nta16

Can't get engine to turn over or can't get engine to start?

@AgentBurn if you've not already done the work. This week my wife found on the back seat of her 2015 Fabia Mk3 a reversing sensor that must have been left in the car from the insurance work (we don't often have anything or one on the back seats, we had just two-seater cars for many years). It appears to locate to the bumper with an off-set pair of bayonet type (triangular) pins and locating/locking bar with square pin on it, so I guess like a bayonet cap incandescent bulb a get correct orientation then press and turn to locate and lock into position. It also has a three-pin socket connector tube for connection to wiring plug. I can put up a photo for you if need.

I think it's most likely to be a computer programming error or computer glitch (brain fart) from my experience of the 11k-mile hire 2023 VW SEAT Arona and 45 years of driving various old and new cars. In the last week I've had two different computer brain-farts from a 2016 Vauxhall, too many to count manufacturer's admitted to internment lane "assist" on a 2023 Ren-No! Nissan and my wife has told me whilst she was away this week her 2015 Fabia Mk3 told her of a fault with one of the (incandescent) DLR that just disappeared off dash and screen. Thank gawd we don't have to rely on these computers and their programs for driving the car, oh no, wait we do, wot could possibly go wrong (and be admitted to). :yikes:

Yes lots of car servicing, maintenance and repairs often boil down to clean and lubricate. The rush is to go for sexy tools like scanners but the basics of timely regular full and proper (rather than Dealership, some garages/mechanics) servicing, maintenance and repairs on the whole car and to include further or longer term cleaning and lubricating where required. I've been told on this site by some that things like cleaning sensors and throttles (unless lots of age and miles) will do not much when my experience is the opposite usually.

Arhhh, that's where you are now I did wonder. I thought about reporting to a Mod to move but decided against it thinking two's better. Thanks.

Hi, welcome. Up to you but you may be better posting or also posting, and searching in the Fabia Mk2 forum where there is more traffic and more specific knowledge on your particular model. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/113-skoda-fabia-mk-ii-2007-2014/ HTH.

Sorry I wasn't suggesting you were I thought exactly as you put that it was an option available and one that might appeal and be good for some. I got interrupted a few times whilst typing the post and missed this bit out. No one is forced to take up RAC offers of sale and installation but when the RAC are called out to breakdowns they do offer their batteries and installations as "distress purchases" rather than sometimes suggesting that the battery could be recovered successfully by fully recharging the battery with an appropriate battery charger maintainer, following the instructions in the car's Owner's Manual and charger's instructions. I've known a couple of case of this one was with a mate of mine, a story I've put on this site a few times at least now. He should have known better as I'd told him about batteries before. He declined the RAC battery and installation (not a stop/start or VW vehicle) and bought and fitted a new battery himself. When I found out I offered to take the previous battery away and was confident of recharging it for successful use and he could keep it for use with the other vehicles in his fleet and/or as a 12v supply in his garage or sheds, which je did when I returned it. It recharged very easily and confirmed a good state of health and drop testing. Another battery that had been replaced prematurely. Years earlier his IIRC 14 year old Toyota Supra at the time had to be jump started several times on a tour exhibition run day in France by my 37 year old MG Midget, no one would believe the MG was being used to jump started the Toyota and not the other way round. Mind he left the Supra running that afternoon for about 3 hours on the road just in front of the cafe where they sat and it never missed a beat or overheated even thought the day was very hot. He still had to buy a (very marginal, cheap) new battery at high cost that late afternoon at a local supermarket type place. He blamed the previous Italian battery fitted to the Japanese car. 🙂 I spotted the (£1454 !) £154 (inc P&P) Tayna battery you linked to and it's included in the link I put up for 115 batteries on Tayna - but they are physically bigger batteries, 315 mm long against the 096 at around 280 mm long based on foxdie2635's given dimensions and the Exide EL700, I have no idea what battery tray space is available, or if 096 or 115 are appropriate batteries types for the Scala foxdie2635 has as I put there insufficient info for me at least to tell.

