nta16

All depends on where you live, how you drive, how you expect the tyres to perform. The wheel and tyres sizes offered on modern cars are more form over function more party frocks and high heels than sensible wear for what's required. Whilst the car is new to a driver then the standard tyres it comes with are best whilst the driver learns the vehicle and what it can do then after a reasonable period of learning and adjustments if wanted then a change of tyres (better still, if possible to smaller wheels and narrower tyres with more sidewall height for our 3rd-world roads, grip and perform can be retained or improved from original wheel and tyre sizes). I used to give a set of tyres up to 1,000 miles to see if I like them, mainly on performance vehicles, but that luxury is in the past, now I adapt my driving to suit what's on the car until the tyres need changing and improve the tyres then.

Another quick thought, rather than a garage someone who installs or repairs infotainment / "stereos" / electronics / computers might(?) be a better bet.

If you don't have access to a relevant level scan tool for your car model and year then If you look on the following link there might be a Briskoda member near you able to give you a scan report or even perhaps a solution, most are amateurs and happy to take beer tokens, others might be professionals. Whoever uses a scan tool, including Dealerships and other professionals you need to check the scan tool has the program for your model and year and that program is fully updated, many are very lazy or ignorant of such things. I would also ask for any error codes to be deleted, another thing some garages and people don't bother doing. Briskoda VCDS Owners Map (click me)

No it's not, you drive the car with sensors located, this is real world testing specific to your car and the circumstances it is driven in. Tests do not have to be complicated just thorough.

Hi, welcome. As put this could be two separate issues (or perhaps one combined). Like lots on modern cars it's a computer so first thing I'd try is "switching it off 'n' on agen" by pulling its power fuse for a while or go into the menu and find a factory reset for it. Check for any needed software update or search on this forum for the various similar (same?) issue(s) and see how they were resolved - or do a Google search which might bring you back to this forum anyway. 'Skoda Fabia Mk III (2014-2021)' forum. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/298-skoda-fabia-mk-iii-2014-2021/ Be interesting to know how the garage diagnosed a new head unit was required, did they give you a scan tool report showing all the errors or any sort of live data record. Obviously over an internet we can't know for sure that is wrong but it does sound a bit like replacing a main component when a clean, repair or replacement of a part might fix the problem. Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Be interesting to see how long it lasts if it's one from the Chinese government backed export trade push. Be interesting to get a real life review after 3 or 4 years of summer use.

In the UK you can buy time in a wind tunnel for testing, I've known of someone who has done this but he was writing a book, no doubt now you could get the car mapped for computer simulations but nothing beats real world testing to be sure. You can buy sensors for heat and airflow and place them in various locations on the car and record real world circumstances. Of course this takes time, effort, patience and careful recording of the results and all the variables. As you are only really interested in heat over summer you only need to do this over summer perhaps starting in late spring and going on to early autumn to be sure. Then how will this affect your winter warming worries about getting the engine warmed as quickly as possible. Even the experts in this area employed by the car manufacturers make mistakes despite all the time and development facilities they have at their disposal but you don't have the marketing and sales regions environments worry of the car manufacturers.

Surely you need to do more research about where the cooling air can enter and engine bay hot air can go when your car is going slow or stationary in city traffic, at lower speeds when climbing mountain roads, in hot summer weather.

Why not just cut out every other one and keep a factory and correct period look to it.

Brand and model?

I don't know about phones but with PC/laptop hover your cursor over the posters name symbol thingy (I've no idea what it's called) and you will see when the poster last visited the site. -

Have you looked on the following and then see whose near you and current, most amateur member who might just want beer tokens, some professional so more required. With anyone with a scan tool do check it is suitable for your model and year and that it is fully up to date with software updates particularly for your model and year. - Briskoda VCDS Owners Map (click me)

If you put your engine code into a search you should/could get a list of which other vehicles it went in.

Until someone else comes along my first thoughts are - the Wireless Carplay Android Auto 2 in 1 Smart Dongle Adapter might be faulty you are combining three bits of computer stuff and their programming, any one of those or a combination or permutation of those may not work well together do the ports and plugs go together and are a good tight fit, solid reliable connection are the dongle, phone and Swing radio fully up to date with software updates. Are you able to test the dongle in another car with another phone to confirm it works properly. Then are you able to use the dongle with a different phone in your Fabia to see if there is any difference. Just a possible processes of elimination. At home I keep a "smart" phone repair kit, it is a 2 lbs (1 kg) lump hammer and a 4" (10 cm) nail, I think the best place for a "smart" phone with a car is under one of the tyres. 😁 I used a car phone in the late 1980s, and SatNavs in 1990s and had my fill of them then and in some ways the phones are not much better now than they were then but more annoying now with all the other stuff on them. But as always each to their own, I hope you sort things,

