meherenow

Thanks for your help guys, turns out one of my mates brother-in-law is competant with the welding and says he'll do this no bother. Many miles left in this old war horse yet I think! Thanks again.

I know lol, but i can't complain about 14 years of pretty much cost free motoring if I account for all my 45p/business miles. But now I'm doing a lot more work from home and it's looking like the alloys need done (air leaking quicker than I'd like from 4 new tyres) and a few rusty spots on the bottom of the doors, so the cost is mounting up a bit on things I'm not going to be doing myself. Another thing on my mind is that it only *just* got through the emissions last year and that was after they ran it a second time. Will need the brakes done by the time the MOT comes round as well. So I am having a bit of a creeping sense of, what's next? Maybe it's just time to say goodbye (and try my hand for £? on a trade-in...)

Just to say again, I know next to nothing about the inner workings of cars, although i have managed a few simple things like battery changes and resistor swaps etc, so i realise I'm showing myself up here 😁

hah lol, well, welding is not in my skillset so the panic merchant in me set in lol. I take it this is fairly easy for a compentent mechanic to do?

Oh dear, that is disappointing. What's the sort of cost for that? I'm assuming that's the problem with the AC not holding the charge for long, but I'm not ruling out any other leaks as I'm sure the black seal was there before the Halfords mobile guy was doing his business, so not sure it's worth spending much money on. My car really is only a box with wheels for me to get around locally, and being self employed I've more than got my money's worth out of the Fabia.

Hello everyone, long time lurker here, always found this the place to go for info. Long story short(ish), my trusty 2009 Fabia Mark 2 (81000 miles) needed the AC regassing at the end of 2022 - got it done on a Groupon coupon at ATS - this only lasted a few months (and is the first time I've ever had the system regassed since buying the car new in July 2009) - realised I must have a leak somewhere but ended up getting Halfords out for a quick £60 refill job to see me through the "summer" (at the beginning of June). This lasted around a month so I left it for a bit, just not having the time to get round to it again, plus the weather wasn't so great here in Scotland that I needed it. However, as the temps have rose again and with the winter coming in and the thought of fogged up windows while the five of us pile in for the school run I thought I'd give another quick refill a go myself to see me through to service and MOT time in November. It seems I may have discovered the problem - when I started to add the topup gas I could hear some hissing coming from the high side port and when I unscrewed it the gas was coming out. I've tried to tap it slightly to clear it in case there was dirt in the connection but to no avail. It does seem like the black seal is missing that used to be there (see pics - it's still there on the low port and nothing comes out of there). Now I'm an IT repair guy to trade and I don't know much about cars but I'm happy to get my hands *slightly* dirty. Anything I can do to fix this myself? I was looking online for ages and they all go on about Schrarder Core Valves and replacement but is that the valve here? Or is it a ball valve? Can I just get some o-ring type thing and stick it in there to make the seal again? I should say that I run the AC continually - winter or summer, it's always on, I like the fresh breeze on my face... I'm sure I'm missing something simple here, hope you guys can help me out. Cheers in advance.