Former

Well done. So much servicing, maintenance and many repairs on cars, and other stuff, often just boils down to clean (and often lubricate). I'm not sure you needed to use the switch cleaner lubricant after the cleaning but I doubt it will hurt and might help with microswitches. Even clearing error codes with a scan tool is a type of cleaning, any good worker or tradesperson knows the value of cleaning. I've got to take apart a TV remote and clean it up specifically the buttons and contacts and wanted to try putting some graphite on but the very small bottle of it I bought many years back was never returned by a neighbour and I couldn't ask for it back but walking to the shop the other day I saw a broken pencil on the grass verge, with no one around at all I decided to partly recycle its use to coat the remote buttons pad and then in to one of the tool boxes to supplement one of the ones that keep breaking in use.

That's a very good point for things on the car and independent. On the rare very cold winter's day here I've had to bring some electronic tools from the shed into home to warm them enough to use outside effectively, one being a modern battery charger. 😆 A chap from Sweden was asking about pre-heaters, found a race car mains electric powered coolant preheater but it was very expensive and needed to be quite a while to warm things but racing is higher pre-heat temperature cold start could be a lot less but also starting from a lot lower ambient temperature, there also stuff for oil and battery and battery insulation of course. I couldn't find the pre-heater coil of pipe that I'm sure I used to see for "classic" cars but perhaps it's a false memory or I'm dreaming. Empty the battery too deep and or too often then as we've ben looking at and discussing the battery won't last as long as it should and possibly turn into a sudden distress purchase after a breakdown or failure to start engine, as part of the Number 1 reason for UK breakdown call outs. Personally I don't like freezing temperatures at all, never have, but now I'm getting (even) older I don't even like single digits in the positive, I also don't like the heat, rain or snow . . . 🙃

Could this be poor or missing connection(s) to the voltage stabiliser (poor earthing perhaps) or faulty or failing voltage stabiliser?

Many. many years ago at some show or other there was a Jag on a stand about alternative to copper wiring (forget what) for car wiring as the amount and weight of the wiring on such a luxury car as this with all of its comforts and conveniences (mostly completely standard on poverty-level shopping trollies now) was so much at the time that it was thought something needed doing - obviously it was thought best to make the wires and insulation a lot thinner. 😆 (By SAAB I expect you mean GM SAAB.)

MotoRad making them for febi on contract might explain why I didn't see MotoRad list a stat for Felicia. You may already know this but in case not, the (nominal) rated temperature of the stat is when it starts to open not when it is fully open, that will be at a higher temperature. I don't know about your plastic housed stat but older style separate stats MotoRad used to say - [ETA: I couldn't find this now on their website] - that the stat may have a manufacturing tolerance of +/- 3 F (they're American so work in F not C) and the stat is fully open about 15F-20F degrees above its rated temperature. So working in C with figures rounded to nearest 0.5C, that means say an old 88C stat starts to open at 86C – 89.5C and is fully open at 94.5C – 100.5C allowing for manufacturing tolerances, I hope that makes senses. Now as I put I don't know if the manufacturing tolerance is less for more modern stat, but wax pellets must be similar and the part retails at about £10 so how accurate do they go for that (I don't know). For previous stat not working so well now, when you installed it did you renew /refresh / replace your coolant at change of thermostat in case any debris contamination caused problems previously and in future? Could be other things but have a look at this MotoRad video, there are plenty of other videos and info on their website. - HTH.

@FergalK personally I don't put too much store by marketing things like "pulse" and "intelligent" and "smart", a repair / recover setting can work but not always, I assume your charger is suitable for start/stop and AGM batteries. Once you've severely weakened the battery it can be difficult to recover anywhere near fully and sometimes you can't usefully recover it for any reasonable period of service., your charger might well have saved the battery if used earlier when the battery trouble first started and might have avoided this outcome if used in a preventative manner but I don't think this battery will be any good for even simple very old car use, perhaps running a radio or light in garage, for a while. Your charger (if suitable for AGM) will be fine to look after the replacement battery when required if used sooner and/or for preventative recharges when required, or as a maintainer if the vehicle is parked up for a number of weeks (see Owner's Manual). But I personally would give that charger away if it can't se set to lower, slower recharging and instead buy something like the following example, there are obviously many others and suppliers to choose from, Aldi or Lidl (I forget which) about this time of year sell perfectly good ones, just get one 3, 4 or 5 amps at most for maintenance (and recovery without a setting saying so). Ring 4-amp "smart" charger - https://shop.ringautomotive.com/rsc904-4a-smart-battery-charger-maintainer.html Here's the previous model (RSC804) being used on my wife's car over night, weather went down to -3C IIRC, 16 hours to full charge the AGM battery and it wasn't even that low in charge (cold doesn't help with charging hence 'winter' setting for when I guess below (+)5C. Tayna (£145.81) appear to give 4 years guarantee, Halfords (£237.19) give 5 years , which you'd expect given the price difference! This has nothing to do with how long the battery will last as it's the same battery from both of them and I'd expect it to last much longer than 5 years, the guarantee will have conditions of use/abuse/neglect but if you can get any sort of refund/discount from the selling garage on a new battery I'd imagine it would be because they sell it for a lot more than the Tayna, or even perhaps Halfords, price. As your car and all that's on it gets even older than its present 9 years you will learn even more the importance of its 12V car battery being in a good state of charge, and good state of health. (ETA: even more important on cars from say 2019 onwards). HTH. Good luck.

