SlowBloke

Thanks for your advice Gizmo. I don't trust the dealerships not to find a hundred 'faults' and fix them at considerable cost to me.

I have a 2010 Fabia fitted with the 1.6L diesel engine. The car has done 48K miles. Last December the engine was running very poorly. A friend lent me an OBDII dongle and together we checked the fault codes - None. Then we went for a short uncomfortable drive. The engine wouldn't accelerate until it had gone about 400 yards in first gear. It then stuttered, stalled and blue large clouds of white smoke while being driven at normal speeds. The only curiosity we could see was the 'Absolute Throttle Position' was static at 88%. I assumed this was the throttle pedal position so I ordered and fitted a new throttle assembly. But over the last couple of weeks the car is again running badly. Checking the Error Codes etc. this morning I noticed again that the Absolute Throttle Position is still 88%. So what does this reading indicate? Any ideas greatly appreciated. I suspect the gadget on the engine which actually opens the throttle is stuck or the connection to it is faulty. I don't want to put the car into the hands of a Skoda dealer as the car is overdue (and I hope always will be) for the so called fix that Skoda developed for this engine because of Dieselgate. Now yesterday the car was again awful. 5 miles of smoke bad enough for following drivers to give up followed by bad running until I pushed the car to maximum acceleration for a few miles (in Norfolk there are few roads where you can safely do his). This morning the car started from cold and ran well. I wouldn't have suspected anything had ever been wrong. Again no fault codes. By the way, I now have my own OBDII dongle. It comes from a US company called Blue Driver who also supply a very effective app to read the dongle. The only problem is that in America Skoda cars rarely appear so there is no option to select my car. BUT, it works well if a small VW of similar age is selected. The dongle is available from Amazon in the UK.

You haven't indicated the age or mileage of the car so probably this won't help. However.... My 2010 car with the 1.6 diesel has done 48,000 miles. It recently started running badly particularly when the engine was cold. I checked the ECU with an ODB2 dongle and found that the throttle pedal wasn't registering correctly. It has a variable resistance build into the hinge. This sends a position reading to the ECU which then changes the actual throttle opening. The ECU thought the throttle was about 90% open all the time and the car would barely run. I bought a new throttle pedal assembly from the local Skoda dealer. It is easy to fit - three small nuts on studs plus a little multiconnector. The car is now in the process of re-adjusting itself to the new throttle. So it is a bit unhappy for the first 30 seconds/200 yards and then is OK again. If you own or can borrow an ODB2 reader dongle it should show if the throttle is behaving plus allow you to check for fault codes. Alternatively, your local 'friendly' Skoda dealer might check the car for you and advise.

I tried two cheap (£15) ODB2 dongles. The first one didn't work at all. The second worked for 30 minutes then died. When I contacted the supplier I was told it wouldn't work with a diesel engined car. However, recently my car was playing up. My son in law had a fancy dongle which we tried and it worked fine. It is expensive. BUT for £100 you get a device which works plus an app which gives you a good range of data. For more details, look at:- https://www.bluedriver.com/ Three small points. It works with an Apple or Android phone or tablet via bluetooth rather than be hard wired. The dongle fits upside down as compared to most cars I have seen. Don't know why the socket is inverted. Then the other issue is that the dongle is made for the North American market which until recently didn't have any modern Skodas. So there is no setting for a Skoda. I am using it set for a Seat car. The mnufacturer says they are considering adding Skodas to the list of cars covered.

I have a 2010 Fabia with the 1.6 diesel engine. A couple of years ago I bought an ODB2 reader (dongle). It worked fine for 30 minutes. Then it died. It was an ELM 327 and it cost about £15 so I wasn't too disappointed. However, my Fabia has very little instrumentation. There is a blue light when the engine is cold, and, I guess (I've never seen it) a red light for when it is too hot. My son in law has a fancy £100 ODB2 reader which we tried on my car. It quickly spotted that the throttle pedal wasn't working as expected. It seemed that it was about 90% open when the car was idling. So that needed replacing. But if this gizmo could spot those sort of problems then I wanted one. I bought a Blue Driver dongle from Amazon (UK branch), plugged it in and after connecting it via Bluetooth to my computer tablet, I have a good range of information continuously. One small problem. The dongle is made in the USA and works with cars there. This includes VW, Audi and Seat cars but not Skodas. I contacted the manufacturer who says they are looking into providing cover for Skodas as some are being sold there now. Meanwhile, I have identified my car as a 2010 Seat and it works. The range of data available is somewhat restricted; no oil pressure or temperature. I am hoping that if Skodas are added or I experiment with the car brand (my Son in Law has a Mercedes) it should provide more readings. Meanwhile the dongle and an excellent app are doing good allowing me to read fault codes and reset them (after fixing the problem) as well as presenting a continuous display of coolant temperature, air inlet pressure and temperature, engine revs and engine speed. This is the Blue Driver web site:- https://www.bluedriver.com/home2?utm_expid=.yx6vB3NmRXul6yOPLFUViA.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F

