bazz2004

It's possible that the glitches with the electronics and software in the Fabia 4 mc may be partly down to the car battery. I have therefore bought a Ctek CT5 Start Stop charger. We seldom do any long runs and from now on I'll charge the battery once per month to help maintain it. The car has a battery management system (BMS) so it's best if the negative Ctek lead doesn't go to the battery terminal. The Fabia mk 4 is easily upset so avoiding the negative battery terminal ensures it knows that the battery has been charged up. I decided to fit the included eyelet leads permanently under the bonnet. There's a large cylindrical nut in the engine compartment near to the fuse box and battery with a negative symbol on top. The negative lead eyelet is fitted there. With the positive lead I pushed up the black plastic flap over the battery terminal. Undoing the nut with a small mole wrench was hard work because it was very tight. I put the positive eyelet over the protruding screw thread and replaced the nut. That was the worst part because it was much harder to get the nut back on and tighten it up. I didn't need to disconnect the battery but was very careful not to short anything or drop the nut. You could use just the crocodile clip leads on each charging occasion if it's too much of a fiddle to fit the eyelet cables but remember to use an earthing point rather than the battery negative terminal. Push in the eyelets leads connector just fitted on to the charger's connector. Plug in the Ctek and as soon as you switch on the mains charging starts. The cable fitted to the charger itself is unlikely to be long enough to reach a mains socket. I've ordered a Ctek 2.5m extension cable to use in future. The battery charger checks automatically the type of 12v battery, selects the required mode and gets on with the job. After four hours the charger showed a green light meaning a full charge. This charger is very easy to install and use but it'll be a while before we find out if it helps with the glitches.

I'm sorry I posted my question. I did ask for replies without referring me to the Skoda manuals. It's just as rude for me to say this but some of us need to get out more. The required answers are likely in the thread but drowned out by the torrent of words. I'll post back at a later date when I've sorted things out and also explain why I'm doing what I'm doing because that's important.

I have no enthusiasm for the Skoda manuals and have ordered a CTEK CT5 Start Stop charger. It's the only smart charger that I am confident will check the type of battery at the beginning and adapt to its condition. As I understand it the negative connection from the CTEK has to be made to the earthing point which is close to the battery. The positive lead is fastened with the crocodile clip directly to the battery terminal. First of all I undo the negative lead on the battery then permanently fit the CTEK lead to the earthing point. After the battery is charged I turn it off and remove the charger. I then reconnect the cars negative lead to the battery. The CTEK negative lead remains in the car for its next use. Have I got this right?

It would be useful to know what sort of battery is fitted in my Monte Carlo. I did look under the bonnet but there is a black plastic box covering the top of the battery. I can't identify the battery or see how the attached assembly comes off. Please don't tell me to read the manual and then if the info isn't there to download the digital handbook. I prefer not to remove the box on top of the battery. What I have learned is that batteries fitted to cars with Start/Stop systems are AGM or EFB. I'm thinking it's almost sure to be EFB in a Skoda because they are the cheaper battery. Can anyone confirm this? Necessary to know because charging the car battery can result in problems if the charger doesn't match the type of battery.

We have been increasingly unhappy with our UK 2024 Fabia mc. However, I’ve managed to make a really useful upgrade for around £20. Both of us have been annoyed by the useless windscreen wipers on the front. They drag noisily across the windscreen and leave uneven streaks. There was a useful thread on the forum covering the rear wiper. It went on to mention problems with the front ones. Like much of the Fabia kit the wipers seem poor quality and apparently the dealerships will typically fit new wiper blades which have the same issues but cost mega money. After some doubts I ordered a pair of Bosch A864s wiper blades. The were bought on Amazon and are a straight swap. Avoid anything where the picture shows an adapter to fit the blades to the arms. These are made to fit the car exactly. They are easy to fit but I suggest using a towel to protect the glass. I couldn’t do the job without pulling the arms well away from the glass and slightly levering the blades while pushing down the little square button that locks the blades in position. The Bosch wipers are working silently and without leaving smears. The result has been magical.

The battery in both keys was showing low after 18 months of not a great deal of use. Changing the battery is not intuitive. I watched some YouTube videos about the Fabia keys but those covered were unlike our Fabia 4. Got there without breaking anything but Skoda could have designed it a lot better. It took a narrow bladed kitchen knife to prise open the not easy to identify battery cover.

Actually, I was unhappy with the sun glasses storage. I bought some wrap around lightly tinted sun glasses but they rattle around inside the cubby hole. It was very annoying. I managed to find some foam and glued it in where the sunglasses are kept. The car punished me this morning for negative comments because I'm getting the replace battery key warning for the key fob.