I'd sooner have the battery on a (charger) maintainer if required but if it's regularly -30C and you can't get a bigger battery in the space I too might carry a jump-starter but I'd not want to use it too often (in UK many would forget to charger that up when required). I'd certainly use better engine (and if manual better gearbox) oil(s) for those temperatures than VW Dealerships for greater margins and protection and ease of vehicle use and engine starting. A 2017, 19, 21, 23/4 vehicle battery demands and use can be more than 2015/6 models so more to maintain as regards the battery with the later models or more frequent changes of expensive battery. It might not be too much longer in the UK before we have the first wave of car engine starting issues and breakdown call-outs because of "battery" issues in the UK, shelf stocks of new batteries are usual good for the first wave of premature (and often unnecessary) battery replacements.

Yeap, I turned the DRL off via the infotainment menu, I'm not sure why you'd want them on (without the rear lights too) but each to there own. Perhaps the other VW cars turned them off too, especially if they keep discolouring or blowing or warnings. If there are problems with the DRL lights you will get the the amber-triangle-of-doom and it will show up in the 'CAR' infotainment menu. See the car's Owner's Manual (and don't say as a phone man you didn't read manuals or you're in for a disciplinary and loads of training courses. cancel any holidays). - https://manual.skoda-auto.com/004/en-com/Models Yeap it's another PITA/wrists job changing those bulbs, plastic covers in wheel arches don't want to come off easily even after being cleaned and lubricated on the previous occasion and a fart of a job just putting the bulb holder back in, the breif twist required is a bit disconcerting too. Yes light is a by-product of the bulbs heat is main thing. On my wife's car the state of the rhs bulb and bulb holder showed something wasn't right or good enough, other lhs was nowhere near as bad. The rhs was a non-factory bulb from what I could tell so had already been changed before, no on third bulb (at least) and DRL no longer used. I'll stick with contacting Classic Car LEDs Ltd. about the LEDs they sell as I've dealt with them before and am confident in their products and what they say. If you want to do a guide on anything there is a general Fabia (Mk 1, 2, 3 and 4) 'Skoda Fabia Guides' forum but as some models already have LED strips for DRL and changing bulbs is covered by the Owner's Manuals I'm not sure this would be the topic, but don't let me stop you if you think it will give further help or guides on anything else. If you can't drive you could still perhaps get a scan report done at home (and a good chance IF required to do a preventative full recharge of the battery with an appropriate charger maintainer). Let us know when anything happens, good luck.

Note: you need to check I have correct stat for your vehicle. For 87c have a look here but none really fill me with joy, it shows Febi (17902) and alternatives. First Line and Borg & Beck are both part of First Line, others I can't remember now. Gates and others may not make their own but I don't know. You also have to check that the supplier has the correct information for application to vehicle. I've used Parts in motion before and they are fine to deal with. febi 17902 - https://partsfinder.bilsteingroup.com/en/article/febi/17902 Parts in Motion febi 17902 (£10.43 inc. P&P (Royal Mail 2nd Class Tracked)) and alternatives stats - https://www.partsinmotion.co.uk/febi-coolant-thermostat-17902-detail HTH.

I forgot about this thread on this forum. - 2c) 'Modifying Your Fabia MK III' -

Hi, welcome. I'm going to give you help but I'm sure you don't really want just anybody's views on this (16x8(?) ET20(?)) as you'd not like them (including mine) and I've no idea what you mean by poke in this context (poke is power, speed to me) - so two bits of hopefully help for you. 1) Wheels - https://www.willtheyfit.com/ 2a) site's 'Fabia Projects' forum - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/205-fabia-projects/ 2b) site's 'Performance & Tuning Upgrades' forum - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/212-performance-tuning-upgrades/ HTH.

