DerekU

My previous car was a 2021 Hyundai i20 MHEV (Mild Hybrid Electric Vehicle) that had a 'sailing' feature that would switch off the car's motor in certain circumstances while the car was being driven. I remember asking on a Hyundai forum why it was called 'sailing' as the Owner's Manual never used that word and was told that, when it happened, a yacht symbol appeared on the instrument-cluster. A small (but very expensive) 48V lithium battery lived in the i20's spare-wheel well, with a tiny 12V battery and a belt-drive starter-generator under the bonnet. There were plenty of i20 owner complaints about the 'sailing' feature not operating or becoming faulty and, when there were problems, the system's complexity made diagnosis difficult. I feared it and - like you - the Fabia Mk4 not being a MHEV was a positive selling point for me. Since 2021 the Skoda Octavia has been available with a 1.0litre 3-cylinder petrol motor and mild-hybrid technology (e-TEC) and, more recently, the Superb can be had as a MHEV with a 1.5litre petrol motor. In principle (I suppose) those motors and MHEV technology could find their way into smaller Skodas like the Fabia, but this article suggests that this won't happen. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/skoda/361150/new-euro-7-emissions-regs-could-kill-skoda-fabia

Skoda Hill-Hold https://www.skoda-storyboard.com/en/karoq_car_snow_hill-jpg/

This 2021 forum discussion may be worth reading through. https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/489586-fabia-10-tsi-110hp-dsg-7-tips-tricks-advices-experiences/

A quote from one of gumdrop's r recent postings. "After many years a Ford owner, I decided to buy a Skoda Yeti, I had two, then a Fabia Kombi monte carlo and a 1.5 Kamiq, monte carlo dsg, my first automatic and now a Fabia SE-L dsg..." Regarding the title of this discussion (Fabia SE L are the suspension units the same as on the Fabia Monte Carlo 1L) as it's now been established that the standard specification of the latest Fabia Mk4 cars with the 1.5litre 4-cylinder motor have disk rear brakes rather than the drum rear brakes of Mk4s with the 1.0litre 3-cylinder motor, it's POSSIBLE that they also have different suspension units. But there's no persuasive reason to think that Fabia Mk4 cars that have the 1.0litre 3-cylinder motor might have different suspension units according to the car's 'trim'. Whether a Fabia Mk4's 'trim' is SE Comfort, Colour Edition, SE L or Monte Carlo, if it has the 1.0litre motor it ALMOST CERTAINLY will have the same suspension units. Having said that, a Fabia Mk4 with SE Comfort 'trim' has 15" wheels and185/65 profile tyres as standard, whereas a SE L trim car could have (as an option) 18" wheels with 215/40 profile tyres, and one should expect this to have a noticeable effect on handling and road-holding (ie. 'grip'). Even when a Fabia Mk4 SE L has the standard 16" wheels , the Skoda configurator website shows that 195/55 profile Continental, Bridgestone or Goodyear tyres may be factory-fitted (my own 2023-built SE L has 195/55 R16 Goodyears) and, depending on which make has been fitted, this might have an impact on tyre noise, wet grip, handling or road-holding. My 2009 Skoda Roomster's 195/55 R15 tyres were Continentals originally and these 'tram-lined' quite significantly. I switched to Hankook tyres and the tram-lining disappeared and the car now has Falken tyres that also don't tram-line. In my 60 years or so of driving 4-wheelers (and not slowly!!) I can only remember one tyre-related incident involving road-holding. This was driving at night at a reasonable speed in the wet on a road I knew like the back of my hand in a Golf GTi Mk2 16V when, on a tightish right-hand bend, the car's Pirelli P600 front tyres unexpectedly lost grip momentarily. It frightened me quite badly, but it probably wasn't the tyres' fault, just slippery stuff on the road surface. My own experience is that it's fairly easy to notice car handling differences - I owned four Golf GTi models in succession and they all handled differently. So I have no difficulty believing that a Fabia Estate Monte Carlo would have handled significantly differently to a Fabia Mk4 SE L, in the same way that my Fabia SE L behaves differently to my Roomster. But I don'y know if my Fabia is better or worse than the Roomster when it comes to road-holding and I've no intention of experimenting to find out.

