nta16

Just in case you've missed the Torx double-ended screwdriver as the head of the handle of it is black (plastic) and looks like a (17mm?) socket thing just sticking out of the polystyrene in the boot spare wheel well, see attached image, one end looks T25 to me. If not, another tip, if you buy a set of er, tips then don't buy the really cheap ones as they can be poorly made and possibly damage the fitting's socket making it awkward even if you get a good quality tool. I've bought US Pro / Bergen which are lower priced but very reasonable build quality for the price and occasional use. I much prefer a proper Torx (screw)driver with handle and shaft to those tips but sometimes there's only room for those tips in a ratchet handle unless you remove other stuff that's in the way which can be a pain and unnecessary risk.

No screwdriver or different size? A tip, er, if you buy those er, tips, or tip set, don't get the hollow (security, or many other names given to them) Torx tips (or screwdrivers) to use on standard non-hollow (non-security) fittings otherwise the tip (or driver, er, tip) can twist and distort, guess how I know. Also the standard Torx and security/hollow/TS are 6-point but you can also get 5-point security/hollow fittings and er, tips, guess how I know that, but I don't think I've seen any on the Fabia (on GM Vauxhall and possibly VW though).

Just remembered - have a look in the car's toolkit in the boot there might be a double-ended Torx screwdriver that's a T25 one end (possibly the end hidden in the handle).

You done a good job. I've just realised, perhaps the window was down in the first photo as the texture of door capping looks different and/or you gave that a wipe over too. Rain can be useful for cleaning, but more than once the rain would start just before I'd be finishing (synthetic) chamois'ing off the car and my neighbours would get the mistaken idea that I must enjoy cleaning the car. As all the cars we've owned have almost always been permanently outside, even if they're not used much or far they soon get dirty. When I was lent a garage one time to store a car for a month I washed and polished it before putting it away and two weeks later when I went to give it a quick run I caught by surprise when I lifted the garage door to see the car was still clean and shiny, magically things theses garages.

Yes my mistake. 😀 I was thinking of the one and only time I used a jet washer to clean the wheels of a car, I didn't think it made a very good job of it so fully drained it as I'd only used it twice in about 10 years of ownership and it was stored in a unheated shed, can't for the life of me remember now why I bought it in the first place, I think I might have used it twice since then. Difference in generations I expect, I'd never think of using a jet washer to clean a car, perhaps initially for off-roading I expect but I keep to tarmac & concrete. Other than cleaning under the wheel arches and underside of the car I don't even use a hose anymore. Bit like I don't see the point of using a power tool to put a few screws in or remove a few nuts or bolts, a young neighbour was surprised to see me use a hand-drill to put a couple of pilot holes in some wood. I'm all for using tools and chemicals to make the work easier but often it can be wasting time and resources, batteries or main electric as I'll still eat the same amount even if I used power tools. 😄 As Northampton is so far inland we have very temperate weather normally but living at the top of a hill it can get cold and windy. I let the rain and air resistance clear the moss of our cars other than the very occasional cleaning with waterless wash 'n' wax, the days of two-day car cleaning are well behind me, almost decades back.

Yeah but jet washing, by the time you've dragged out and connected up the power tool (to electric and water in tis case and drained the machined for frost protection) you could have used simple hand tools and have the job finished, tools away, finished a mug of tea and biccies and had a quick nap. You boys with your toys. 🤣

Wow what a difference, well done. I was trying to work out if the photos were of the same window, blimey you'd got a garden growing there.

How bad is this moss, is it rather dried on green stuff (moss?) rather than the usual wet/damp/moist moss (I'm no gardener). Always let the chemicals do the hard work for you, I'd not bother with spraying and soaking overnight, if that was needed I'd just wait for a night where it's going to rain and clean the next day, and I'd not bother with car shampoo, water is good as a lubricant and cleaner, I'd just spray and brush - but diluted car shampoo would be fine but you'd only need a pipette of shampoo to a cup of water. TBH I leave the rain and summer to do all the work, I'm not much for cleaning cars nowadays, prefer cleaning neighbours cars to ours. Forgot to put the photo of silicon oil to promote discussion about paint. 😁 Good luck let us know how you get on, perhaps a before and after photo.