Lots of the past microcars were similar, motorbike engines and bits. We should be going back to such sized vehicles instead of these very lardy, overweight, oversized, monsters we have now as much driving is done over short distances with just the driver or perhaps sometimes plus one passenger in crowed, congested traffic where speeds are well below 50kph most of the time. I think you will know just how little hp power is needed even in lardy modern cars once they're up to speed (not saying for mountain roads although many very small and low powered cars were tested on mountains) or for towing a boat or big caravan. It's also about power to weight the lardier the car the more power is required to to lug its weight about.

In that case I'm not sure that Alfa brake pedal would pass the UK MoT based on safety (I could be wrong I'm not an examiner). I didn't see evidence of that in the photos of the crashed cars, do you mean airbags, I'm lost with this. It might be legally classed as a bike for whatever reasons but it looks very much like a car by most "car people's" definitions. I've seen a couple of 2CV/Diana on local roads recently, still on the road about 50 years old, they weren't so bad in there time or now, in fact in many ways good, just different to the mundane average majority of cars.

Have a look at the map list. -

In the olden days it might have ben a vacuum or engine breathing problem but by modern (2002) the German marques were decades into (over) complicated computer programs necessitating more sensors, wiring, connections, parts, pipes, Uncle Tom Cobley and all . . . So what you need is some one with an appropriate VW scan tool, with the program for your car fully up to date and the knowledge and experience and can be-arsed-attitude to do proper diagnosis and work required from it. If you're near this chap I'd use him. - https://www.youtube.com/@mrautoservices7354/videos Otherwise for at least a full scan report, perhaps more, there are Briskoda members prepared to help, some for beer tokens, a very few others offer professional services so different rates. -

Hi, welcome. I don't know if the following thread will help but that forum might be a better place to look and ask in. HTH,

There are advantages to vinyl/leatherette and leather as seats and other items), Findlay Volkswagen Henderson in the following link cover some of these (not all as they are trying to sell VWs). There does seem to be some snobbery as well usual pomposity coming up in some posts, also laughable type of heroworship at one point but at least it's humorous, more of the humour and a lot less of the pomposity would be better for others but you guys seem to love the 'debating'. (If required look up "if the cap fits".) https://www.findlayvw.com/should-you-get-leather-or-leatherette-seats/ Hopefully you also recognise the irony of worrying too much about safety on cars from the last century. 😂 And I luv the look of that little car it would go down very well in the UK with the "classic" car folk.

correction as I've missed edit, I missed a very important word out -

Thanks for info, discouraging to see that three years later VW have both sides playing up rather than mainly the right hand side. I'll give Classic Car LED Ltd. a ring during the week and see if their now CanBus fooling DRL replacement bulb will beat the complexities of the VW programming. Strong Canbus DRL Daylight Running Light White LED 1156 P21W 382 - "These are CANBUS compatible in the majority of cases and although unlikely with these, some vehicles still require extra load to stop bulb out warnings. This is not a fault with the LEDs as CANBUS systems do vary and it is impossible to match all." - https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/products/strong-canbus-drl-daylight-running-light-white-led-1156-p21w-382 And the ones I saw previously - 12V BA15S WHITE 21W LED 4014 SMD BULB CLASSIC / CANBUS P21W GLB382 - "These bulbs are canbus error free so can be used in modern cars too though not guaranteed suitable for VW/Audi as they run a different system." - https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/products/12v-ba15s-21w-led-4014-smd-bulb-classic-vehicle-p21w-glb382

@FergalK sorry, rushing last reply, I've more time now to fully read your post and respond to it. The Yuasa YBX9096 AGM battery should have been a good battery for your car model and unless you've added something to your car that's power hungry or constant drain I would have expected a longer life from it. But if the battery is allowed to go very low in charge, or too low too often, it never fully recovers. The manufacturer's leaflet has it requires a 4-amp recharge, which would be the most I'd recharge at obviously it can take more and will be quicker recharging but that won't be as effective or as long lasting, if you have been doing much higher rate (and quicker) recharging with you battery charger, or not leaving it long enough to fully recharge, then that will have a less than satisfactory effect and accumulative effect (as with all recharging and use of battery). The Owner's Manual has 0.1 so up to 7-amps on your 70 Ah battery (not as good as 4, 3, 2 or less amps) but your charger might have 8, 10, 12-amps settings available I've no idea (I'd guess 8). - https://cdn.tayna.com/datasheets/YUASA_YBX9096_DATASHEET.pdf If the non-starting has been going on this long then your best bet is perhaps just to fit a new battery and do preventative recharge if and when required before the battery gets too low, before rather than after it gets too low. The new battery does need to be 'coded' in correctly, this will also check if the present battery was 'coded' correctly (it was reported by a Briskoda member that his auto-electrician put in 7 Ah instead of 70Ah, why the car's computer programming would allow this is a different matter). Personally before fitting the new AGM battery to my wife's 2015 Fabia I charged it to 100% so that I knew exactly how it was at installation in case I needed to do subsequent checking shortly after fitting as the AGM (or start/stop). The multimeter is just the tool for initial checking of the battery and car's charging system as you can put the probes directly on to the battery terminal posts to get actual direct reading from the battery. The start/stop system not being active at times it should be is the first sign that the battery is in a low state of charge, often just driving the car with the car's charging system able to fully do the job that is enough to get the battery to a higher state of charge but this does depend on how much can go into the battery and how much electric is being used in the car at that time, the type of journey and driving will also effect this. I'm surprised you've not had warnings light and messages about the battery and possibly all sorts of other unexpected warnings (and unseen error codes) but perhaps you laid the battery low once but it's managed to struggle on enough perhaps helped by some recharges enough to keep other warning and issues away. With modern cars the battery not being able to start the engine is a sure sign that the battery is very low in state of charge, usually you have lots of signs of low charge before this but some people do report a sudden drop (or "death") of their battery and the engine won't start, whatever the cause that's the situation they find themselves in. Often, and I'd suggest very often, it could be recovered from, but not always. Long story short. - https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/yuasa/ybx9096/ Whatever you do or decide let us know how you get on.