As Tintowellfan has advised, ALL new 2024 UK-specification Skoda Fabia Mk4 cars that have the i.5litre motor have rear disk brakes as standard. The Fabia configurator 'sequence' that will reveal this is Trims/Engines/Summary /Standard Equipment/Safety and Driver Assistance. Taking the Fabia SE L trim as an example, in the Safety and Driver Assistance section the following extract applies to all cars irrespective of their engine size Towards the bottom of the Safety and Driver Assistance section, for SE L trim Fabias with the 1.0litre motor, this appears but, for SE L trim Fabias with the 1.5litre motor, this appears instead (Logically, it would make better sense to have the type of rear brake fitment ("Drum brakes in rear" or "Disk brakes in rear") immediately below the "Disk brakes in front" entry, but there you go...) So, to summarise. for 2024 UK-specification Fabias, all cars with the 1.0litre motor will have drum rear brakes (with no option to specify disk rear brakes instead), whereas all cars with the 1.5litre motor will have disk rear brakes.

Of the options you've listed the following are still available. 1: Comfort Package - now called "Charging Package" providing a USB-C port on the rear-view mirror and USB-C charging sockets with increased charging performance (2x front, 2x rear) -- £350 2: Variable boot floor -- £175 3: Emergency space-saving spare wheel (for 16"-18" wheels) -- £150 As has been observed above, the option to replace the now-standard drum rear brakes with disc brakes is no longer available. All the options available for the very latest Fabia Monte Carlo model can be found here. https://cc.skoda-auto.com/gbr/en-GB/extras-scenic?activePage=extraequipments&color=8X8X&configurationId=&extraEquipments=&id=GBR%3Bskoda%3B2024%3BPJ37L5%3B0%3BGYOKYOK%3Bmda20240514082659%3Ben-GB%3B%3B60007%3B60217&interior=NV&modifiedPages=trimlines&snapshotVersion=c9daccf6-51dd-4656-ab6f-eb556811d979&trimline=PJ7|Monte Carlo6021760007&visitedPages=trimlines (This may help with disabling a Volvo XC40's automatic parking brake) https://www.volvocars.com/uk/support/car/xc40/article/4e034dd7899c6641c0a8015156455109

My 2023-built Fabia's LKA defaults to ON (as the Owner's Manual makes clear will be the case). My car does not have the TRAVEL ASSIST package, so does not have LFA (Lane Following Assist). If it did have LFA, I would expect that to be an On-or-Off driver choice.

Thanks, I did wonder whether you had 'hacked' your UP's software or had some general-purpose magic spell. 😀

It's the norm for recently marketed cars to have a 'lane keeping assist' (LKA) feature that will turn the steering-wheel if road lane markings/verges are being closely approached, but - as far as I'm aware - for UK-specification cars, LKA is ALWAYS enabled when the car's ignition switched on, though the driver can then turn off LKA if he/she so wishes. The Skoda Fabia Mk4 Owner's Manual advises "The system is designed primarily for driving on the motorway" but (as you've mentioned) it's a real PITA on rural roads. There's a higher-tech version of this - let's call it 'lane following assist' (LFA) - that is also intended primarily for driving on motorways. LFA combines with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) to maintain the car's position in a demarcated lane and regulate its speed so that the vehicle can, in principle, drive itself. However, LFA does not normally automatically enable each time the car's ignition is switched on - it's a driver choice. The Fabia MK4 has LKA as standard, with LFA as part of the "Travel Assist" package. and it's quite easy to identify if Travel Assist is present as there's a ACC supplementary stalk on the steering column's left-hand side. My Mk4 does not have that stalk, so no ACC. My 2021-built Hyundai i20 had LKA that was automatically enabled each time the car was started and that was turned on or off via a dedicated 'press-and-hold' button on the steering-wheel. My understanding of Skodas/VWs is that it used to be the case that a driver could choose the default LKA setting, but I would have thought that, by 2023, a VW UP's LKA would default to On. So how did you manage to permanently set your Up's LKA setting to Off, please?

I bought my Fabia SE L off a Skoda dealer's forecourt, so the fact that it had rear drum brakes (I checked with a torch) was irrelevant. However, I was rather surprised that Skoda were (apparently) fitting rear drum brakes to all Fabia models, including those with the 1.5litre motor. If I had been factory-ordering a new Fabia, I would have made absolutely certain that there was no rear disc brake option and, if I wanted the 1.5litre motor, confirmed whether this had rear disks as standard. I would definitely not have relied on Skoda on-line documentation.

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.)