mark.r.cullen

FYI this escalated to a very strong electrical burning smell in the boot. I had previously had a quick look for broken wires but couldnt see anything obvious. Dropped it off at our local Skoda dealer to fix. Apparently it was a broken wire somewhere in addition to the boot switch itself also being faulty. I have also noticed a poor repair to the door wiring loom on the drivers side previous to this (boot not refitted properly, plug not clipped in properly and just a shoddy looking repair in general). Very unimpressed with the apparent quality of wiring on these cars. Rant over! Hopefully this helps someone in the future.

Hi all My mothers 2008 Fabia boot lid suddenly wont shut. The latch doesnt want to... latch. Have replaced the latch / lock as a long shot and that hasnt fixed it. The only error on VCDS was something to do with the heated rear window. Unplugged that with no effect. Theres some funny things happening too. When you press the switch the number plate lights turn on / off. Sometimes the switch just doesnt seem to do anything at all. Also when the rear wiper is going it seems to make noises more often, but still doesnt actually latch shut. She said she got it to latch shut once the other day, but then as soon as she put on her headlights it popped open! She did also say she has had to replace her rear lights a few times, which seems odd. Electrical gremlins... probably going to need an auto electricial? Any ideas?! Known issues?!

Hi We dont have the car any more. A trusted garage reckoned it was a lazy starter motor. Theyre usually correct with their diagnosis. Parents got it reconditioned and it seemed to help a bit but it still wasn't right. From what I remember it turned out it had an incorrect battery fitted.... from a Skoda dealer no less! We had previously ruled out the battery as that battery was actually new and changed to see if it would help the issue! I couldnt tell you what battery we replaced it with as the car got sold a long while back... but a beefier / correct size battery seemed to sort the issue!

Brill, thanks. I'll give it a go when I'm next over there.

Clutch is new uprated helix with new dmf. Prob got 15k on it if that. As per original post.... Clutch pedal has no effect on noise. Don't think its that. Any easy way to test alternator pulley techie ? Anything visual? Or take belt off?

Thanks. I'll let them know. It does sound kind of like this one but without the hissing and chirping noises, just the metallic clanking kind of noise...

It was running without that cover on when I took the video :-) The video isn't very good (sorry). It sounds kind of like a solenoid engaging and disengaging something randomly perhaps? It sounds sort of like this noise (at the times as per the comment), but more regular and more random sounding. Obviously the Fabia doesn't have a DISA valve though....

Any idea what this noise could be? Seems to be coming from underneath the car somewhere. Seems to go away with even a tiny amount of revs. Seems quite a random noise... not rythmic. Doesnt go away pressing the clutch pedal down.... Asz engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahAUKYtcyls&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I had this happen a while a go, randomly. Some days it would be fine, others not. For me, it seemed to be one of the relays under the dash. I was under there routing some speaker wire from what I remember, zip tieing things, and decided to make sure they were all pushed in. There was one relay that I pushed that made a locking click noise! So, I pulled it out and reinserted (and made sure it made the click noise) for good measure and haven't had a problem since! About a month after the bulb light came on and my heart sunk, until I realised a bulb actually was out this time heh. Good luck!

Just sumbled upon this whilst researching some more: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?2970528-I-think-I-need-a-new-clutch-master-cylinder-mad&p=34591247&viewfull=1#post34591247 and http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4376420-How-to-bleed-your-02M-clutch-slave-cylinder-the-effective-way. Sounds scary and I would rather not attempt that. Does the reverse bleed achieve the same thing? Specifically in the first link: It sounds like connecting a hose from the clutch bleed valve to a caliper still wouldn't be able to get any air out of the slave cylinder?

And what do you know, it's gradually returned over a few days of use! I'm sure it must just be stuck air. I'll try and convince father to help me do a reverse bleed at the weekend - I just want it over and done with!! It was nice to drive without it sticking in 1st / hard reverse :(

A normal bleed got quite a lot of air out apparently (I was on the clutch, so couldn't actually see). We did it a few times. After the first go, no more air came out. It seems to be behaving much better so far - I'm waiting for the problems to slowly return though!! It seems to be behaving better though, so hopefully it's just air in the system that can be completely removed (eventually!!).