Not always the case, obviously I don't know with your son's battery but a lot of these so-called "smart" chargers ain't that smart (same as "smart" phones) and they need to see certain levels of voltage or they think the battery is "dead" and unrecoverable. Some of these voltages can be quite high considering, some chargers actually bother to tell you how low they go in their instructions but there are ways of getting around the "smart" charger to get them to do their work. 8 years isn't necessarily that old for a battery but it does depend on a lot of variables including the car and the owner/driver(s). I'm with you for SteveTheElder's battery, if there's no battery monitoring and start/stop I'd take the battery off the car and fully charge it - or charge it on the car but again fully, if I hadn't the time available and/or needed to use the car to fully charge it in one go then I'd fully charge it in the second go as soon as possible after the first go. Low and slow to fully charged is what's required for best results and longer reliable battery life. Any recharging is better than none but quick (higher amps) partial recharging isn't best.

Until a couple of years ago, for 16 years, my daily and only car was a 1973 MG Midget so very little electric stuff on it, though it did have interior and boot lights and an alternator (a number of weeks older and it would have been a dynamo) those luxuries weren't on my 1969 Spridget that I used as a daily in the mid-1990s, I never had any battery issues with those cars. I've been charging elderly neighbours' car batteries for decades now and helping those younger that don't know or have forgot so was experienced with this but this needs 'coding' to change the battery was all new to me when my wife got the start/stop Fabia. This gave me a level of annoyance and inconvenience as I was yet to have a neighbour with a higher level scan tool and had to seek help from a Briskoda member to do the 'coding'. Thus the learning on this began with the usual level of missing info from VW and I wasn't confident with the info I got from a BMW "technician" (the husband of my wife's boss) who wasn't sure!

Hi, welcome. Sorry but I do not have the first clue about such things as - be prepared for a shock - I have never owned a so-called "smart" phone but until someone else posts, if you have not done so already, you could look at similar posts and topics on this forum, that your thread/post is on (Skoda Fabia Mk III (2014-2021)) or do a Google search which might bring you back here, to see if they help. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/298-skoda-fabia-mk-iii-2014-2021/

About 26 days before is a good time to renew. The nearer you get to renewal date the higher the premium and less offers from insurers to draw you to them. Avoiding certain times can also save you on premiums. Adjusting your excess can not only save you on premiums but also on excess, adjusting excess figures to a certain extent may not alter the premium (i.e less excess for same premium cost). Things that can help, like having other driver(s) on the policy (subject to age, etc.) and you having access to drive other car(s), trying a different job title, employment type, . . . obviously you must be honest in all you do. I can assure you from my wife's accident earlier this year (THE afternoon of the night the new insurance was to be placed!!) will being open claim increase your renewal premium, a lot. Have a look at Money Saving Expert for tips. Also, we went trough TopCahback's Compare site and got insurance via one of the big comparison sites and got a quote very slightly less than if we didn't go through TopCashback Compare for exactly the same insurer and policy and last year we got £42 back from TopCashback this year £45. Last year we could have picked a policy that was about 25% less (we have low premiums and protected NCD) but I'm glad we were never tempted (not that we would have been given decades of experience) as we had to claim on that policy in its last month and everything was so easy and dealt with so well, worth even more than the 25% difference. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/ https://www.topcashback.co.uk/topcashback-compare/

@SteveTheElder something I forgot, to help decided if it's worth recharging your battery. If you don't have start/stop then you might have (no battery monitoring, so no 'coding') a standard battery and it might be possible to look at each of the battery's 6 cells to check the "water/acid" (electrolyte) levels in each cell to check they are at the correct level and also the state of the plates in each cell. Often if the battery is not sealed the screw off cell covers are just under the sticky top label(s) and you only need to peel the label(s) back to see them. If the plates in the cell(s) are buckled (usually end cell) then you could still recharge the battery to give more time and battery but you do want to replace the battery ASAP. Obviously for any of above required safety precautions should be taken. If standard battery I would take the battery off the car to recharge it if possible. Before fitting a new battery to a car I always fully charge it, if it's already "fully charged" then this won't take long at all, if I'm fitting a new battery I want to know it was as good as it could be when I fitted it. For new battery unless you're not keeping the car long get the best battery you can, don't be fooled by impressive figures for CCA, you need to compare apples with apples so you want to check and compare the CCA figures given as EN. And look for the manufacturers leaflets/catalogues for these figures as suppliers don't always give the correct figures. Ah figures don't have different systems of specification so provided they are correct you are comparing apples with apples. Do bear in mind both are quoted for when the battery is new, a better battery will sustain nearer its new figures for longer with age and use.