I'm not sure you can say any car is very eco. 😁 Sounds like you're getting good petrol economy though - provided you're not just relying on a VAG computer when working out distance mpg. 🤣 I'm not sure a 6th gear would give you any more mpg, different wheels and tyres (and/or pressures) would and the use of cruise control. I've never measured the difference in mpg having the tyres at the higher pressure makes but the difference in rolling resistance is very noticeable with more time with the foot "off the gas" and difference in braking. Easy to get more mpg, go on the motorway at 60mph or even 50mph, I've done it and I'm from the time before speed cameras with a mate as a sales rep that always drove pedal to the floor in outside lane and only moving to middle lane if the rep behind him had a faster car or a performance car was behind him, those days 70mph was inside lane with the other two lanes going stages faster. Funnily enough it was a fuel shortage or big price hike, I forget which and exactly when, when I first noticed that I was travelling on the motorway at 70mph in the inside lane, at a quiet time, and no one was coming flying by me and I was overtaking many cars but were overtaking me. A big increase in fuel prices would dramatically improve mpg, and cut down traffic, seen it more than once in the past, there must be statistics on it somewhere.

Different strokes for different folks but I've not found my wife's 90ps 5-speed any problem on motorways, I can't remember what the revs are but they didn't seem particularly high to me or excessive noise or vibration. I suppose if we did regular and long motorway journeys I might feel differently.

I was taking it that toe was referring to front and just conformation of what AGFalco put about the rear. Personally I was wondering if damage was also done to rear as well or just the need to balance the rear wheels as a set of four new wheels(?) and tyres(?) but all seems sorted now anyway.

Motorway will help with straight line and speed assessment but If you have the equivalent of English country narrow tight twisty roads with long sweeping and short tight bends that can be taken at a reasonable (and obviously safe) speed then that's also good for testing, all subject to your tyres all being in good condition and at correct pressures. Totally agree that given the work they did that wheel balance and road testing just seems to be have forgotten about first time, could be many reasons for it but none with a good excuse for letting you have the vehicle back the way it was. Good luck.

I'd just try brushing with an old toothbrush, if you want whilst spraying with a water mister bottle (that's many sorts of emptied and cleaned spray bottles) or whilst it's raining for wash, flush cleaning. For the rubber seals you could apply many sorts of cleans/restorers such as AutoGlym Rubber Care Gel or silicon oil or any such like suitable for rubber. Try alternating the direction the car is parked to get a more even spread of moss. Seems to me moss is more prevalent in the last few years.

I'm not into any sports or have any emotion about, marques, cars, events or places so just see the marketing as just that. Having had some cars with low HP and some with a bit more and both with reasonable power-to weight (until I get in the car, and with my "navigator") I never worry about numbers but how a car feels. I've been in some quick and fast cars well beyond legal limits and some are very boring and been in some slow and lower speed cars that are great fun. Unfortunately I've yet to get into a proper rally car off-road but used to hitch a commuting ride to the next town in a road going Escort Mk1 in the early 80s, very noisy interior and the driver only seemed to have one ZZ Top cassette as that's all I ever heard but the player must have been good as it could be heard and sounded reasonable (for the time). Being young it all seemed a quite natural way to travel, faster than the bus, gawd knows what the car would be worth now if it was still around will silly marque and model valuations.

@Rf91 - good that it's got good MoT results but do bear in mind that an MoT just means that the car passed the minimum statuary requirements at one point of time to one trained person's opinion it does not mean the car is as good as it should or could be. If you look at our posts when you have more time you'll see we've covered what you've asked by me not knowing but pointing you in the right direction and e-Roottoot putting up the Skoda UK servicing schedule which depending on various points of views has parts that are a minimum requirement and others overzealous. You can't look for magic buttons that solve all but you can look for general good indicators. How long do you expect to keep the car and what sort of use (short journeys, long, illegal racing)? Take a hint - what gearbox has it got?

Basically it could effect how well your car travels along the road and the wear and tear on suspension components such as tyres which could also decrease mpg. Depends how bad things were with the damage, perhaps more than wheels are required or they just need more setting up. One example that came up early on a internet Search. - http://www.awautotech.co.uk/services/wheel-alignment-and-4-wheel-geometry-check Haynes - Understanding your car’s suspension geometry - https://haynes.com/en-gb/tips-tutorials/understanding-your-car-s-suspension-geometry

Ah, yes, looks like I mixed up my worms again, is it spec(ification) level(?) S, SE, SE L to comply with the British obsession with badge level snobbery, then there's the confusing additions of factory fitted options, and I don't know are Dealer extras still also allowed. Thank you Ford for the impossible maths of possible permutations and of course fashions and marketing. Remember "It's an 'i', it has an 'i' on the boot", fake badges and "poverty" level BMWs with their badges removed to try to disguise the level. 🤣 My mate was a sales rep back then with very low basic pay, higher commission and company cars that always had an 'i' on the boot.

@rf91 - the question of which gearbox would still apply (and perhaps trim level S, SE, SE L).

