DieselMonte

Im pretty sure pre facelift bonnets are different. For example a pre facelift fabia s2000 bonnet wont fit a facelift one, I imagine the same would apply to our road going cars.

Took the passenger seat back out to give it a good clean. I was going to leave the plastic trim off but I think I can make them look good enough to use.

Took the time to finish the passengers seat today. Definately not a hard job to do but very very tedious. I ended up using zip ties instead of the hogrings but the zip ties I used were crap and would snap as soon as I tried to tighten them. The seats are dirty and dusty because I was working on the cardboard and moving the seats about trying to get the seat cover to go on properly. I know now how to do it right so the drivers seat should come out a bit better. If I can get a good seat cleaner I can have these seats looking perfect in no time. The foam underneath is in great shape on the passat seats too, much better than the worn, mould ridden , foam of the fabia seats. Last pic is of the Briskoda sticker I stuck on the back ages ago. I think it looks nice but my camera seems to disagree.

Looks better than ever.

The might have bent that control arm in that case. Could they not figure out the front towhook?

Do the batteries discharge quickly if you leave the car sit? Check the date on the battery, if its more than a few years old its probably your culprit. The 1.9 sdi is a big heavy chunk of an engine so it needs a good big battery to start it.

Not worth the cost or effort to change it. Get some rags, wheel cleaner or similar and a pair of marigolds and clean it all off.

Pics of it outside. Front bumper looks a different shade of white in the picture, looks the same as the rest of the car in person.

Might they need coding in on vcds?

Some people get wound up over nothing. In my experience this forum isnt as bad as others I've looked to for advice. Some people have different ways of seeing things and it can be fun to watch sometimes, I wouldn't try to take much of it seriously.

Nice to see another Irish person on here. Is this the car? https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/skoda-fabia-2012/26375612 I recognized the brick office behind the car. It looks to be a 105hp tdi and has nice oem alloys but the passenger side looks to have been sideswiped at some point at its life and that front passengers tyre looks to be low on air. That sideswipe doesnt look to be recent either, you can see some surface rust forming in the pictures. As others have said it more than likely has had the fix done to it, my car has too. I would hope you could find a cleaner fabia cheaper but the way the irish car market is now you need to be constantly on the lookout for a decent car and you need to be able to move straight away. In fact, theres a 2014 monte carlo tdi going for 9,900 euro on donedeal! I find adverts and facebook marketplace to be better for finding cars nowadays, dont bother getting a northern car because our government has decided to tax the ever loving **** out of diesels coming through. I have a 1.6 tdi fabia and it has been nothing short of brilliant in my time having it. I personally wouldnt go for that car. Considering the price, miles, spec and the state of the paintwork on the passengers side, I would think you could find a cheaper fabia within budget. My own fabia didn't cost that much to buy (not including vrt mind) and it was a Monte Carlo to boot. If you want a fabia like this to be your first car then be prepared to be fobbed off by insurance. My fabia is my first car to get insured on and it was a battle. If you plan on insuring it with yourself as the main driver then be prepared to pay the price of the car in insurance alone (provided you don't have any previous experience and have only just gotten your licence). If your parents were the main drivers and you were a named driver then be prepared to pay around 1700 euro, thats around the price I was getting for any car to insure that way. I wouldnt go for a boxy mo or anything like that, not a big fan of something that you knowingly pay to spy on you. If you are hell bent on getting insured as the main driver then consider a 1.2 tsi, they are meant to be a very good engine too. To end this wall of text on a high note, welcome. This is a great forum for skodas and is full some very knowledgable and enthusiastic owners that are more than happy to help you with any questions or problems you might encounter. If you do end up getting a fabia, why not document it on the projects page, plenty of threads there of people customising and finding ways to improve their cars.

The gear knob and gaiter are one and the same on the fabia. Most likely is just that clip has gotten loose or come off. On my old fabia it twists and comes off easy because I never bothered to retighten that clip when I put it back together. You might be able to just tighten the old clip and it might stop it.

Usually not a big job. Definately looks to be easy enough to change considering you have so much access to it. Why are you changing it?

Gave the car a good detail over the past few days. Claybarred first, then took two passes with Meguiars ultimate compound. One with a wool pad and one with a foam pad. Then I moved on to Ultimate Polish, covered that with poorboys world white diamond glaze and black hole glaze for the roof and trim. Lastly, I used up the last dregs of Ultimate liquid wax I've had for a while and done about 8 cars with. After I did the body, I moved onto the interior. I've kept on top of the interior and had given it a good clean about a month ago so it was mostly just using apc to clean the plastics and giving everything a good hoover. I had to clean the glass again as I put stuff on the trim to dress it up and it appears to have just off gassed and stuck to all of the glass, leaving a greasy film on it. It was easy to clean off but I'd rather have not needed to do it again so soon. Overall, the car's gone from looking great to looking pristine and hopefully it should stay that way for a long while. Pictures don't really do it justice, The lower part of the car was chock full of tar and fallout. Lastly, I gave the wheels a quick rub with black hole glaze, they look to have a better shine to them but I doubt it'll last too long.

Just an exhaust I found on eBay. It said it was for a fabia and looks like a fabia piece but apparantly it was completely the wrong backbox. The tip was too long and needed some cutting and welding to fit. The tip sticks out slightly under the car now. To me it sounds a bit louder.