Yeap that could be so, I put best to get the battery 'coded' really for start/stop monitoring but many don't and report no issues, who knows without monitoring the battery and seeing it full life how much odds the 'coding' or not 'coding' makes and how long the computer takes to learn the battery has improved so much and in the meantime has much life might have been shaved off the new battery, I suspect very little but I have no proof of that and I have a theory to get around that but no proof. I'm not saying that it's not possible to get a faulty battery but that would be very rare, more that something external would be the cause. You could get a lot more reliable life but it does depend on a few variables. As for testing on the battery terminals that is what I always suggest but you do want a tested (for conformation) tester and to do this as many hours after the battery has been recharged as possible and allow say 0.2v or 0.3v draw of the car's systems. This does remind me of something I meant to put in my previous post. I have recovered batteries at much, much lower voltages, this is not always possible with many modern "smart" chargers (unless you trick them) but old battery chargers can do it with a good stock of both time and patience. I may not trust the batteries taken down to extremely low voltages for much use and certainly not on a modern German marque car (such as VWŠkoda) even if they're not start/stop. Slight correction there, 12v would be low, a new battery fully charged (not all new batteries are fully charged when fitted) would show before fitting 12.7v /12.8v perhaps even 12.9v depending on a few variables. Here is a VW battery voltage list. - "Charge level No-load voltage 1.28 g/cm3 100% 12.7 V 1.21 g/cm3 60% 12.3 V 1.18 g/cm3 40% 12.1 V 1.10 g/cm3 0% 11.7 V" HTH.

Before considering changing the battery, possibly prematurely, why not try a slow (time), low (amperage) full recharge of the battery using an appropriate battery charger maintainer, following the instructions in the car's 'Owners Manual' and for the charger maintainer. This might require two things that many don't keep much stock of and might not have one or the other, or for some both, time and patience. If the battery is in a low state of charge it might take many hours to fully recharge slow and low perhaps overnight and more or 24+ or more. It also depends on what you mean by 'tired', if you mean the battery uses a bit of time and effort or struggles to start the engine then the battery is very low in charge and if this situation has been going on for a while or has happened before then the battery might also be in a lower state of health too, You can possibly get more good life out of the battery even then by the low slow recharge to full with an an appropriate battery charger maintainer, following the instructions in the car's 'Owners Manual' and for the charger maintainer but it does depend on the level of use/abuse and neglect the battery's had. For 'coding;, if your battery has a monitoring connection on the battery earth terminal connector then it'd be best to get it 'coded' even if replacing with the same type of battery (standard/EFB/AGM) and (about) the same amps hours (Ah). What you need to do when disconnecting/reconnecting your battery and what needs to be reset will be in your car's 'Owner's Manual' normally even if it has the radio it's not required but that depends perhaps and certainly if you have put in an after market radio. Basically make sure all electric windows are fully closed, sunroof fully closed and all electrics are switched off before you disconnect the battery and there shouldn't be a lot to do other than perhaps time of day clock. In your car's 'Owner's Manual' if it has for recharging the battery to connect to an a body earth point that might be a sign you have battery monitoring. Let us know how you get on whether trying recharging or replacement.

You might be better looking, searching and/or asking on the 'Skoda Favorit, Skoda Felicia, Skoda Fun and Skoda Forman' forum. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/90-skoda-favorit-skoda-felicia-skoda-fun-and-skoda-forman/

Hi, welcome. Do not worry about your English it is very good and thank you for posting in English on an English language site. Sorry but I do not have the first clue about such things as - be prepared for a shock - I have never owned a so-called "smart" phone but until someone else posts, if you have not done so already, you could look at similar posts and topics on this forum, that your thread/post is on (Skoda Fabia Mk III (2014-2021)) or do a Google search which might bring you back here, to see if they help. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/298-skoda-fabia-mk-iii-2014-2021/ Also great to see you use the camera phone appropriately (in landscape not portrait) and give lots of info and a photo. You may need to put which software version you have but I have no idea if that would matter for your issue. Good luck.

Which did you choose?

Hopefully s/h unit is in UK so less than £24 P&P. I'd clean and GT85 it in all the necessary places before fitting it, and of course test full operation a good few times before and after installation. The fault might be under the shaft assembly which might be folded on to the bracket by look of your photo, time might tell.