Now you say so. 😄 All of above still applies just slightly less so , whether as much as 25% or 33.3% less I don't know. 😄

Is there a 3 pot, 1.2 110bhp on 16 plate, I thought they were 4 cylinder? What gearbox does it have? Car battery would be the first thing that springs to my mind, modern computer programs are hard on car batteries and stop/start even more so. 60k-miles in itself doesn't mean as much as you might think, it depends how and when the miles went on. I've no idea about modern 3 pots with higher turbo boost but generally I'd have thought it might be possible they might attract an owner that exploits the performance which is fine if done sensibly and allowance is made for full (or better) servicing maintenance (and perhaps repair). I'd imagine, not looked, there will be threads here on possibly 1.2 1 100bhp pros and cons and I think I've seen threads that are more Monte Carlo specific. Lots of short journeys isn't the best for any car but if that's followed by heartless 'weekend' thrashing both are perhaps low mileage severe use. Again a "full" service history of annual oil & filter changes is good but often better if additional servicing and maintenance is done too. The correct (or better) materials also help in the servicing and maintenance. If there's history of tyre and brake changes that might give you a clue to it's previous treatment or how much is left on the current brakes and tyres. A set of mismatching tyres never inspires confidence in such vehicles. And the shiniest cars are not always the best driving/performing cars. Now there are some that like very spirited driving and making their cars look flashy and gleam that really look after their cars well, they soon become obvious especially after you've others that think they do the same and think they look after their car very well, but they don't really. A scantool readout would be very use whilst looking at the car as many might forget to delete historical error codes that may build a picture of the vehicle. In the old days some like to chip the car, that reduces the manufacturers margins, some chips were fine if used sensibly but others might not be. If the buyer is made aware then it's up to them but if the chip was removed (not declared on insurance) and the buyer wasn't told that's a different matter. I've no idea how these things go on now, they used to be expensive so the seller would want some return on cost and be able to brag. I've rambled enough . . .

Good luck. For driver's checks, after the car battery (state, condition and charge) would be to check the pressure, condition and state of tyres, especially if the car wasn't bought by you brand new, all sorts of strange things car go on with previous owner(s) and sellers. Ideally all four tyres would be exactly same make, model (compound/composition and size). Could be a faulty part and/or ghost codes or even just use - my wife won an off-road driving experience in a Landie but we made the mistake of going to Rockingham Speedway as it's close to us and they were using boring school-run BMW X 3 or 5 and my wife got told off for braking on the hill decent when she'd been instructed not to, which she said she didn't do. In the afternoon she got an apology as they discovered a sensor had got covered/blocked by mud - on an off-road vehicle, German engineering! 🙄

I saw my neighbour today and he said the code didn't return a result on his program of different fault codes.

Polaris, I know near enough sweet FA about mechanics and car computer programs but going back to basics if you think of the car battery more like a fuel tank than an engine then it can get depleted regularly regardless of age. Obviosity a newer battery with a newer alternator and newer engine and ancillaries should run more efficiently and be more robust to use and abuse but there are limits. I've no idea if the battery is causing any of this but if you're used to old cars you'll know how important a good battery in good condition and state of charge is - well it's even more so with these modern cars with their computers and programs and loads of active(passive?) drain when the car is used and not. I've no idea about the Fabia computer programs but others have interaction with engine and braking and the braking could be mixed in with the electronic stability controls. I'm fairly new to this errors codes and the numbers, which are only pointers that require further diagnostics, which has usually been the case even with deeper levels scan tools, which normally might only point you in the correct direction rather than give you the 100% absolute answer. I always first like to try the simple easy and often very low cost or free solutions if they don't work you've lost next to nothing and always you can rarely progress efficiently and successfully without first covering the basics. Most cars and particularly modern cars are no good at lots of only short journeys.

When did you change the oil? Unless it's placebo kidding ourselves, and even if it is, that if it feels a little smooth it's an improvement, if only in mind, and changing the oil means its 5 years newer in age and use so an inexpensive improvement. Sorry I didn't make myself clear, I meant let anyone else drive your car (subject to legality and trust of course) and see if they think it feels notchy to them. Ideally of course they'd be a regular driver of a car the same make, model, age, mileage and use as yours and if they were you could perhaps also drive their car to see if theirs feels the same to you. But if not, as close as you can get or anyone that drives a similar VAG car with the same transmission - or even really anyone that drive a modern car. The thing is you're now fixated by this so really notice it whereas someone else has no real vested interest so could just say how they find it. I don't find the Fabia box great but it's not bad and as an average ordinary car driver I doubt I'd notice anything about it

Yeah from what I've seen things are even more heated in USA with new cars that are available selling well above recommended prices and people selling out of contracts to cash in so s/h prices rising. Can't blame anyone for jumping if there's a gain but there will be knock-on effects later. Some will gain full-stop, some with have short or medium gain and will always be the ones moaning later at the overall loss of that gain. Think of the children. 🤣