I have a 2010 1.6 diesel Fabia. Since the last garage service 4 years ago I have changed the oil and filter when the warning light appears. It is now an annual event as I only drive about 6000 miles a year. The oil change is easy to do. I have a large socket spanner to fit the filter housing which you have to avoid over-tightening. There is a torque figure marked on the plastic cover. The socket and a long drive rod make the removal and replacement easy. I usually take of the sump plastic cover to access the drain plug on the back of the sump. Remove it to let the (ideally warm) oil drain and go and have lunch or at least a cup of tea. The oil has to meet a VW code 9507 from memory). The oil must have a low ash content to avoid damaging the DPF. Mobil and Millers and I think Comma all make an oil which meets this code. Needless to say, they are all quite expensive - about the same as a tank of fuel so not a fortune. The procedure for resetting the warning light is described somewhere and involves holding down the miles setting button while turning on the ignition and then holding the button for about another 5 seconds.

I have had a 2010 1.6 diesel since 2011 and recommend that you avoid it. The exhaust has a DPF. The cam belt needs replacing every 5 years which is a lot of money as most of the engine has to come out. The physically smaller engines don't have that problem to the same extent. The gearing is weird giving a theoretical top speed in 5th of 175 mph. That means pupping away, reversing and towing a large trailer or caravan is not nice. Fuel consumption should and could be better. Sure the car goes like a rocket. I have caught out the owners of large Mercedes saloons in a traffic light drag race once or twice and it is great for overtaking on country roads (40-70 mph in third gear).

A few weeks ago I posted a thread asking if anyone had experience of using a fuel additive to clean the injectors in a 1.6 diesel engine. Nothing much happened. Recently the car started running really badly. It is a 2010 car which has done 45,000 miles and has been my car since 2011. Prior to that it was a demonstrator. I took the car to my favourite local garage (not Skoda) to check the error codes recently. There were none. However I have the MOT coming up in a few weeks so felt I had to do something. I trust the mechanics so I asked their advice. They recommended using a Forte product. They didn't have it in stock but suggested that another local garage might. So I bought a bottle, filled the fuel tank with diesel and added the bottle of cleaning fluid. After about 10 miles the car ran much better. No complaints from the engine. The rough lumpy idle and jerky operation at low engine speeds has gone. I will check the fuel consumption when I have used most of the present tank full. The Forte stuff is about £15 but you may have to resort to the internet to find it. There are other brands like Millers and Redex but I have found the Forte products excellent and felt I was at the end of my rope with the problems. About fuel consumption. The dash gauge has been showing it at about 45 mpg at best for most of this Summer. I live in rural Norfolk and most trips are more than 20 miles so not short runs to the local shops. HOWEVER, I decided to check the consumption against the fuel log I keep. I was delighted to find that over the last 5 tankfulls It got to 57 mpg early in the Summer which has gradually dropped to 52 for the last tank. I am hoping that cleaning out the fuel system and injectors will return this to closer to 60 mpg. So don't trust the gauge if you car is more than a few years old. My findings are for the 1.6 diesel but might be applicable to the other diesel engines. I can't offer any guarantees though.

I have a 2010 1.6 diesel engined Fabia 2. I recently received a letter proposing I take the car to one of 3 local dealerships to have the 'improvements' developed by VW for this engine fitted/changed. Reading some of the threads here on this subject I am reluctant to do this. I have had the car for 6 years during which time several very small changes to the engine have resulted in 100+ miles of misery. Clouds of smoke, very poor running and stalling. The car gradually recovers but it takes a full tank of fuel (about 400 miles ) until it is back to normal. However, the car now has 42,000 miles on it and performance is declining. Particularly its fuel consumption. In Winter this is rarely over 45 mpg and often around 40. In Summer this has climbed to the low 50's but this Summer it is still about 45 even on a good day. I live in mid-Norfolk so shopping trips are around 50 miles or more. Now my question is has anyone had their car chipped, by whom and with what result? I am hoping to get the performance back to where it was with an equivalent improvement in fuel consumption. I don't drive a lot over a year (perhaps 6000 miles) but the increased fuel consumption is costing me a lot. Instead of the 6000 miles requiring 100 litres of fuel at 60 mpg. It needs 133 litres at 45. I am NOT looking for supercar performance. As I had hoped to keep the car most of its remaining life (another 12 years?) the cost of chipping and the better driving experience seem worth the money. But the question is where to get this. By the way my local privately run garage which also does MOTs has advised me that a reputable chipping company should guarantee its work including an assurance that the work won't prevent it passing its MOT. Any advice appreciated.