For others, it's the 5.4mm tubing that you need - 5mm stuff from B&Q worked fine. The Father suggested bleeding normally first, as he was weary of reverse bleeding (he was taught not to do it, as it can bugger seals up apparently?). So, we just bled the clutch. It was pretty straight forward. I pushed on the clutch 6 times, then on the last one held it to the floor whilst he tightened. On the first bleed apparently quite a lot of air came out! The fluid looked a bit hazy too. We repeated this a few times and put things back together. So far so good, but i'll give it a few days One thing we also noticed, is that the slave cylinder seems a bit loose.... it wiggles about a bit! I have a bit of 'slack' on my clutch pedal, where nothing seems to happen when I push and it feels quite loose on the pedal - it seems that when I get to the end of this on the pedal, the slave cylinder tightens up. Is this normal? If that makes any sense at all?

No one knows? In the Eezibleed kit there's two pipe sizes - 5.4mm and 3.5mm. Just need to know which so I can get extra length

5mm or 3mm hose? :-)

I hope too. Sounds promising, and I thank you for posting such a detailed potential solution I will let you know how I get on. Mine's not that bad. It's mostly just 1st and reverse - I swear a couple of times mashing on the brakes has free'd up the clutch / gear before, but I am never 100% sure! If it stops my gear difficulties I will be one happy chappy! Hopefully it won't have damaged the clutch / gearbox too badly :(

I've heard some horror stories of ... a ... brake cylinder? master cylinder? going past where it should do and destroying a seal or something, when bleeding it the old fashioned way. Seems like you got away with it okay though! I'm hopefully going to pick up some tubing and a pressure bleeder and the father will help me do this over the weekend. I have a lot of difficulty getting it in to reverse, out of first, and it kinda seems like the clutch is still engaged a bit in first *sometimes*. I'm told it's a quirk of the clutch setup (Helix), but.... thinking about it.... it may have started shortly after a brake fluid change by a garage :(

I do wonder if this is all that my car is suffering from. I may have to attempt this one. Where did you get the tubing from?

Nope. It looks like it's just snapped off - a moulded in part of the plastic underneath the leather! And it's so far up, it doesn't look easy to even try and glue the clip part back on. You would have to carefully remove the leather to be able to do that (leather is glued on I think?!). Guess the plastic ones are different :(

Just a friendly warning! I tried to remove the handbrake cover last night, after reading a couple of posts on here just saying "pull towards the dashboard". Don't!! At least not with the vRS cover I had (standard leather one AFAIK). About half way down there's a sticky out right angle bit - under this, there is actually a plastic clip of some description. This broke clean off :-( There seems to be no obvious way of pushing on the clip to release the cover from the outside though, as the leather covers it?! So, this morning I ordered a new cover. £50 later! Ouch. Will post a picture of the broken clip when I get the new cover.

For me the issue was the actual plug and not the wire. Wiggling would cure it, until eventually.... it didn't any more. I replaced the plug with a female spade connector type thing that I had laying about (fits fine!), put plenty of tape around as without the proper plug there's a huge gap... and it's been spot on since Good luck!

Good to know, and glad you seem to have got it sorted. I had my slave cylinder / release bearing (one and the same?) replaced at the same time. I would hope it's not that. In my case, I have discovered that if I come to a stop whilst still in second gear, as opposed to first, it doesn't seem to "stick" and rumble the car. It also seems to go in to reverse much easier going from second gear too. I can probably live with that. First gear is fairly useless anyway

Hmmmmm. Sounds like what I have, but it's supposedly a normal (rather annoying) niggle of the uprated clutch setup I have (Helix). Only happens in first and reverse though..... I would have thought OE should be fine :-S

Sounds like what happens when the starter motor wire snaps. It's possible to see the plug if you look down at the right angle - I think I posted a picture somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it (so maybe I didn't). The gear lever gets in the way a bit, so you want to stick it in... 3rd, I think? Or reverse? and then look down underneath the battery at an angle. Mine snapped and was repaired by hacking at the plug. It was okay for a while, then started to play up again. I gave the wire a wiggle (possible if you have smaller hands) and it started. I chopped the plug off and re-repaired it not so long back with just a crimp spade connector jobby - hasn't given me a problem since

Is actual bigger than requested? Boost creep? ... I seem to recall reading that boost creep can be an issue with the MD376 due to the clipped wheels, and it needs sorting in the map. Oh, probably ignore me. Just read above - negative deviation... so underboost?