Passenger seats taken apart. The bases are a piece of **** to do. I had hoped to just plop the back of the passat seat onto the fabia frame but it seems that the passat back has shorter brackets and wont fit. Means I now have to strip the fabia back and see what I can do. Those hogrings are the worst thing imaginable. As you can see in the photos the standard seats are pretty terrible. I was hoping to take advantage of the passat seats sitting lower but if i'm going to be using the fabias frame I cant see that working out,oh well.

Wheels up again today, decided to price out a set of drop links at the motor factors. It was 36 euro for the pair so I got them. They are made by FIA, not familiar with the brand but the look and feel to be decent. Took out the old ones and didnt realise how loose they were in comparison to the new ones. Not much of a job to install them but I dropped the plastic cladding under the engine for easier access to get a torx bit into the bottom tie rod ball joint. Newer ones are a stronger design by the looks of them, they look to be a solid piece in the middle instead of the weird design of the standard ones. I would hope that these arent 94000 miles old, they certainly werent done recently. Finished the job and went for a test run. About town its noticably quieter and much more stable over the numerous potholes in town. Took it out on some backroads, the difference was night and day. Its now much more stable on these rough roads, has made a noticable improvement in feedback and the whole car feels tighter when cornering. Combined with the whiteline the car has been massively improved. It still has a touch of the clunk when its stationary, its faint now but still there. Should probably do the tie rod ends when I can, feels fine to drive though, just has the clunk.

Had the front wheels off today to check the tie rod ends. They certainly look bad but I couldnt feel much wrong with them. I'll keep them in mind to replace sooner rather than later though. Anti roll bar D bushes looked ok, drop links I'll probably replace because they seem past their best. Also, when I was under there I noticed that the springs look to be done not long before I got the car, I can still see the coloured dots on them. I noticed the rears were like new when I was under there doing the Whiteline also. Since I had the wheels off I gave the calipers and hubs a very quick spray of VHT silver. I wire brushed then sanded the hubs and calipers, sprayed them off with compressed air and sprayed them silver. It was a very quick job and I did it mainly to prevent the wheels from welding themselves to the hubs. Its a good thing I did because I could see rusty sludge forming on the hub, made sure to sand the hub smooth. The brakes are rusty because it was sitting straight after being washed. I didnt mask anything though, I just sprayed the paint on and got some petrol on a rag to clean off the disc. Brakes painted wheels back on. Drove the car around to scrub the discs off, first stop was sketchy but it was fine after that. On an unrelated note, I'm impressed with how well the wheels have held up. As far as i'm aware these are the original wheels and were never powdercoated or anything other than a bit of touch up paint here and there. Might try and see if I can use the polisher and make them really pop. In fairness that picture was not taken in the most flattering light but my point still stands.

As a final update for tonight, I got a sticker set with the whiteline kit for my Monte Carlo. I decided to put some on the driver's door. Does this car have a Whiteline? No! Do I care? No!

Another photo of the car I found.

Today marks 4 years since I got my mk1, 3 years and 1 day in the difference between getting both fabias. Found the first photo I ever took of it, which was taken not 5 minutes after going into a field, my first time driving it, and getting it well and truly stuck, how times have changed.

That made for good reading, I think I have an idea on how to do it now.

Hi all, Don't really know how to phrase this well but I'm wondering if anyone knows the best way to make seats from a different car fit into a fabia. I've seen some people take the whole seat base and swap the seat cushion over to the fabia base. The seats I want to use are these B6 Passat front seats. I think the black cloth is nicer than the grey of my original seats and these seats are in better condition than my seats (Mould got in when it was layed up outside, turned the interior into a Biohazard frankly, Not my proudest moment. The seats were pretty bad even when I got the car 4 years ago now.) I'm not concerned about making the airbags or seatbelt warnings work because my car didnt have side airbags or seatbelt warnings from the factory anyway. The only major obstacle for me is trying to get them to fit properly and so I imagine I need to swap the seat base over. What i'm trying to ask is if anyone has any guides for this sort of job and moreover if anyone has done a swap from another VAG car that uses the same base as the passat. Pics are of the passat seats out of the car and of the standard seats.

Today marks 1 year of me owning the Monte Carlo. Its been a pretty great car in that year. I think I may have been mistaken on the drop links being worn out, it clunks when turning the wheel when stationary and there is a bit of play at 9 and 3 on both front wheels. Most likely track rod ends. I'll head down to the motor factors today and see how much they are. Cant imagine they would be much more than 20 euro or so a side. I still will get new drop links and d bushes but I'll push it off until I'm sure that its track rod ends that are worn. I would imagine worn track rod ends would explain the "loose" feeling i've been getting lately. The weather should be starting to clear up soon so I'll get stuff in order to give the car a good polish. Been meaning to paint the front brakes too but I've been spending most of my spare time working on my Mk1 Fabia and trying to get it to be somewhat roadworthy.

To be honest, I only ever had the passat seats in by 1 bolt and they were sort of wedged into place from there. The track was too long and too wide to fit properly. I've been meaning to look and see If I cant swap the tracks from my standard seats over because then they'd definately fit. I liked how I could sit lower in the passat seats compared to the fabias, its a gripe I have even with my Monte Carlo. One thing that is nice about my car is that its old enough to not have seat airbags, or seat belt warnings so I don't need to worry about cutting wires. What do you mean by cables? As in the wiring for the seats? My car didnt have any of that so It never was a problem trying to plug them in.