These no longer seem to be supplied on the latest cars. Likely not worth the extra production costs and the negative feedback. Each size wheel requires a custom aero cover. I now clean my mc with a jet wash and have removed the aero wheel covers a couple of times. Yes, it's true the wheels behind are likely to get marked when removing and replacing them. It's easy to see which covers come from the front because they are coated in a gravy browning coloured coating on the inside. Most of the Fabias have drum brakes at the rear so if you have disks all round they are only shown off without the aero covers. Our car has low annual mileage and jet washing the car brings everything up looking good including the wheels and aero covers. If only the wheel covers were the sole contentious add-ons for these cars. We find all the electronic "aids" to be the biggest annoyance. You get very little in terms of useful kit supplied as standard with a Fabia 4.

I'd say that the app is of little value and certainly not worth paying for. We got a free trial but don't miss Skoda connect.

I can't help with the specifics but some comments may be of use because we had problems getting to grips with the electronics and software. The Fabia 4 has all sorts of gizmos but be careful of your safety if you are navigating menus and trying out settings. It’s easy to become distracted lose focus on road safety. I’ve found much that is of nuisance rather than of active assistance. The dash layout is highly configurable and you can save the set up you like. Sounds fantastic but with our Fabia 4 the car randomly decides to change the configuration of its own volition. It's a fine drive with good levels of comfort and interior space for its size. Turn stuff off and it is back again on the next outing. The cameras and sensors are useful for parking unlike the park assist package we chose which we find terrifying. It’s easier to adapt to the car rather than trying to bend it to your will.

It seems that the VW Group is in serious financial difficulties and facing an uncertain future. At the time of dieselgate they said that they would be moving to electric vehicles. The ID3 or Golf replacement looked brilliant before launch but has since shown up VW weakness in electronics and software. The Fabia 4 mc we have is a real pain when it comes to the electronics. A hybrid vehicle has to be the most challenging vehicle to get right so I'd stear well clear of any Skoda using the technology. We tried some hybrids before choosing the Fabia. The Honda Jazz was the one I'd have liked but in moving to an exclusively hybrid line up the Jazz lost some important features. The most annoying for us was the lack of adjustment for the front passenger seat. According to the sales-person the battery below the front passenger seat meant that its adjustment was much more limited than for the driver's seat. It lacked comfort. A spare wheel would also have been a problem.

Well Nigel I doubt it is a problem with the car pictured at the end of your post. My automatic windows must be super powered. They rocket up and down, unlike those on the 20+ year old car I replaced. Simply not good enough. Why should owners be required to pour over manuals and put safety at risk fiddling around with stuff when driving. Life with the latest cars should be getting easier not more challenging. It would be easier to drive with a sandwich in one hand and a vape in the other than master some of the control features on the Fabia 4. What's needed is some action by the makers to improve the car. Negative feedback isn't being harnessed to improve the product. As for software updates which should be incrementally smoothing things out VW group seem to be out of their depth or have forgotten about continuous improvement. Maybe I should have stayed with a Peugeot.

The purchase of a flat cap is advised for morning starts when the windows keep misting up. Cracking open the front window as soon as you get in and whacking up the heater seems the best solution. Unfortunately, the electric window zooms up and down. If only you could set it to stop at a position leaving around an inch gap. I know now why Skoda drivers I passed in my youth drove at 30mph on the motorway and wore flat caps. The flat cap provides welcome protection from icy drafts. I seem to have joined that club.

Sell them on ebay. I'd buy a matching 17" aero wheel cover cover for our Fabia mc so long as it's cheap and in as new condition. I'm not seeing anybody unloading them despite all the forum posts about replacing them with black nuts and hub caps.

The sales person at the dealership gave me a presentation box with two free gifts inside. One was a usb lead with different attachments. It didn't work. Second item was a neat looking stainless steel flask/drinking cup. It doesn't fit anywhere in the Fabia. The box was nice though.

Thanks for the replies. The AA man did give error codes to the service staff at the dealership but the feedback later was that his equipment wasn't in the same league as the technicians at the dealership and that what he provided made no sense to them. Greater compatibility of meters and work on communications would be advantageous. It's true that the car lacks long runs and the mpg is pretty poor on a day to day basis but an electric car wasn't practical for us. I have doubts whether the VW group is going to survive against the strong competition it is facing. Their various badges are competing against each other. Buying new cars through local dealerships may also have to change. I'd have loved to have a test track available when buying and have demonstrated the electronic gizmos. We wouldn't have wasted 6 months waiting for the park assist package. A few large scale facilities to replace dealers would also make it possible to book a short course to get to grips with new cars incorporating unfamiliar tech and ask for advice. The pace of change doesn't let up. Traffic levels on the roads mean it is dangerous to be fiddling around with controls.

