nta16

A couple of things I forgot I was going to put before. Are you sure the Denso plugs were not counterfeit and Denso warn (as others would) - "DENSO will not bear any responsibility whatsoever for any trouble arising from mechanically or electronically modified engines or vehicles. It is the user's judgement and responsibility to check the specifications required for modified engines, which includes and not limited to, gapping, heat ranges, reach, projection, and/or clearances with valves and/or pistons." Also with the comparison to my wife's 2015 Fabia Mk3's intermittent cold start high idle, when my neighbour used his higher/deeper level scanner there were 638 data points for the engine alone which shows how many sensors and points of reading there are for the engine alone without the hundreds more on the rest of the car some of which will react with and interfere with the engine. Your 2001 car will have a tiny fraction of the data points and computer programs interactions on the engine let alone the whole car compared with the 2015 car. I think if you heard the all different sounds from the front seats that her car makes and they vary on different start ups and different journeys you would be worried all the time. I just let the computer programs battle each other as long as the car seems to be going OK. And I totally ignore any mpg figures the car's computers give, just do an occasional petrol station pump delivery figure by miles since previous fill up, but then only as a rough overall guide as the driving conditions would have varied so much between fillups.

Great stuff :woohoo: - this is what good cleaning and good tuning should achieve, that is, better performance which will include better (comparative) fuel consumption. Owners and poorer quality mechanics often get carried away with looking for higher level and more sophisticated solutions so they can play with more sophisticated tools and feel more sexy about the work and themselves. Where as a good mechanic will always start with the basics as he knows you can not reliably move on until the basics are at least checked. Much of servicing, maintenance and often repairs boil down to clean and lubricate, even using scan tools to find and eventually erase error codes is cleaning. On another thread a chap had just bought a Fabia 1 that had not been looked after and IIRC was even considering getting another second-hand engine (I get threads confused), he just done a basic service on the engine and was delighted by the results - of course the engine is of low importance for servicing on a vehicle new to you - brakes, steering, suspension (all three include tyres), electrical safety items and visibility are higher priority. Do not worry about it as it depends on the brand and type used but to me the MAF cleaner spray I have used is stronger by the smell it gives off, I would have used electrical contact cleaner directly on the sensor if removed or more throttle body air intake cleaner if generally spraying the area. I get the urine extracted from me on the Fabia threads for suggesting many things including MAF and throttle body cleaning on older cars as apparently this does not need doing often, what is forgotten is that on most old cars it might be a very long time ago that it was done and possibly never done before, same as power steering, gearbox (clutch, rear axle) fluids. I assumed with all your care of your car and concentration in fuel consumption that you have cleaned all the items before.

I saw the video above but they also have two others for the same, showing same location, which might just be a matter of treble listings but it took away my confidence in the information, always best to verify information, especially from the internet or social media sources. Perhaps @FavoritForman94 could confirm location and type once found.

I would have thought so but do not know for sure but sometimes they can be difficult to see and locate. A mate's 1993-6 Ford engine has loose wire (connectors) not fixed, or with a covering panel or flap like most today so if you can not find it under the dash area, often around the pedals it might (I do not know) be loose wire connector tucked behind a panel piece. I do not know if it is a standard connector, it might be (I do not know) a two cables-connectors ("2 by 2" adapter) as in video below.

Well done. All very basic but very necessary stuff, what much of servicing, maintenance and even repairs often boil down to which is clean and lubricate. Do not forget the rest of the whole car, engines aren't that important compare to brake, steering, suspension (all three include tyres), lights, visibility and safety electrics. I'd go a bit further with the engine and check, and if required change, the spark plugs, also as appropriate (boys) clean the MAF and throttle body. Also consider things like brake fluid (definitely) and coolant - but never pyramid selling, they went out of fashion millenniums ago.

Your car is does not has as many computers, programs, wires and connectors and start/stop over-complicated, over-intrusive, intertwined system like the 2015 Fabia - and I have never timed it, it might be 1 minute and 59 seconds or two minutes and 1 second, or shorter or longer, I just wait until it doesn't sound as rough as just after starting and the revs have dropped from wherever they were to over a thousand and drive off. I rarely start the car in the morning or drive it, my wife would just drive off seconds or fractions of a second after it starts. I can not focus are these chaps carrying 'on strike' placards. I am tuned.

Not that I want to add to this thread drift, but can you fully ever trust anything that DuPont say, could just be distracting marketing guff. Good though that they didn't want to be associated with anything, like Slick-50, if they thought it deceitful.