The battery is very low when it struggles to start the engine, the battery needs to be fully recharged with an appropriate battery charger, following the instructions for charging in the car's Owner's Manual and the charger and using as lower amperage for charging as practical (so may take at least a full day if not two of recharging). If your car is 2015 and the AGM battery is only 5 years old and you have a battery charger that suggests to me that there is a problem somewhere, perhaps with the car ( car's charging or monitoring system, drain dashcam or other) or perhaps there was a 'coding' issue when this battery was installed or perhaps inappropriate use or lack of use of the battery charger. Try removing the battery from the car (after reading your Owner's Manual for disconnecting/reconnecting and what might need resetting on the car) and fully recharging the battery as low and slow as possible or the "pulse repair" setting but if you've been flogging the battery with trying to start the engine you've possibly flogged the poor battery to death. I've got to drive my wife to drink now but if you look back at posts in this thread and do search the Fabia Mk3 forum you should find lots of threads and posts on the battery, battery recharging, battery 'coding' and such stuff, many from me but also others (some where other believe the car's modern alternator can take full care of the situation regardless of short journeys despite many threads and posts proving otherwise). Good luck.

ETA: Then that would mean the quality of the cars dropped and it was noted here after VW took over allowing for shipping from factory which wasn't long IIRC so VW allowed the quality to be less in a profitable market like the UK, that wouldn't make sense to deliberately do that, it would be a sign of incompetent management, that I can believe. 😆

I don't think that much was done, certainly not a rebuild AFAIK. I was never saying the cars were great, they had issues but so did the other major brand like Ford at literally twice the price and that's not to mention the local manufacturer, BL. When a regime marches in and takes over and wants everything done their way before they have fully understood what is actually required or works best things tend to go downward initially. It was same with the BMW takeover of Rover, things like fitting BMW engines that didn't fit and so on. VW at least improved things at medium term. For the Estelle 2 the importers (Škoda UK?) changed the wheels and tyres and not much else IIRC.

@rum4mo thanks, yes I was aware of "Scandy"(?) setting possibility but I'd not want to interfere with any setting on my wife's car as I don't want to potentially upset the VW computers and much more importantly my wife as it's her car. I dislike "auto" most things on modern cars as often they're unreliable going on to not really functioning at all plus it makes some drivers totally disengage their brains, such as following Tw*tNavs, some seem to think there's a button or setting in the car to do everything for them and also have an over reliance on driver "aids" and "assists", The rare times it really snows here apart from the gridlock of drivers often unable to drive you can also see cars covered in layer of snow all over other than where the wipers has moved the snow and on an open road travelling at the same speed and way as if it was a fine dry day. Don't mention auto, I'm out in a car with auto wipers that really aren't soon and electronic handbrake with manual gears and start stop, lane assist , and, and . . . what fun at roundabouts.

Initially after the VW takeover the cars seen at my local Škoda Dealership the quality went down, plus VW wanted shot of the likes of the small, friendly, local, customer-focused Dealership I went to which was stupid because at the time in the UK the only people who bought Škoda were basically previous owners of the cars. Škoda was literally a joke in the UK there was no way VW could shift that perception quickly, same way a good reputation / perception takes a long time to lose (as with VW quality) a bad reputation / perception rakes even longer. We owned Škoda cars from mid-1980s to early 1990s in the UK so I have some experience of them and the situation in the UK with them, how it was elsewhere I can't say.