DerekU

This "What Car" article may be of interest https://www.whatcar.com/news/adas-gsr-ii-and-the-future-of-car-safety/n26366 My understanding is that the 'rules' that came into force in July 2022 only applied to car models that were newly Type Approved, so would not apply to Fabia Mk4 vehicles. However, from July 2024, the rules will apply to ALL cars sold brand-new irrespective of their Type Approval date. The implications of this are obvious and tricky, as car dealerships can have new cars languishing unsold on their forecourts for months and there can be a long delay between a factory-order and the car being delivered to a dealership. On the Hyundai forum I mentioned above, there was heated argument over Hyundai having unnecessarily included irritating 'safety' features that owners disliked in the car's standard specification when such features were not yet mandatory. The counter-argument of course was that there was nothing to stop a car manufacturer from including such features even though they were not yet forced to (and then advertise them as selling points) and, in any case, the 'safety' features would need to be place well in advance of the July 2024 deadline.

When I was in the process of buying my October 2023-built Fabia I noticed that the Skoda configurator was specifying that "drum brakes" were part of the standard specification for all Fabia models. I assumed this meant that drum brakes would just be on the rear and I could find nothing to indicate that rear disc brakes were available as a (quite inexpensive) cost option as in the past. I mentioned this to the salesman, who said that ALL UK-specification Fabia cars now had rear drum brakes and confirmed that the rear disc brake option had been discontinued. Interestingly (at least to me!) this is not the case for 2024 model-year Fabias sold in France. French Fabias have four 'trim' levels. Lowest-to-highest these are called Active, Selection, Limited Edition or Monte Carlo and the specification listing indicates that only the Active cars have rear drum brakes, with the three higher trims having rear disc brakes (freins à disques à l'arrière) as standard. (There's no option to specify disc rear brakes for Active trim cars.)

If you order a new Fabia there is no longer an option to specify rear disc brakes. The brake specification is front discs and rear drums, and this applies to all Fabia models irrespective of the 'trim' or the motor/transmission. (This is reasonably clear from the Fabia configurator.)

There are long-running discussions on one of the UK Hyundai forums about speed-warning 'safety' systems that will soon be mandatory for all new cars sold in Europe (including the UK). The four approaches that can be used are listed on this link https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-knowledge/media-and-press/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa-set-become-mandatory-across and comprise 1. Cascaded acoustic warning 2. Cascaded vibrating warning 3. Haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal 4. Speed control function Huundai has chosen a cascaded visual/acoustic warning approach where (in its basic form) a single windscreen mounted camera 'reads' speed-limit-related UK traffic signs, shows the speed-limit via a symbol on the car's dashboard and, if the car is travelling faster than the limit, flashes the dashboard symbol followed by a 'chime'. The reason for the Hyundai forum discussion is that the speed-warning system fitted to recent i10 models (without navigation) marketed in the UK has a flaw as it is unable to recognise/react to the UK's national-speed-limit-applies traffic sign (white circle with black diagonal stripe). Inevitably this means that, although the system works reasonably well within an urban environment, as soon as the i10 car exits that environment, the system will continuously provide excess-speed warnings. Hyundai has been aware of this defect for months, but, so far has yet to provide a curative 'fix'. UK Hyundai dealerships have bee authorised to disable the system as an interim measure, thus avoiding the need for the i10 driver to turn off the system every time the car's ignition is turned on. My 2021 Hyundai i20 had a speed-warning system that read UK traffic signs pretty well, but - as it just flashed a dashboard symbol if a speed-limit was exceeded - it was non-intrusive. My i20 also had 3 selectable driving modes (Eco, Comfort or Sport) and the usual amusing 'change gear' encouragement dashboard read-out for its 6-speed manual transmission. I don't know if the gear-change recommendations altered according to which driving mode was selected, though I doubt that was the case.

