DieselMonte

If you are going rear discs know that discs arent as good for handbrake turns in my experience. Saying that, Both of my fabias have ****e handbrakes as is.

They "only" have a normal 1.6 tdi. Am I right in saying that only monte carlo tdis got 288mm brakes and regular tdis were 256mm?

Window regulators always go in mk1 fabias, my car's the same. I've gotten good at finessing the button to use them or I just put the key in the door to put them both up or down. For the cigarette lighter it could just be a blown fuse or the connection on it is loose. Mine never worked and I only recently noticed its fuse was gone, works fine now. You'd be amazed what some interior cleaner and few hours of scrubbing can do to refresh an old interior, if you're ever in Asda get the carplan 2 in 1 upholstery shampoo, i've had great results with it. My cars starter sometimes drags too. Might be one of the connections like Wino said because both the old and the one I replaced it with did it.

I mean, you could just rig up some vents to cool them or get different wheels to keep them cool. From my experience beating the **** out of my old fabia in the fields the brakes hold up very well. I'd be out for hours at a time and they only got to be slightly soft once or twice in all of my left foot braking, 50-60 mph sideways in fields antics. The brakes on that car are still probably the best thing on it nearly 4 years later too. Plus with 256mm brakes you can run 14's, that was one thing that annoyed me about my monte carlo was that I couldn't use the spare wheel from my old car because a 14" rim wont go over 288mm brakes.

Weird, Could some of the wires in the door be broken? Its meant to be a common issue on mk2 fabias that the loom going into the door can become damaged over time. Could be causing your problems, but i've not personally had this problem so I cant say for sure.

Weight makes a difference too, but your point stands.

Was the battery connected while it was sat up? If its disconnected it needs to relearn the windows.

Mines been making a squeak when its cold but it goes away after some driving, Maybe its just the cold weather we've been having.

Never put my car on the list. 2012 Monte Carlo 1.6 tdi 105hp. Bought with 89,000 miles on the clock and is now sitting at just over 93,500 miles. Will have it a year come February first. As far as I can make out it came with no options on it, no third headrest,grey seats etc. Has been modified slightly, its got: -vRS intake pipe -Deflapped airbox -Air filter sock removed -Dieselgate flow transformer removed -Heat reflective tape on airbox and intake pipe. -De-Restricted turbo damper -New backbox -Whiteline Rear Sway Bar -vRS grille striping -Team Heko wind deflectors (not seen on car, older photo) -Generic motor factor Mud Flaps. Not really modified too much but its definately a nicer car to drive than standard. Sounds much nicer too, without being chavvy in the slightest. I only really plan on remapping it but otherwise i'll just be renewing bushes and what not. It's been reliable in all my time owning it so I dont see a need to potentially mess that up. As Of December 2021: -Darkside Developments downpipe -UlterSport Backbox -Supersport Coilovers (lowered only about 20mm) -PSBushings Wishbone bushes -Powerflex Dogbone mount -312mm Front Brakes -Remap to 140HP -Rear Strut Brace -Pair of Spotlamps Hidden behind the grille -Currently on a set of 16" Spyders for Winter duty. Will be going back to the 17s with some fresh rubber for the summer. Quite a few changes made over the year, most of them due to parts wearing out and so needing replaced anyways. The exhaust was rotten and I happened upon a smoking deal for a nice darkside downpipe and a backbox. Had to get it mapped after that of course. The brakes came about as I got a deal on them and was needing to replace the 288mm stuff anyway. Then the shocks gave out so they needed replaced anyways, and again I got a deal on some coilovers that would work well so I would be daft not to. Then I noticed the boot creaking like mad so I put in a brace and so on and so on. I'll probably put a cr170 turbo on as well as a bigger intercooler funds allowing come summertime. Edit As of August 2022: -Poly ARB D Bushes (20mm) -Rear Axle Swapped for a disc one -New axle stripped and refreshed with polybushes -256mm vented rears put on -Intercooler fitted -Boot sound deadened -Superpro Steering Rack Bush -Soon to have caster increase bushes and new Track rods.

Thought i'd get away with only having the wheels off the car once lol.

Hi all, just looking to double check what size the Anti roll bar is on my Monte Carlo. I'm planning on replacing the drop links and d bushes to tighten up the front of the car and I want to make sure I have the right d bushes for my car. When I put in my reg to check the size some of them were 20mm and others were 18. Also is there any point in getting poly D bushes instead of the normal rubber? Are they worth the cost? Thanks again.