I recently had a breakdown in our Fabia 4 mc after around 4000 miles. Fortunately, I had my smart phone and was able to call for assistance. There are two buttons in the console at the top of the windscreen. The red one is for fire, police or ambulance and will work whether or not you have a smart phone. The one you need has a spanner symbol and unless you have fitted the car with an e-sim card this will only work if you have the car linked to a smart phone. The car was about a mile into an early morning drive when I realised it had lost most of its power and wouldn’t go over 20 mph. There was soon smoke pouring from the exhaust and the dashboard screen showed an epc warning. I continued and parked on the car park at my destination a couple of miles away. The phone call went through to the AA and their van arrived about 20 minutes later. The AA technician used a device to reset the computer system and then he escorted me to the dealership. It didn’t have the loss of power issue when we were on route. I did not feel welcome there and there ensued an argument that the car should have been put on a low loader and brought to the garage if it was not driveable. The service manager said they were very busy but they’d try to look at it the next day. The Skoda team were not able to locate the problem because the data it was irretrievably lost when the AA technician had cleared the fault. I was pretty unhappy about the whole experience but it seems that the breakdown protocols are the same throughout the VW Group. The service manager explained that although the car is under warranty and they had unsuccessfully done work to try and locate the epc fault they would not get paid for this. He reckons it’s unlikely that the problem will occur again. My impression and that of the wife is that the electronics are very glitchy. My android phone links to the car but I've given up trying with the wife's iPhone. The dashboard display has changed itself since we got the car back. It does so fairly regularly. It’s also resorted to giving ridiculous gear change notifications. We now know that a long run should put that right. I booked it in soon after we had the car due to this but got a phone call saying that if they couldn’t find anything wrong, I’d have to pay over £100. I cancelled the appointment and spent ages trying to sort it for myself. It seems to me that when electronic faults are cleared, and these are the most likely ones, there will be no record of an issue. You could have umpteen breakdowns, unlikely of course, and no trace of this in the car's memory. Without the specific fault codes the Skoda technicians cannot pinpoint the issue. If these were permanently registered in the car's electronics system there would likely be repercussions in the second hand car market. I'd be interested to read comments from others on the forum.

A set of AA car seat gap fillers costs very little and if you've struggled to reach something that has dropped down between the seat and the centre console you'll be glad of them. I initially bought expensive fillers which didn't work for us because the seats no longer had free travel. These are fitted in a couple of minutes minutes, look fine and the front seats still move freely.

I will be posting about the breakdown due to an epc issue recently experienced in our 73 reg Fabia mc, but it'll be a new thread DerekU. It was a worrying experience but gave clues as to why issues with VW group cars may not be fully reported making the stats unreliable.

Tintowellfan "Also not heard any horror stories about the VW group three cylinder engines." Best not to go looking for any. The truths out there but there's true truth, false truth and half-truth. These days I often end up simply crossing my fingers. I'd have gone electric but that was not practical for many reasons. We ended up with a 3 cylinder turbo top of the range Fabia. Hope it works out with the 1.5 litre model, matrix2020.

That's a good decision although I'd not recommend the Fabia. The one litre three pot engine is generally great to drive but I'm concerned about the electronics and software. My Fabia 1.0 mc is at the dealers after a breakdown where the dash warning lights flagged an epc issue. It's done 4000 miles and had its first service a few weeks ago. It has 3 cylinders. There was a 3 cylinder Vauxhall Corsa on a neighbours drive for a long time. It was low mileage but wouldn't run following repeated issues with starting and running. A garage and several mobile mechanics failed to fix it. Three cylinders are less straightforward than four when it comes to engine management. I wish we'd gone for the 1.5 Fabia mc instead but buying another make would have been preferable.

Now that I can get the trims off easily and quickly without having to use force such damage shouldn't occur. Cleaning cars isn't one of my main interests and I don't live near country roads so they won't come off each time I clean it. The car will be washed maybe 12 times per year and the aero trims certainly won't come off anything like that many times.

I'm about to change my habit of taking the car to a hand car wash and will be going DIY. After getting the relevant bits for my pressure washer I plan to to clean the Fabia maybe once a month. If that works out I'll know whether there really is an issue with filth behind the aero wheel covers. At least they can now be swiftly and easily removed/reattached thanks to explanations and advice on this forum.

Maybe it's part of a move to reduce costs. The aero wheel covers have to be made for different sized wheels and are in no way going to be cheap to make. The streamlining properties are irrelevant when you drive mainly locally and are rarely able to reach let alone exceed 30mph. The forum is full of negative comments about them. So, given the lack of enthusiasm why not discontinue the aero covers and adopt the cheaper option of making the Fabia 4s with black finish wheel nuts and four uniform sized black hub cover. Skoda may have thought this and decided to discontinue them - "Simply clever and more profitable." I still reckon the aero covers look better but aesthetics is very much down to individual taste. Thankfully we are all different.

My factory order was placed for a car with the spare wheel kit. I got the kit plus all the bits that were supplied as standard like the aerosol gunk can for emergency puncture repair. I've added another wheel trim puller bought cheaply on eBay because I can't get the aero wheel trims off with just the one. I hope I don't need it but the spare wheel kit is reassuring and not that many cars make one available.