This Parkers long-term test of a Fabia Mk4 https://www.parkers.co.uk/skoda/fabia/review/long-term/ includes the following comments about the optional panoramic glass roof. There’s a rather natty, albeit blind-less, panoramic sunroof (£745)... The interior really benefits from the panoramic roof. Whether it’s the feeling of being better connected with the environment, or the greater amount of daylight streaming in, the cabin feels almost lounge-like and super spacious. I do wonder if the climate control has to work harder with that panoramic roof. It’s beautiful to look at, and when the cabin is comfortable, adds an enormous sense of capacity. Still, it acts like a glass house and getting into the car on a sunny day can be uncomfortable until the cabin is at temperature. If your budget didn’t stretch quite that far, the £1,215 +VAT committed to the alloy wheels and panoramic roof are two areas where you could slim that total. But that would impact aesthetic appeal, driving experience and potential residual values. In fact, I would be persuaded to spend more and get the roof blind, to try and manage the cabin comfort on hotter days. This discussion relates to panoramic roofs and Fabia Mk3 cars https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/426073-panoramic-roof/ It's plain some people think glass roofs look great and adore 'em, but this link offers persuasive reasons to avoid them. https://www.topgearbox.com/cars/your-car/6-reasons-to-avoid-a-panoramic-roof/

If I remember correctly (!!!) the optional 'panoramic' glass roof does not open, so should not rattle and should not be more noisy at speed than the metal roof. As you've said, there is no integrated blind and sun-shading is provided by the product shown here https://skoda-acc.com/GENUINE-SKODA-FABIA-IV-Sun-shade-panoramic-sunroof-6VA064365 Our 2009 Skoda Roomster has a vast non-opening glass roof, but this was part of the particular specification my wife demanded and not my choice. It has two integrated blinds, that pull one from each end of the glass and OUGHT to clip firmly together in the middle when closed. But they never did (a poor design of clip) and I very quickly pinned them closed with a wire 'circlip'. In the 15 years we have owned the Roomster, since I fitted the 'circlip' the blinds have remained closed, but - if I did want to let more light in and later want sun-shading - this would take a few seconds and there would no need to mess about removing/refitting an afterthought blind.

In this instance OCU is the acronym for an Online Connectivity Unit. It's purpose is described here https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/BEJTLVHE4IU-E/4434703.pdf and an example is shown here Over-The-Air (OTA) software updates are described on this Skoda webpage https://www.skoda.co.uk/owners/software-update but (based on my own experience) for a new owner the current Fabia's OTA updating system is decidedly unfriendly. I'm an old (80 next month) long-retired old-school computer programmer/systems analyst and, although I'm comfortable enough with the mechanical side of my Fabia and how it drives, I could happily dispense with most of the tech. Skoda's advert says "Like your computer or smartphone, your vehicle has embedded software fully integrated into the vehicle", but I'm an Apple iMac/iPad/iPhone aficionado nowadays (I've never forgiven Microsoft for Windows) and Skoda's fully integrated embedded software seems to have been deliberately designed by a North Korean technician employed to drive car owners in non-Communist countries to distraction.

On my car, the OBD socket would NOT be visible if, after the little storage box on the driver's side had been removed, one looked through the resultant opening. In my car's case, the OBD socket is UNDER the fuse-box and (as my photos should make obvious) the colour of the socket and its position makes it easily identifiable when looking upwards from beneath the dashboard directly below the lower edge of the storage box. This enquiry provides slightly different advice. It's POSSSIBLE (I suppose) that there should be a cover over my car's OBD port, or that earlier Fabia MK 4s have a slightly different arrangement. But, logically, the location of the OBD port on my car makes perfect sense, being close to the fuse-box and immediately accessible without any faffing about. (I used an iPhone in 'selfie mode' to take photos upwards from beneath the dashboard. And, if a forum has maximum file-size restrictions for attachments, there are plenty of applications available to reduce large files to an acceptable limit.)

