GlennC

Thanks for suggestions so far - I need to get my head under the dashboard and find out where everything is. There will be some delay, I have more pressing things to deal with! BTW, I would rather take advice from people like you who have practical experience, but a quick Google trawl found several "experts" suggesting a full reset of the radio might fix it. Do we believe that? Could it be a software fault? I somehow think not...

DAB reception in our late 2015 Fabia having faded away over the past months to the point where there is none at all, regardless of where in the country we drive, I thought I would see whether anyone can shed light on this... but no. As an electronics engineer with some understanding of what's involved I had thought it might be an antenna problem just on our car but from reading the posts here it seems that the issue is more widespread. I would suspect a poorly specified component in the radio receiver itself, one which has drifted out of tune, but to be honest in this age of "chuck the old one away and fit a new" that's purely academic. So now it's FM only, which works fine, unless there's a ready fix.

Thanks everyone for your helpful responses. I've elected to sit tight for now and perhaps address the cam belt at the 6-year service this Christmas. Meanwhile: can anyone tell me whether it's a simple job for the owner to carry out a visual inspection of the belt, for instance by removing a little cover plate with a couple of screws? (I can but hope).

I too need to know when to change the cam belt. As none of the knowledgeable contributors above has been able to give a hard-and-fast answer to the original question, and the car's original documentation doesn't contain the answer, I posed the query to Skoda UK via their online form but nothing whatever came back (how rude). My nearest main dealer has been clamouring at me to change the cam belt but I am suspicious that they are just drumming up business - I don't see that a 30,000 miles engine on a December 2015 car should need any attention yet. Or am I just living in a Utopian world where stuff is designed to last a reasonable length of time?

Well I located the "N280" and gave its electrical connector a good workover, and I'm pleased to say I think it's now sorted. Thanks to all involved for the pointers, and for not calling me a muppet.

The car won't be going anywhere for a few days, so I can't take my investigation any further just yet. I'll return to the topic as soon as I have done another short drive - meanwhile thanks for the suggestions everyone, very much appreciated. I can fix my 1949 Riley even if it goes direly wrong: but uncovering the hidden secrets of a 21st century Skoda is different!

Thanks J.R., that gives me a starting point at least. (Next time it stops raining).

Thanks for the suggestion, but I might need some help with the acronyms... I looked up the "N280" so now I know it's a control valve, but is it somewhere I can access? And if it's stuck in the "on" position so I have permanent A/C, can I give it a manual poke so that it's turned off permanently instead? And I have no idea what a VCDS is except that I don't own one! (Learning on the job here...)

Manual: and if I set the knob to hot/red, you can feel the warm air battling it out with the refrigerated air.

The aircon on our 1.2 litre Fabia III has decided it will run all the time. No warning light, just refrigerated air out of the system whenever the engine is running. Up until this month it has worked properly - that is, it's been there when we wanted it, and not there when we didn't, under control of the dashboard button with yellow tell-tale light. Now it's always on regardless of any control settings and the interior of the car gets impressively cold, which won't be a joke when October comes. I'd like to know where to look, what to hit, and what's likely to be the cause. Who can help? (I read the posting "Air condition always on" but it didn't seem as though that discussion was going anywhere, so I've started afresh.)

Greetings from new joiner - a satisfied Skoda Fabia owner, we're on our second one now.