I can believe it, many others might say it is just a placebo effect, some think the oil is filled for life so lasts for life. They never say if the steering is transferred to another car after the demise of the first whether this is the same life or a second life. Also some say oil is in the ground for millions of years so why would it go off in a few decades. Great too. Perhaps later you could be persuaded of the benefit of a (hot, thorough) changing of the gear box oil, to even perhaps a better oil, not GL5 of course. Personally I would not leave it a few says and look for leaks before and after the next drive and check and allow for the effects of gravity and driving the car forward. If there are no signs of leaks then obviously you will need to check before and after the next drive and so on. This can be a good use of a camera, subject to taking a good photo with correct focus and flash lighting, as you can zoom in for close details.

You don't need to, I think it is a good idea to have the engine running for 10 seconds or so before pulling away to check all the dials and for warning lights, to listen and perhaps smell and taste for anything unusual, to briefly check things are as they should be before pulling away. But you do not need to wait for the idle to fully drop, my wife's 2015 Fabia Mk3 might sometimes take two, three(?), four(?) minutes to settle to normal idle, I am not sure how long as I have not waited more that about one to two minutes before pulling away. I have no idea why it sometimes keeps the idle high and the next day not, I expect it is all of VW's over-complicated and over-intrusive intertwined computer programs battling each other deciding what to do with and give priority to engine and electrics. With my car I start the car with the choke cable pulled out as required then move it in a bit to a steady fast idle whilst I check the dials and listen for today's new noise then I drive off, the choke is still out so the idle would still be fast, I am the ECU deciding on the idle speed and perhaps fuel air mixture with the choke cable and accelerator pedal. The Driver's Handbook for my car, and the models before it have not to let the engine warm by a slow idle but to warm the engine at a fast idle, 1,000rpm in this case though mine needs to be higher, and that less damage is done by driving the car straight on to the road. Below is from a 1955 (MGA) Driver's Handbook, your electronics are doing the job of the MG driver's head and hand.

@Kobayashi great news it's sorted. Good on you for realising this limitation. Good on them for finding the issue, perhaps they used a deeper scan tool to narrow down the area that needed attention but the old fashion use of human senses and biological computer and dealing with the very unsexy and basic hands and eyes on diagnostics, is not to be demised. The difference between the first and second garage isn't just expertise, another lesson in life or perhaps a reminder of past experience(s) with garages and mechanics. With the issue being intermittent, the 1st garage, the diagnostic equipment available to you I think it was possibly OK to indulge in the thread drifts and tangents (sounds like triangular Pringles), even if you did get told off for doing so, and you kept your good humour, you survived and are now a little older and wiser. 🙂 Some of us are just older. 😄

A mate had a s/h MR2 (mk1) with a bird covering a lot of the bonnet, a special edition car or something, I didn't take in the details as it looked too Trans-Am(?) to me and oversized to the small bonnet.

I didn't even notice, a true Freudian slip.

Earlier ones perhaps later blue, but I was thinking black anyway. I did think about buying one 20 years ago and had a quick look at one in a local-ish classic car showroom but I think it must have been a front for some tax dodge as I'd mostly seen the same cars as I passed by and there was no one about as I climbed all over the car. We have Billing Aquadrome near by and they used to have big annual club show/meets there and that year three different Ford clubs over one weekend including 1600E so I went down. Saw and learnt enough to put me off, and I saw one with opening quarterlights having not noticed the others weren't, IIRC export model for somewhere like Greece I think so 6/60 instead of 4/60 air-con.

I've got a feel you're right - but the bumper and lights could have been damaged when the car was reserved in to and still to be sorted by the insurance, and look it sez 1600 on the log book. I knew someone with a Mk2 1600 and they wanted to turn it into an E , had the gearbox remote above the tunnel and it used to have a whistle, probably from under the car and through the hole in the tin, I was too young to care where I lived not to many families even knew someone with a car.

Yes but DuPont (a very famous family in USA particularly locally to the factory) didn't allow the use of Teflon. You could probably now get a crate of PTFE from AleExpress(?) (is that the Dark Web)? I thought you were posting to put in your order for XcelPlus ™, if we all say how much we want I can perhaps negotiate a group discount, it doesn't just go in cars, you got a petrol mower or airplane, more bulk more discount, ask your family, and er, er, neighbours, get yer thinkin' cap on, 'o else needs it that you know.