Oh Dear - senility is more advanced than I thought... On my right-hand-drive Fabia Mk4, the OBD port is directly below the FRONT of the little dashboard storage-box on the driver's side of the cabin.. These photos from below should make the port's location clear (Incidentally, no help in the Owner's Manual about this.)

The relevant Fabia on-line Owner's Manual will show where the USB sockets are positioned. (Where they are located and how many there are will depend on a Fabia's specification.) Similar guidance is in my car's hardcopy manual, referenced by "USB" in the index. My own car has the standard 'fit', comprising a pair of USB-C sockets positioned just beneath the air-conditioning controls and directly above where a mobile-phone charging pad would be. (My car does not have a pad). The following two images show the position of these sockets and what they look like. The images below show where supplementary USB sockets may be. (My Fabia does not have these USB sockets.)

Isn't it in the compartment under the armrest between the front seats?

I notice that you recently posted the same enquiry to three other BRISKODA forums, but the only response you've had (so far) was on the Kamiq forum. https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/523304-how-to-customise-the-favourites-widget/#comment-5849525 My car has an Amundsen infotainment unit and I'm uncertain if its functionality matches that of the Bolero. There is a YouTube video about 'personalising' a Fabia's display, but that clearly relates to the Amundsen unit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3vIL_eGbFs I'm also unsure about what you are seeking to do and what you mean by 'edit'. As you have received no useful feedback, your best bet would be to take your car to a Skoda dealership, show them what you are trying to achieve, ask if that is possible and, if so, how to do it.

This image is VW-related, but (based on Fab4yorki's posting above) the same removal procedure applies to Fabia Mk4 cars. I experimented (on both of my Fabia's front seats) but failed miserably. It's probably the case (like locating the elusive G-spot) that, having done it once, the next time will be easy, but I could not 'feel' any obvious release button and, however hard I pushed in the area arrowed on the image, nothing moved. It may be that I wasn't pushing hard enough or in exactly the right place, and/or gorilla-strength (and two gorillas) are really needed to remove the headrests, but I couldn't do it. Anyway, I did eventually manage to update my car's software, so that's something...

Useful information. There is a couple of threads on the Skoda Kamiq forum about this. https://www.kamiqforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=116#:~:text=I can confirm that the,head restraint to be removed. https://www.kamiqforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=135 I was pleased to see how easy it was to adjust the HEIGHT of my Fabia's front seat headrests (via a release-button on the side of the headrest) but I've yet to attempt removing a headrest + its 'pillars'. Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HxBLI8p5gY

I don't know how long the battery in my Fabia Mk4's key-fob will last, but this Octavia-related forum discussion is worth reading. https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/504061-replace-key-battery-warning/ If you are confident that your battery-testing equipment is 100% accurate and your key-fob's battery is genuinely fully charged (which I would have thought would not be the case after 18 months) it may just be a one-off bloody-minded glitch in your car's electronics. All you can really do is not change the fob's battery and see if the message comes up again. The car that preceded my Fabia was a 2021 Hyundai i20 SE MHEV. One afternoon, while I was cleaning the car and hosing it down, I noticed water running down the inside of one of the rear windows and, when I checked, the window was open by about a centimetre. I thought that perhaps, when I had moved the car, I had accidentally touched the switch that operated that window, so (cursing my luck) I mopped out the water that had got in, shut the window, finished cleaning the car, locked it and made absolutely certain that all the windows were properly closed. Next morning, when I went out to the car (parked in the open outside my house) the same window was again open by a centimetre and (surprise, surprise! it had rained heavily overnight - more mopping out! As a temporary 'fix' before I involved a Hyundai dealership, I made up a sort of shroud from Gorilla tape that, if the window did open itself again and it rained, would at least stop the rainwater getting in. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, but the spontaneous window-opening never happened again. (My Skoda Roomster was bought new by us in 2009. Although I keep a new key-fob battery in the glove-box just in case, I think I've only replaced the fob battery once (perhaps twice) during that 15 years period. Having had unhappy experiences with 'big brand' products (that might have been fakes) for this type of battery I normally buy inexpensive Eunicell batteries via ebay.)