That's easy, we can deal with that if required later. It depends on a number of things to say if an AGM battery would be that much better than an EFB if you do preventative recharges and maintenance with an appropriate charger. The charger you have bought should do a good job of recharging a battery provided you select the correct mode, as often happens the writing in the instructions is slightly ambiguous. Personally I'd not bother spending that much but if it's what you prefer it's money well spent particularly if it does the job well for many years (preferably decades) and you will need the charger in future even if you replace the battery or change cars (unless a much older car). 3.8A is a good level of amps for the charger but it does mean it can take many overs (overnight or more) to fully (or "fully") recharge the battery particularly if still fitted to the car. 70Ah = 7 amp by the VWSkoda Owner's manual formula, so 3.8A is well within (and better). Modern batteries are often fully sealed so you can't look inside the 6 cells to look at the electrolyte ('water') level in each cell and see the state (at their top at least) of the plates so with modern chargers they can show fully recharged, and it is but not as when the battery was in good condition of health. So you are in some respects working blind and having to fully trust electronics which isn't always a good idea. Take little notice of the magic eye on a battery. - https://batteryworld.varta-automotive.com/en-gb/battery-glossary This depending on what you are using to take this measurement, from where and when. 12.4v wouldn't be too bad on a battery at 4-5 years of use if you considered the measurement taken on the car with possibly 0.2-0.3v of the car's computers still running. If you have some constant drain like "See me home" (or whatever it's called, to me totally unnecessary KESSY keys, something added to the car at long or constant drain then these could be very good readings. Diesel engines take more from the battery to start so usually have a bigger battery to allow for this but are you sure it's the battery that is the cause of the harder starts as a battery that has got to the point of harder starts on a modern VW diesel car would be more difficult to fully recover and most likely nearer to being in terminal health and if left in this state of more difficult starts for a while next to proper "dead". What is the service history of the car, has it had timely engine oil and filter changes, engine air filter changed ever, any other cleaning if required? Any other faults or issues with the car? As you are prepared to pay more to get more, if you are in the UK I would suggest you use something like Shell V-Power diesel fuel regularly (does not have to be every fill up) and at least a tankful before/during a service and/or MoT and a second tankful after/during a service and/or MoT , this of course would be in addition to all servicing maintenance. I'm not a big fan of Autodoc for spares as they list too many options and ALL databases, including manufacturers have errors and omissions so ALL sources of information including manufacturers and posters on forums need to be checked and cross referenced against if possible two (hopefully) reliable other sources of information. That is not enough information to tell if the Exide EL700 is the correct battery for your model (it's 720A (EN rating)). - https://cdn.tayna.com/datasheets/Exide Light Vehicle Batteries 2023 Brochure.pdf ETA: do you know if the Exide battery fitted to your car was the one fitted to the car when it left the factory or did it replace the original factory battery and if so do you know why? If you give more information like the engine you have and your location we can pin things down more and be more accurate, as it is the Exide EL700 is what we in UK would mostly call a 096 EFB battery. The N70 VARTA BLUE DYNAMIC EFB START-STOP CAR BATTERY 12V 70AH (570500076) TYPE 096 would be my personal choice (£117.81 inc P&P) which as you can see make the RAC price seem very high. The RAC are also far too quick to sell new batteries when they are sometimes probably not needed. 115 AGM batteries - https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/types/115-agm/ This is just an example of info, with yours you could put actual year or registration plate year if UK (19/69). HTH.

You could ask on the appropriate Octavia forum on this site if it's a known issue with your model. Porsche used to do the best alignment set ups as all their technicians had to be trained fully as Porsche model(s) at the time had problems that were difficult to resolve at the time but they are expensive. There are plenty of specialist suspension places about but some are better trained or knowledgeable about suspensions than others and garages that deal in general car mechanics might know more and better. Modifying, motorsport places places that deal with VW cars might not be as expensive as you think for proper four wheel alignment, they need to pay for the equipment and keep their staff with quick easy revenue work to do. For you taking your car to a trusted god mechanic is your first best move to check for worn or damaged parts (and very unlikely but it's possible to have a tyre that wears unevenly too). Many 'tyre places' can play around with alignment figures and suggest or show adjustments at a level that may not be possible to correct on a mass market street car or going down a few potholes or tap with a BFH could just about give the plus or minus increments they say are of concern.