Apparantly never Teflon but PTFE - but yes the stuff in Halfords is just the brand name use by Kraco Car Care International. - https://kraco.co.uk/slick-50/ - BUT - we don't have to put up with the inferior stuff we can get the proper original product (club meets instead group meetings) - XcelPlus ™ - club discounts perhaps - https://xcelplus.com.au/products.htm

The other day a poster on another section found the Fabia he had recently bought had the wrong spark plugs as their reach was too short, the car still ran. That is the thing there will be a range of plugs that will fit and work in your car as long as they are the correct reach and heat but some may not work as well and then others work great but they also need to be good across the whole range of use of the car not just in traffic or spirited driving. With older cars, some combinations work good on one car but the same combination on another car of the same model and year not so well, less precision years back and of course use and abuse since the cars left the factory. Now I understand why you are so careful about your plug selection but remember I AM NOT a mechanic or expert in anything I was just chasing numbers so do check yourself too. Generally it used to be that older cars liked the copper plugs but if yours was originally spec'd for platinum a change to iridium is not such a big step. Hold on ... if you have a motorbike why are you using your car on such short city journeys, is it too big or wrongly geared for city use.

That was the point, I had a S2000 and IIRC it's power band was something like 7, ?50 and 8,3?50, limiter at 9,000. You could switch the digital speedo to kph which I thought was useful on our weekend at Laon Historical but I kept mentally working kph back to mph to work out how fast I was going so I just switch back to mph as that was easier for me to work out as kph!

If it wasn't for the Eagle that could almost be a brochure photo. I wonder what BL could offer to compete with that. 😄

10 year old last year of the Mk2, is it a 1600E or just the grille (IIRC). Dillion looks fabulous, big lad, cross between a cat and a fox maybe (or is he a dog, blurry eyes and photo), fantastic regardless.

You're so young you won't know about the reels and machine the chap from the Rugby club would lend or hire out, simpler and more innocent times (relatively anyway).

Are you sure it's suitable for public viewing !? Has it got audio or just tick, tick, tick?

Yes and IIRC MGs Rileys and possibly Wolseleys - but don't quote me on any of that. "Single-carb 1275cc engine optional on last MkIs and offered on first MkIIs; 1100 MkIIs available until early '68. From late '68 twin-carb '1300' standardised. The best way to go to 1100-ing - ask the Japanese, who've been snapping up these Vanden Plas models." I didn't do much on my cars, except mess up the rocker clearances the day before going to the coast for the weekend (Gt. Yarmouth of course) and the mate I was going with had a cousin who luckily was a Jag mechanic, he told me never to touch the car again as I wasn't suited to car mechanics - he wasn't wrong. Redex. 🤣 That was only used to fill your mates car with smoke when he parked behind you having left his windows down. My wife had a 1974 Cortina Mk3 2000E when it was around 16 years old, she decided at the time she wanted to give up full-time work for part-time - AND have her own transport!! Less income and more expenditure!

D.FYLAKTOS - "They disagree for iridium and agree to platinum but i don't want the BKUR5ET-10 again". This may well just be a sales region thing as they do not list BKR5EIX on the site via a site search. You are only using petrol so quite probably a whole lot of NGK and other manufacturers plugs would be suitable but VW picked on one possibly for a multitude of reasons, the engine basically went back decades even when new (or over 100 years generally) but they were using a newer ignition system and oils and petrols were changed and changing. I am sure VW being a German engineering quality company made the decision purely on engineering grounds and nothing to do with production cost or marketing deals with any plug manufacturer. I was going to suggest a very plain old style Champion plug you could try, but as you can probably appreciate from the few searches you have done, it was so difficult to prove the lineage and full details of the possible plug(s) because they had been superseded and lists amalgamated so many times over the decades. D.FYLAKTOS - "so what option do i have with NGK brand?" So to answer your question - as the UK NGK site does not list BKR5EIX (11) and the Greek(?) one does that is the one I would go for, plus it is one grade warmer which you wanted. One The Green Spark Plug Limited site SKODA FELICIA 1289cc MPI MULTI ELECTRODE AMGAMHAMJ 96->01 lists three plugs, one of which is BKR5EIX11. AFAIK the 11 will be a 1.1mm pre-set so you only need check it and install if correct. -https://www.gsparkplug.com/tag/10370/SKODA FELICIA 1289cc MPI MULTI ELECTRODE AMGAMHAMJ 96->01 I saw this plug as a possibility before but as you did not want iridium I did not chase it up, see pdf (page 2) for upgrade conformation from 2016. You should really find your own back up collaboration in case I have made any mistakes, I often do. NGK_Upgrades.pdf

Oh right, thanks, I've shown my ignorance of youth again. I will put my hands up and say clearly - I have used their products in the past, perhaps a self-help group could be established here for ex-users.