When I spoke to a local Skoda dealer about ordering a 2024 UK-specification Fabia and asked about the likely delivery lead-time for a factory order, I was told perhaps two months but that would depend on what options the buyer specified. It was also believed that, by the time factory-ordered Fabias arrived in the UK, their list-price would have increased. (There is a French website that provides delivery lead-times and, for a 2024-spec Fabia, 6 to 7 months is stated.)

For people considering ordering a new Fabia , this recent forum thread may be of interest https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/523013-fabia-specs-revised-april-2024/

My initial post dealt with fully-lowering the large 'glove box' on the Fabia's passenger side, not the small storage department on the driver's side. Soon after I bought my Fabia I checked where the fuse-boxes were. I could see the one in the cab to the rear of the small storage compartment on the driver's side, but I did not bother to confirm how straightforward it would be to access that fuse-box. When it became apparent from this forum thread (and from other UK on-line comments) that there could be difficulty removing the small storage compartment, I thought I had better experiment. The relevant information in the hard-copy Owner's manual for my 2023-built Fabia differs from the "Access to the fuses" image you provided in your first posting above. This is the image in my cars paper manual and in the relevant on-line Owner's manual. You'll see that no mention is made of a 'tray' and the instruction to "Press the locking button and open the fuse box" is potentially confusing. It's perhaps worth observing that the equivalent image in the very latest English-language on-line Owner's manual is unambiguous and more detailed but, despite following those instructions to the letter, I was still unable to remove the storage 'box' easily by pulling it towards me. The "Accessing the fuses" images in the Manuals clearly relate to left-hand-drive Fabias and I did wonder if difficulty removing the small storage compartment was peculiar to right-hand-drive Fabia MkIV cars. A cursory search of French and German Skoda-related forums found no similar complaints, which might be significant or just mean that French/German Skoda owners are less concerned about using brute force.

I notice that, on this BRISKODA sub-forum, there were a couple of earlier discussions about fitting a dash-cam to a Fabia Mk IV https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/507227-removal-of-tray-to-get-at-fuses/ https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/514511-fitting-netbase-322gw/ I believe the current Skoda Kamiq has the same fuse-box/electrics arrangement as the current Fabia, so this June 2023 thread on the BRISKODA Kamiq forum may also be of interest https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/514251-dashcam-electrical-supply-fuses/ Access-to-the-fuses instructions are indeed in the Fabia Mk IV manuals (and are as copied into nta16's posting above). Although the guidance seems simple enough to follow, it's clear from on-line comments that the advice "Pull the tray out by pulling it towards you" presents difficulty. Matt116 said above "... you just need to pull a bit down and toward yourself, you feel like it's gonna break and then it's gonna pop off". As it's impossible to see what holds the little storage compartment VERY firmly in place, it's not possible to decide exactly what angle the compartment should be at and what the 'pull angle' should be so that the compartment can be extracted with the minimum of force. As far as I'm aware there are no on-line videos showing the removal procedure, nor any photos to provide a clue as to how the storage compartment is retained. My attempts to removal the storage compartment from my Fabia failed dismally. If I HAD to reach the fuse-box, I'd be prepared to wrench the storage compartment out using whatever brute force proved necessary, but for now I'm not going to experiment further.

