ninjajebus

I'm not sure why neither door handle opens, the outside and inside handles are connected via separate cables. The internal handle should work even if the door is locked so maybe the lock mechanism itself is loose? Must be an absolute bugger if you can't even get the door open to look at it!!

Aye, I would tend to agree. The inner wheel arches really detract from the usable volume in the boot. And I'd also agree with the other comments about the early 'classic' variants, unless you're willing to retro fit remote central locking like I did, the lack of a boot opening mechanism at the rear of the car is a bit of a pain in the rear. All that said tho, I'm really happy with mine.

I remember a thread a month or two ago saying that the Lidl seat covers fitted surprisingly well on the fabia. Perhaps this might be a better option than a new seat?

Now that you mention that, I didn't actually replace the brake pads on the wheel I took off as a) it was getting cold and b ) I wasn't sure about putting on new ones since I reckoned only the pad making contact with the inner and outer lip would be braking for the first bit and I wasn't sure about that. The lip on the disc is about as thick as a penny, I reckon I've got about three pennies left of thickness on the brake pad. Would I be better off replacing both? I only started this job because my brakes started squealing when moving off and braking, I think now it might be because the lugs on the back of the pads are not greased, does this sound like the problem? Thanks, Paul

Thanks guys! Much appreciated!! I spent ages wondering what was wrong. It was the lip of the disc that was stopping me. Apart from that setback, replacing the brake pads not as scary as I thought it was going to be.

Hi, I'm following the haynes manual for changing the brake pads on my car, I've removed the two securing bolts with a 7mm allen key, but I can't remove the caliper, or even see how it's possible to budge it at all. It's the FSIII caliper, and I have an '01 SDI. Can anyone help? Thanks, Paul

When you take of the door card, you'll see the inner door plate - the regulator is bolted on to the other side. There might be wee covers over the holes that the haynes manual talks about - if they're there you can just pry these off, as far as I can remember they're around the top corners of the plate. In my car I had to wind the windows down a little to see the screws, when you do see them tape up your windows so they don't fall down, and unscrew these window securing bolts. You'll have to wrestle a bit with the locking pin to get the plate out, but after that you're home free. Don't ask me about putting it back together without the leak starting again, I was scared of ringing the window thread when I was putting it back together, so my windows are all misty again :S

Is it not possible to remove the passenger seat, then that would give you the space to remove the door card? You'll need a XZN/spline key to remove the seat.

If these are the really cheap ones from halfords then I have used these on my car for over a year. I got the bars free and had to buy the little gripper plate specifically for my fabia. They're grand, last weekend I had a fairly weighty (and un-aerodynamic) boat on the roof and at 60mph the rack was solid as a rock. Personally, I'm not a fan of how the roof rails look on the estate, although if you only want to mount them occassionally they're probably much handier (not to fit intially tho).

All done, not fixed yet my problem with the microswitch, but the door is back together again, I had to take apart the other door to see how it all worked. I was well out of my comfort zone, tho I'd be much happier doing it again next time.

Hi, I'm trying to free the door lock to have a look at fixing a dodgy microswitch. I've removed everything as per the ancillaries guide (http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/removing-ancillaries-carrier/133384/), and I've unscrewed the two bolts holding the lock in place. The only thing stopping me getting the lock out of the car is the cable running from the exterior door handle to the lock mechanism. Can anyone help me disconnect the cable? Would appreciate quick replies because my door is in bits at the mo and I'm freakin out a little bit. :eek: Thanks, Paul

I've a '01 classic SDI and it's grand. If it's thrifty you're after it's a super buy - it's not as desirable as a TDI and has no bells or whistles to drive the price up and is a very economical engine to boot. Just look out for the usual things, like if the timing belt needs doing soon, and if not, was the water pump changed when the timing belt was done? Also, check for wear on the inside of the front tyres, and if it knocks or creaks if you go over speed bumps, that might point to problems with the anti -roll bar and/or the console bushes, both of which on older motors are prone to failing. As far as oil changing, I do it myself twice a year, and I find I can do it handy enough without even needing to jack the car up, so personally I don't find it a problem.

erm, I'm probably wrong but I thought the triple square, xzn and spline were all the same? I think Lummox might've put a guide of all the different types up as a sticky somewhere or in the technical guide section. Anyway, I got a kit from ebay (there's a similar one 260294476550), the m8 bit fits the door screws on the outside of the door. It's also handy if you're putting in the underseat storage boxes, you'll need the m10 one then.

I've had leaky rear doors on my '01 fabia with the screw on carrier :thumbdwn:

I taped the lead(s) to a wire clothes hanger and used that to guide it through when I had to do something similar. I also took out the radio and wee shelf underneath it.

Have you checked the fuse?

It seems odd to me that the dealers would need to replace the entire dash pod because of a badly coded EEPROM. Could they not just reflash it themselves? Would it not be possible to call round a few scrap yards to see if any of them had a similar fabia in stock, copy that EEPROM and re-write your own?

Sounds like one of the connectors to the drivers door actuator isn't in right maybe? I can't help you with the other problem. I removed the stereo and the cubby hole and fed the wires through the back of there, I didn't fancy removing the heater panel.

