rum4mo

As I had only ever seen and touched the version that has the captive washer, its material always seemed as hard as ----- and the version with the softish rolled steel washer would end up softer against the sump pan, but, both cars I have currently, have steel sump bases and have these maybe softer sealing washers, my previous two cars that used the bolt cw washer, had soft alloy sumps and these hard flat solid washers. All good stuff, what tended to annoy me while I was using these drain plug with captive washer, and buying from VW Group outlets, was the need to dress the threads of the plugs to keep my alloy sumps happy, it looked like tons/tonnes of these plugs were getting dumped together and handled roughly at some stage in their life!

I have got round to thinking, that if or when using these sanitiser "bombs" it makes more sense to first remove the old filter, and fit the closure cover, then use the sanitiser and only then fit the new filter. My logic being, a lot of the sanitiser fluid, held in suspension in the cabin air, will get stripped out of the air being re-circulated round the heater/cooler air box.

There does seem to have been some at least of the 1.2TSI 16V engines, maybe only the later ones, were sent out of the engine plant with the older version of "bolt+washer" combo instead of the bolt and a separate rolled steel crush washer, my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 16V certainly came new with the sump bolt and separate washer version. I always thought the change to separate crush washer would have been with the plan to avoid millions of drain plugs getting dumped into landfill, from what I remember, the separate crush washer costs slightly more than than the "bolt+washer" combo when buying from VW Group parts departments.

My wife tends to buy a carpet "runner" just cheaper more robust stuff than the fitted carpets, to protect "hard wear" points, recently when she has asked me to put old ones in the bin, I've put them in the garage, perfect for laying on in the garage or the stony driveway - I'd understand why it has taken me many many years to think about using that sort of thing!

You missed out "getting the crap falling out into my eyes", even as a bonus finding a small stone or 2 digging into your back - horrible! Laser Tools market a sort of stand/platform that you place one end over the car's sill and the other end is supported by a folding leg - to make this sort of job easier, I've never bought one, they probably cost quite a bit, but where is the fun if all the car jobs are easy?

It must be progress, I'm sure that it has been turned thro 90 degrees as well, short memory so forgotten, same sliding clips though but now no plastic frame to transfer across to the new filter.

I know it is not relevant in this case, but it is the chiller section that causes the build up of mould/bacteria as the collected moisture "ages" in that damp space - all the rest is okay though.

Or even further across towards the centre line in newer cars, even easier to check/clean/change.

The AC compressor is driven at all times, but when not required or in your case when its chilling requests have been disabled, the compressor is still feed through a very low volume of compressed fridge gas through the system which always includes the evaporator coil in the cabin heater assembly, so if too much fridge gas was being sent through that coil, you could feel its effect via the cabin fan being run. Can the demand for some more heat not counter this effect, I think that a few people in the past have commented on this issue but I can't remember if anyone ever got it resolved or even accepted as being a problem. Edit:- to let you understand this a bit better, these AC compressors are variable displacement types, so the chilling demand is increased by increasing the effective pumping volume of the compressor, this improves efficiency while the low level/volume of gas being circulated stops any of the system's plastic surfaces drying out and increase gas leaks if not in use much. All previous versions of Fabia will also have had a variable displacement AC compressor, so no change there wrt your previous Fabias.

I fitted a rear hatch pull down handle to my wife's 2015 Polo, as she is only 5 foot tale, I bought the Skoda handle, fixing screw and nutsert, as the screw is maybe M6 or M5 and the nutsert is steel, I failed to set the nutsert in the hole I drilled - I would have been using a hi strength screw to set it but failed miserably, so used another method to provide that handle fixing screw with a "nut" - that bit not relevant here, but the effort needed to set these steel nutserts is very high which is not surprising. Years ago I fell into a similar when refitting the spare wheel captive nut plate to a 1991 Fiesta, instead of buying in the genuine Ford part which would have been a plastic sleeved/sealed alloy large pop rivet, I grabbed one from work, unfortunately it made of stronger material and that trashed my Halfords pop rivet tool, I solved that by buying a heavy duty Stanley branded tool - it took some serious effort to set that pop rivet, I've never used any "acquired" green coated serious pop rivets again!

@nta16, yes that was one of the suggestions that I passed on along with sending SEAT UK a tracked letter with a title like "Letter before action", without claiming any ownership of either suggestions.

Depends on the engine series, the 1.2TSI 16V both have a folded steel crush washer seal on the sump plug, I tend to buy them in in "4" 2 year's worth for my 2011 S4 and wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI - I've only ever bought from VW Group sources. Edit:- Washer N 0138157 (14 X 20) Torque 30Nm

And yet another, this time a 2016 SEAT Ibiza 1.2TSI - same problem, ie fuel rail securing screw snapped off. Owner considering or asking what his options are for redress/escalating this know fault that still has not prompted any recall activity in UK.

The AC condensate drain is located on the engine side of the bulkhead "well down towards the centre from the LHS" but it is covered by the sound proofing which makes things a bit tricky to uncover/reveal. Normal when it chokes the water drain to the inside of the car but probably not via the pollen filter. I'm sure that I've looked at this on a same age Polo, and the rearmost edge of the water deflector slides into and grips under the windscreen area, one way to remove that side is to use a loop made of a cable tie and loop it over one end/side and pull from same the RHS to the centre and repeat that form the LHS - I've not bother to put that to the test, if the Fabia is the same as the Polo I don't know but I'd image it would be, so I've just forced a hand and arm under that cover if and when I've had to. We garage our cars so not much ends up down there, but anyone that parks their car outside and near trees hedges etc should check that area once a year and cleared of any nasty stuff.