My car is a UK-specification right-hand-drive October 2023-built Fabia SE L DSG. Should anyone wish to fully lower the glove-box unit on the PASSENGER side (to, say, replace the cabin pollen filter) this is what's involved. This photo shows the glove-box unit fully lowered. A and B are 'buttons' that need to be pressed upwards while the top of the glove-box is pulled forwards. The buttons are shown in more detail here The glove-box will then drop halfway done, but will still be supported by a peculiar turret/strut mechanism identified as C in the first photo above and shown in more detail here. Pulling the top edge of the glove-box unit further downwards (No need to pull hard!) will cause the strut to release from the turret (as shown in the photo). The turret is rotatable with a small plastic cog inside. When returning the glove-box unit to its original position, the turret must be in the correct position for the top of the strut to enter an aperture in the turret through which the strut slides. Once the top of the strut is in that aperture, gently lifting the top edge of the glove-box unit upwards will allow the strut and cog to mesh and the strut to click in place. Next lift up the top edge of the glove-box unit so that the plastic 'tabs' on each top corner of the unit come in contact with buttons A and B. Depress the buttons to allow the tabs to pass behind them and the glove-box can now be fully closed.

I'm not sure how 'new' that information is, as it was certainly available on the Skoda website when I bought my October-2023-built Fabia several weeks ago. Browsing the "Build your own Skoda" configuration website https://cc.skoda-auto.com/gbr/en-GB/ will show the four 2024 Fabia 'trims' (SE Comfort, Colour Edition, SE L and Monte Carlo) and - having chosen one of the four trims - selecting "Summary" at the foot of the list on the right will allow full details of that trim's standard equipment to be displayed. Any optional equipment that was selected can also be displayed. For amusement I 'configured' a Monte Carlo with the 1.5litre motor and 24 options that ended up with an OTR price of £34,792.

This link is to the relevant part of the Croation Skoda Fabia configurator https://konfigurator.skoda.hr/cc-hr/hr_HR_SKODA23/C/design/280/PJ37J424/2Y2Y/NV/@/@/exterior?variant=Mnt. Carlo&modelgroupCategory=Hatchback&fuel=Benzin&gear=Manualni mjenjač Ciick on the green "i" symbol and then use the following options under each tyre shown to provide additional details. My October 2023-built Fabia SE L has 16"-diameter wheels with the GOODYEAR EfficientGrip tyre.

There are many 3D-printable models of cup-holder inserts (examples here) https://www.yeggi.com/q/cup+holder+insert/ but you'd need to check what would meet your particular requirements. If you can identify an existing model, your contact who has a 3D printer should be able to produce it in a suitable material. (A GOOGLE-search on 3D printable cup holder inserts will retrieve lots more stuff.)

This is the tyre-pressure sticker on the door-pillar of my 2023-bult Fabia Mk 4 SE L DSG. As will be seen, whatever the wheel-diameter, the recommended pressure for the front and rear tyres is 2.5bar (36psi) when the car has 3 occupants and some luggage or - when the car has 5 occupants and a lot of luggage - 2.7bar (39psi) for the front tyres and 3.4bar (49psi) for the rear tyres. The Skoda website indicates that - for current Fabia Mk 4 cars - the 'basic' SE Comfort model has, as standard, 15"-diameter Rotare silver alloy wheels with 185/65 R15 88H tyres that can be made either by Goodyear or Continental. The 88H Load Index/Speed Rating indicates a maximum individual tyre-loading of 560kg and a maximum speed of 130mph. This Michelin webpage may be useful. https://www.michelin.co.uk/auto/advice/tyre-basics/tyre-load-rating-speed-rating Reducing the pressure from 36psi to 32psi (2.2bar) should result in a mildly softer ride, but - unless using the recommended 2.5bar/36psi produces an uncomfortably harsh ride quality - there's no compelling reason to do this and it should be anticipated that fuel-economy will suffer (slightly).

The little spring thingie https://shop.wingsskoda.co.uk/products/skoda-removal-tool-for-original-caps-1 in the tool kit is multi-purpose (there's one in my 2009 Roomster's kit) and - although it's adequate for removing the Fabia's Aero wheel trims - it's nowhere near as effective as my pair of DIY 'pullers' that retain the trim after it has been pulled off. This mid-2023 forum thread discussed the Aero trims in some depth https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/514305-aero-wheel-trims/ (It's stating the obvious, but the trims are not universal and their size must match the diameter of a Fabia's Proxima alloy wheels.)