The wirings a bit fiddly too at times, you'll need to free the b-pillar trim - take the top b-pillar panel off first, it doesn't come fully off (unless you take the seat belt off), but once you free the clips you can rotate it out of the way. The bottom bit then pulls out and then up. You can then shove the wiring under the trim along the sides of the car and then feed it up through into this b-pillar area. It's a bit harder to do this around the drivers side because of the boot release lever, and eventually I ended up taking the whole drivers side trim off because I was routing the cable for electrical boot release down that side anyway. You can still get away with just shoving the cabling up this side trim though. Feeding the wire through into the actual door area is much easier if you get a stiff bit of wire, like a clothes hanger or something, tape the connector tips to that and then feed it through the hole. This is really handy when you're doing the drivers door cos theres so much stuff to navigate through. Routing the wiring the other way isn't too bad, the clothes wire method is also handy when you're feeding the cabling from the drivers footwell behind the stereo. The glovebox comes off a treat and you can route the cables much the same way as you did it on the drivers side. From my experience I'd recommend taping the wiring up every 5-10cm or so to keep it nice and tidy and if you're looking to get out troublesome metal poppers, get two wide bladed screwdrivers, wrap the ends in electrical tape, put them under each side of the popper and twist the screwdrivers to ease the poppers out. It's much easier than brute force. Oh and for the front doors today, I lined the metal strip up so that I could use the middle bottom bolt, then I lined that up with the hole that you use to screw in the arm rest on the door trim and got a bit of tape and held it in that position. You should find that this line with open and close the door ok. That's also why there is no bolt at the top of the strip, it only goes in when you reattach the door trim. Also, on my passenger door (it didn't happen with my drivers door) the central locking system doesn't work properly with the trim off, e.g. if the car is locked and the trim isn't on my front passenger door, then the door won't unlock. It's only when I put the trim back on that it works again. It's like the actuator isn't quite guiding the pin all the way up, but more sideways instead. So if you're doing it like mine and the door doesn't unlock with the trim off, maybe try it with the trim on just to check,

It's not too bad, it's definitely fiddly getting some of the trim off, but it's surprising how easy it is to take other trim bits off, I found taking the dash/front bits off easy, taking the door trims/pillars bits off hard. I got the rclick kit, they supply you with almost everything you need, tho I bought a 1m strip of metal for 2quid (he seen me coming) for the front doors. As luck would have it I've taken off the door trim in anticipation of fitting electric windows, so I've attached a picture of my front passenger carrier/door. I had the kit for couple of weeks or so before fitting it, and every evening I gradually took some more of the trim off, took off the metal and plastic poppers and then put it back on again. By taking off all the wee plastic and metal poppers out of the doors and trim panels it made it much easier to remove panels on the actual day that I fitted the kit. It's a wee bit noisier for a few weeks but I'd definitely recommend it. Also, by doing this you get to see what bits of the rclick kit you need to drill/cut and already do it, so on the big day you can put it all in relatively quickly. You don't need to drill cut anything on your fabia. Have a look at the leaky door threads for instructions on how to take of the door trim and maybe try taking off one of the rear door trims to see if you've the stomach for it before ordering the kit. You should read these two threads too: http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/fabia-central-locking-kit-retro-fit-guide/81916/ http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/remote-central-locking-installation-guide/84559/

I got the motorised catch from a scrapyard, it cost me about a tenner. I don't have the microswitch boot handle tho, I already had a central locking remote with a button on the fob for the boot and from what I read it seemed like an awful lot of work. I'm looking to retro-fit front electric windows next, maybe after that I might go back to the tailgate switch.

Hi Matt, I used to have exactly the same problem until this week, when I replaced the catch with a motorised one. If you can get a good view of the catch (I just pulled off the whole boot lip trim) you'll where the cable is attached to the catch. You'll want to adjust the big screw circled to fine tune the boot open lever. Cheers, Paul

I fitted a rclick remote central locking kit a couple of months ago (from scratch, no central locking at all) thanks to this (and jonboyuk's) excellent guide, but I only finally got round to doing the boot release motor these last few days. To put a long story short, the rclick motor I bought for the job wouldn't work out for me no matter how much I tried so I bit the bullet and bought a motorised skoda oem catch that I got from a scrapyard. I needed a M8 spline key for the bolts on the catch, and the catch cost me just over a tenner but IMHO it's really worth it. It's clearly much more powerful than the rclick motor and it works fine with the rclick kit too. If anyones got an old "classic" fabia with no central locking and the annoying boot release catch, I would totally recommend buying the rclick (or similar) kit and then hunting down an old boot release somewhere. It's seems intimidating to start I guess, but once you get stuck in it's not that bad, there's no drilling required in any of the doors to attach the motors (there was holes already in the ancillary carrier that perfectly suited the kit that I had) and for just over 40 quid, including the skoda boot release, I think it's great value. Thanks again for the great guide guys

I got blank keys from Hickleys :: Welcome to Hickleys - HomePage for about a fiver each, I didn't have the SKC but I could use VagTacho to both get the SKC and code the key. Coding the key seems a bit archaic on VagTacho, so maybe try vagcom first.

I think it should be listed here... http://briskoda.net/reference-materials/skoda-engine-code-list/78255/ perhaps it's AUB?