Gave the car a quick test earlier today and its amazing the difference the whiteline makes. Much more confidence in the car now and I can open the throttle up earlier in a corner because Its a lot easier to position the car and have it stick to your line. Might need to get stiffer front arb bushes and drop links to make up for the extra stiffness in the rear. Probably should get some console bushes too as I think they are getting to be a bit old, could feel a bit tighter to be honest.

I had one of the vRS wheels off of my mk1 fabia and wanted to see how it would look on this. Honestly not bad. Might need to get some tires on them and use them for the next month or so, The frost has taken chunks out of every road and it'd be nice to have some extra rubber to soak up the bumps.

Whiteline on and installed on the mid setting. Will take it out tonight to see if it makes any difference. Glad I finally got it, even if it took a while.

#261 is up on usedcarsni

I have a Whiteline RARB ordered, Fedex says its in Dublin as of Wednesday and I was meant to have it the Friday before. I wouldn't mind the wait but I was under the car spraying the shock bolts with wd40 in preparation for it being on the car friday last week. Hopefully it will come on monday and I can put it on then. Atleast i've been kept busy with my other fabia. We're supposed to face another cold snap soon so hopefully i'll have it on the car then and have some more slidey fun on our craptastic roads.

Knew it was something like that. All I remember is that nut spinning when the driveshaft/Wheel bearing had to be swapped after I destroyed them going sideways in the fields, it was welded in place and it held until about a month ago when the cv joint started clicking. I dread having to replace it.

The nut to tighten the cv joint on the hub is some funny size iirc

The switch on the mirrors? I thought they were independant to the rear demistor on mine, could be wrong though.

Afaik you cant remove the arb without dropping the subframe.

Why not have a look at build threads on here? There have been plenty of modified vRS thats mods were well documented, might give you some ideas. A lot of people would get a rarb as one of their first mods, I have one ordered for my mk2 fabia although it'll fit a mk1 or a mk2. How olds your vRS? How many miles does it have? have the console bushes been done? Just replacing drop links and worn out bushes can make a world of difference, especially when a cars coming up in age/miles. For the most part it depends on what you want to get out of the car, but it doesnt make much sense to me to go out and put a bigger turbo on your car if the suspensions knackered. Not much else I can really add though, its moreso stuff i've picked up lurking on here and my own (albeit limited) knowledge from messing around with my own cars. Good luck with the car by the way, if you are planning on doing any mods you can always make a thread in the fabia projects section.

It runs! The battery mishap seems to have been just some water getting into a place it wasnt meant to, charging fine now. Had it out and moving under its own weight, Drove fine, no leaks or major problems. It still has a ways to go before it could go back on the road but this was definately a major step forward.

Quick side by side of the new and old front ends.

Car is cleaned under the arches and front is back together. Not perfect mind but Its much better than what it was before. Only problem is that I ran the battery low by quickly starting the car to move it down to the power washer and then back up again. Couple that with the fact that the belts and alternator got a little wet it was obvious that I was going to run into trouble. I had the car Idling while I was bleeding the radiator, all the electrics on, draining the battery. I noticed the gauges had frozen and knew straight away what was up. Just to make sure, I opened torque on my phone and noticed that it was reading 6.6 volts on the voltmeter, not good. I gave the car a few revs and to my surprise it revved freely and much quicker than it normally would, but it sounded like the power washer that cleaned the **** out of the arches just an hour or two before, I presume it was just dumping fuel into the engine at this point. Shut it off and put the battery on charge overnight. Its a big battery so it'll take a long while to charge. Hopefully the car dries out a bit more and the alternator hasnt in fact crapped out on me. The pile of dirt you can see is the dirt I scraped out of the passengers side quarter panel while I had it off.

Does the sound get worse when you turn on the a/c? I only ask because my mothers avensis had a problem where it sounded like the car had a blown engine but it got really loud and obnoxious when the a/c was turned on. It was traced back to a faulty crank pulley apparently, something about it putting more stress on the pulley when the a/c was engaged thus causing it to make more noise. There are no rear droplinks on fabias as there isnt a rear anti roll bar. The torsion beam acts as a rarb in our cars case. You'll find a lot of people will add a Whiteline or H&R rarb to these cars though, meant to sharpen up the handling. (I was surprised when I learned these cars didnt have rarb's but it makes sense when you look at how the rear suspension has been designed.)