We had a hire 2023 VW SEAT Arona as a hire car recently with 10k-miles recorded and first thing I noticed on first drive was the brakes snatched at the end of pushing the brake pedal. I'm not one to push hard on the brake pedal so this surprised me. Later drives It seemed to go away then be at the start of the pedal push. Though VW and Dealership I'm sure would never admit it (or VW's computer programmers) I think it could well be a computer programming error or of course the famous computer glitch (brain fart?). You could look and see if there's any admitted 'Recall' (but I doubt it). - https://www.skoda-auto.com/services/recall-campaigns On a tangent - with the hire 2023 VW SEAT Arona one of the first things I done was the driver checks including the car battery, I fully recharged it using my appropriate battery charger and glad I did given the car's use as a temporary replacement for my wife's 2015 Fabia Mk3. I've copied and pasted this from a previous post I've put on Fabia MK4 forum. - To save issues and hassles particularly look at your Owner's Manual about 'Functionality – Protection against discharge of the 12 volt vehicle battery' and '12 volt vehicle battery charging' as if the car battery gets too low the computer will punish you for your mistake and can cause all sorts of unexpected issues and this can be before or after you get warning messages or lights to tell you the car battery is too low for them. Just because the car starts and the lights seems bright enough doesn't mean the battery is in a good state of charge. If you let the battery get too low and/or too often you may not be able to fully recover it and it will need replacing a lot sooner than if given some care, (number one call of breakdown calls outs is battery related, almost always caused by owner/driver use/abuse/neglect). Just driving the car, particularly if many short journeys often is now insufficient on modern cars with all their computers and consumer convenience items so preventative car battery recharges with an appropriate battery charger is needed, a lower amps charger is normally better than a higher amps charger (see VW instructions in Owner's Manual). HTH.

@foxdie2635 how much is the battery dying? Rather than replacing have you tried fully recharging the battery with an appropriate battery charger, following the instructions in the car's Owner's Manual and charger's instructions. A lower amp charger is generally better than a higher amp charger (see Owner's Manual). If the battery is very low then the recharging could take a long time, many hours, so if you can't fully recharge the battery in one go do it in a couple of goes (or more) as close together as possible. Time and patience are required, these are sometimes totally out of stock for some. VWSkoda Owner's Manuals free pdf downloads. - https://manual.skoda-auto.com/004/en-com/Models Do you fully know about the requirements with changing a car battery on a start/stop VW car? Car batteries are one of the most over sold car parts and number cause of breakdown call outs, very rarely is the battery the at fault but it's use/abuse/neglect by the car's owner/driver. Sometimes, perhaps often now, the car battery has had too much and/or too often use/abuse/neglect and can't be fully recovered for successful medium and longer term use but obviously I can't know if that's the case for your battery. Good luck with whatever you decide, if you want more info, just ask.

When all else fails, or better still at the very start, you can read and refer to the Owner's Manual. @Matt116 may have already done so. Despite what some might make out it's not against any law for a man to read instructions). If you read the Owner's Manual and refer to it when need it could save you time, hassle and money (unnecessary visits to Dealership/garage/mechanic). To save issues and hassles particularly look at your Owner's Manual about 'Functionality – Protection against discharge of the 12 volt vehicle battery' and '12 volt vehicle battery charging' as if the car battery gets too low the computer will punish you for your mistake and can cause all sorts of unexpected issues and this can be before or after you get warning messages or lights to tell you the car battery is too low for them. Just because the car starts and the lights seems bright enough doesn't mean the battery is in a good state of charge. If you let the battery get too low and/or too often you may not be able to fully recover it and it will need replacing a lot sooner than if given some care, (number one call of breakdown calls outs is battery related, almost always caused by owner/driver use/abuse/neglect). Just driving the car, particularly if many short journeys often is now insufficient on modern cars with all their computers and consumer convenience items so preventative car battery recharges with an appropriate battery charger is needed, a lower amps charger is normally better than a higher amps charger (see VW instructions in Owner's Manual).

Good point, I'll redact that - and if I can redact it I'll cover it with black lines or boxes. 😁

I'm lucky to remember my name most days, I think the light was on an earlier model, I'm not sure Fabias have such things as cameras, not earlier years anyway. I'm not able to check parts numbers so this is just as an example - Outdoor Handle for the 5th Door Škoda - boot unlocking switch for cars with central locking, for combi and sedan cars - https://www.skoda-parts.com/spare-part/6y0827574m-outdoor-handle-for-the-5th-door-skoda-6096.html Replacing the switch might get the boot light working too, but I don't know. Only as example - I don't think you need this -Servomotor for the 5th Door Lock Škoda - Boot lid lock with a motor for opening the boot, bottom part, for cars with central locking - https://www.skoda-parts.com/spare-part/6y0827511g-servomotor-for-the-5th-door-lock-skoda-5786.html