For the record it was clinch nuts that I thought was being suggested as they have a bigger surface area that this job probably requires - and they can only be fitted from the other side of the sheet of steel.

The trouble, the way I see it from any rivnuts I've seen, is how to "set" it in place in a blind hole, typically the rivnut would get inserted from the rear of that skin and get clinched to it. Have you exhausted all/any way of fishing down that void with a bit of hooked stiff wire, to see if you can bring it back up and then try super glueing it in place until you can screw that fixing back into it. The trouble might be that there has been serious thread damage, what does the thread on that stud look like, ie like new so serviceable, or has it lost some depth from the threads, unfortunately the same will apply to the vanished original welded nut.

Here is a thread from maybe the same age of engine, it shows pictures of original and the version of parts this guy used to sort things out, maybe give you some extra info on this repair/upgrade. 1.2TSI timing chain change on the driveway.. | SEATCUPRA.NET There was also, I seem to remember someone from Italy that did an upgrade to the later/final "set of chain drive bits" on the same age engine in a Polo, rather than just using what VW Group chose to provide for a "refresh".

@mikear82, sorry I seemed to have missed your comment about Skoda having pulled out of Inverness, time Skoda UK or that dealership tidied up their online details! Car sorted out now? Uncle Arnie's car emporiums can be a bit annoying to deal with, I think it helps if you are a young female though, my order daughter never seems to have any issues with their SEAT site in Edinburgh - yet, other than a complete mess up when her Leon Cupra was booked in online for its year 2 service - their website suggested that it would be more convenient for her to drop it off at their "not SEAT" site near her, result being it got none of the usual S/W checks or even the additional work added into the early stages of the online booking system - reasons being when quizzed about this "we are not a SEAT dealership" - not very handy to find that out after the prepaid service work was completed, ie only a quick oil change I'd expect!

Quote "Manufacturer specific code." that usually means that Carista have not (yet) included that code in their app, if you contact them via email or FB they usually put in a bit more effort and come up with the correct meaning. Some cheaper diagnostic tools just add in a bit of spice to your fault tracing/finding, which is not what you expect.

Lots, or many, or some, low level priority faults, nowadays do get removed from the relevant controller's memory, so as said they do disappear. A couple that I used to see logged then without clearing them notice that they had "gone" a month later were "infotainment switch error" and "something concerning the mechanical side of the AC compressor" - the infotainment switch issue was not something that I had ever been aware of so ignored getting that looked into and I've only ever noticed it returning and remaining long enough to get spotted once or twice. The AC compressor mechanical issue, again I was never aware of any limitation of the availability of the AC though we don't need to use it for chilling the air much up North, that one, I think that I read, was addressed by VW Group and resolved by a S/W update, though I'd doubt if that car ever got the update as they are usually only bothered with on demand by the customer. My old 1991 VX Cav GSI 2000 16V 4X4, used to do what was called "esponging" of all "now not present" logged faults - probably the wrong spelling but a word that sounds like the correct term - so nothing new there! VW Group, on cars which had a fault logged but that fault was now not present, used to clear them from bringing on the dashboard warning light - if they were a high priority fault that warranted that, after so many engine starts, but still leave them in the relevant controller's memory which seemed like a good plan

Having trouble removing these bolt caps is another indicator to point to the fact that that car has not had its wheels off for a very long time, it is a good plan to service the brakes once every year or every other year, plus if the wheels have not been off for quite a long time, unless you live in an area where NO road salt/grit is used in winter, or are not near the seaside, then getting these wheels off in the event of a puncture, might prove to be a lot harder than expected. I think with my own car bought at just under 2.5 years old, getting the bolt covers off was a bit tricky, so I cleaned off any accumulated salt or corrosion, then applied a "touch" of silicon grease - though now due to me removing the wheels twice a year to change to summer/winter wheels/tyres, these bolt covers come off quite easily, and so far I've never ever lost any from either car.

8D0 012 244A will get you a suitable one, there might now be more than one part number, that part number is an old Audi one and maybe still the only one for this tool. Edit:- yup, still works £2.19 upwards delivered, or even under £4 if you buy 2 at a time I see! VW do fit bolt caps that have a "Torx" type hole in the centre - that wire springy tool works only for them - and obviously other things.

My wife has a 2015 VW Polo, but so far it has not suffered this typical failure, it is only too easy to roll out the usual "a known issue with many VW/SEAT/Skoda and maybe Audi" models of this size of car, but the switches/controls assembly is usually the root cause. There is an easy way to work out if this is probably the problem, but that requires you to have or get the use of VCDS or similar to carry out a demanded function and see what the controller's response is - getting a main dealer to do that would probably cost as much as the switch assembly though. The fact that the rear wiper works, or sweeps once when the car is in reverse just proves that the controller has "seen" that the front wipers have been switched on at the time, though in your case not a deliberate action by you!

Check this thread for location etc, there might be others/better ones though:-

It is a high probability that it is a broken PCV valve, maybe search using that term - even on Google, including VW 1.2TSI 8V.