazy situation now. Without boring you all to death in 1985 when I started you needed customs forms for every country. When you arrived back at Dover you waited for customs clearance in the port, from an hour to hours and hours . Over the years it improved to not needing any clearance unless you imported from outside the EEC,. Now we seem to have gone back 30 years , but without the infrastructure of customs handling agents with their knowledge. Last week we had one of our tankers stuck in Belgium for 2 days due to customs demanding an ATA carnet which is a temporary import clearance for rock group /music equipment. Our tanker had liquid food stuffs on! More car related used to work for a firm involved in importing VOR items for Rover cars from Italy to Cowley . This was a next day service in 2 hops- Italy to France then we picked it up and drove overnight to Uk. Geeefco did the same with Peugeot parts. No customs needed . As I said in my opinion we've regressed, and I don't blame Irish hauliers with trying to distance themselves from this mess.

If you run a car on NI plates would you not need an address in NI for the insurance?

Had all the Boomtown Rats LPs at 15yrs ! My previous guvnor even nicknamed one of his drivers Geldoff as they don't like Mondays! Seriously tho wife always said daughters friends used to make snidy remarks about the state of our car on the school run. My reply was it's paid for, who cares. The saving on pcp costs go to overpaying mortgage, a lot better use for our money. When I read some of the stories regarding pcp makes me cringe. Suppose it's a generation thing. As a yougster couldn't afford cars, it was all motorbikes. When finally could afford cars found not really bothered what I drive as long as it's cheap. On the news other day the MP for Holyhead was saying that Irish haulers are bypassing UK ports and sailing direct to France , ferry companies are moving ships away from UK - Ireland routes, to Ireland - France with consequential loss of jobs on her patch. Maybe in a good few years things will get cheaper in Ireland without having to rely on UK imports.

So in general would you say the cost of living in Southern Ireland is more expensive with the euro or are average wages higher than UK to compensate for your higher costs? Sorry if this is straying away from the original post, just curious. I know that as an average wage earner here in the UK we would struggle to run the 2 cars we have on your figures. We drove to Ireland on holiday for the first time in 2019, staying in Belfast then Dublin. Certainly seemed more expensive in Dublin. Just filled up today- diesel here £ 1.20 p/l.

DieselMonte, always assumed the UK had the most expensive road tax in Europe. Used to pay £ 260 ish for our 1998 1.9 td, now pay £20 pa for our 2008 1.4 td Fabia. Actually budgeted on the road tax saving paying the purchase cost of the Fabia in a few years. That's a crazy amount of money for an average working person in a run of the mill diesel in your country to budget for. Are older petrol cars cheaper to tax? Is this an anti diesel government policy ?

Am I understanding that right? You pay over 600 euros pa in road tax?

Glad you sorted it, don't suppose garage gave you any info as to why it came on?

Thats the point though, I've got the original Fabia handbook and it's a bit vague on where exactly to jack. Got more info on it from this site than the book.

Amazing what you learn on here. Reading the above posts just had Homer Simpson 'doh' slap my head moment. Had exactly the same when I changed rear springs last week. Supported rear of car on the sill strips on axle stands with a piece of ply to spread weight. Unfortunately one sill did crush a little, now if I'd had rubber pucks or maybe routed out a slit in the ply it wouldn't have happened.

Must be different on a Renault then, as wiggling / tightening air bag seat connectors does extinguish the light.

I'd start with connectors under seat. Do you have to move seat to get in or out? This is where poor connection occurs. I'm 6ft so leave seat pushed back so don't have that prob, the good wife however is considerably shorter so drivers seat on our Megane is constantly moving. Despite my preaching to her to be gentle moving seat it goes straight over her blonde head, resulting in me on my knees pushing air bag block connector together again to clear fault. Currently got a cable tie wrapped around it to try to stop movement .

Just checked, it's still available on Amazon £19. Despite some mixed reviews seems to sort airbag lights.

Certainly agree with you . Using the seat belt was always a pain, trying to route it correctly was never a 2 minute job. The bases of the seats must be quite wide then to encroach on the middle seat. We've been 4 up before in our Fabia , still had middle seat spare. Sorry , can't think of another option.