I bought the car as a demonstrator from a Skoda dealer. Absolutely standard. It has had all the regular services using standard parts. The only exception was a K&N air filter (another disaster) so back to a standard filter. I last changed it about 3 months ago. No supermarket fuel, always Esso as far as possible. BP fuel seems OK but no local BP garage. I mostly drive around locally but even a trip to the supermarket here in Norfolk is a 25 mile round trip so few short trips. Yesterday I did a 150 mile round trip to the coast. Using mostly country roads but using the full throttle when the opportunity arrived. This produced no improvement. It did get to 52 mpg as the day was warm (20 here). It rarely seems to regen. I have only seen the light on the dash once. But if driving in Norwich stop/start in the traffic it often idles roughly at 1000 rpm rather than the usual 800 when not in gear. Sorry to be negative about the Skoda experience. I expected better. Adding in the emissions scandal for VAG diesels just makes me think very badly of their standards. I also have an old Toyota Amazon 4X4 which does everything it should very willingly and rarely gives any cause for concern in spite of 15 year old technology. We seem to be 'advancing' backwards!

Yup, it's a nightmare car. I would never buy another VAG car after this. I bought it as a one year old ex-demonstrator. I normally try to keep cars until the wheels drop off but will push this one off a cliff somewhere if I have any more problems with it.

I think it needs more than just a change of fuel. I normally use Esso simply because that is the nearest garage to home. But when I try an alternative fuel it gets upset. With Shell the fuel consumption dropped from 52 to 29mpg immediately. It sorted itself out after about 100 miles but the change of fuel produced no benefit.

Hi again I searched for the company and found this web site:- http://www.terraclean.co.uk/ I it works it should be worth the quoted £110. My main concern is that the car will complain afterwards. It is a bitty of a horror. Fitting a new thermostat or a new air filter and is was almost undriveable, blowing clouds of smoke, stalling and cutting out while the ECU reset itself.

Hi John Can you provide any more details of this service? Who does it, where, cost, etc?

This topic is intended for owners of diesel powered Fabias. I have the 1.6 engine in my car but other engines may have a similar problem. My car has done 44,000 miles. The engine runs but produces the classic diesel rattle at low speeds. Performance seem reduced slightly also. I think this is down to the injectors being dirty. Normally I would use one of the cleaning products mixed in the fuel to remove or reduce this problem. But VW/Skoda specifically instruct owners not to do this. See bottom right on page 158 of the owners manual. If the problem gets worse it may start smoking as the dirty nozzles produce a dribble of fuel rather than a spray. I don't want to replace the injectors if I can clean the existing ones. Has anyone tried using a cleaning product in the fuel. If so, with what effect (problems/benefits) and what was the additive?

I fitted a standard air filter and went for a drive. Initially the car was horrible. Very lumpy with lots of smoke. After 4 miles the smoke cleared and it became better to drive. After 10 miles, I pulled into a car park. The engine was again very lumpy at low speed and stalled. However, it restarted easily and I continued. I went about 5 miles on a fast dual road which was OK. The last 10 miles was on a country road so at lower speed. Above 50 mph the car was OK. At 40 it was still a bit rough in 4th gear. Then I drove through the local town and the engine hesitated when pulling away. The fuel consumption over 30 miles was only 30 mpg but seems to be slowly improving. So the K&N filter is going in the bin. I did clean it with K&N cleaner, dried it overnight and then oiled it using the K&N product. Perhaps I have put too much oil but the result is unacceptable. A £12 filter isn't a show stopper once a year so that will be the route for me now on.

Thanks for your advice. I will get a standard filter and see if that helps. There was nothing obviously wrong before I cleaned the K&N filter so don't think there can be another problem with the EGR valve or the lambda probes. There are no warning lights.

I have a 2010 1.6 diesel fabia. Last Autumn I got the water thermostat changed as the heater was not very effective and the engine was taking a long time to warm up. The job was done by a competent non Skoda garage. The car drove OK initially but after 5 miles it started to complain. It coughed, spluttered, blew clouds of smoke and stalled. After 10 miles, it improved slowly. I concluded that the CPU was resetting itself to cope with the new engine settings (i.e. a warmer engine). I just cleaned and re-installed the K&N air filter which has been in the car for about 2 years. Again the car is a horror to drive (same symptoms). Prior to cleaning the filter it was running OK and nothing else has been changed. Everything is reconnected and refitted. Any suggestions on how to overcome the CPU having a nervous breakdown every time something on the engine is changed would be appreciated. I should also mention that a few years ago, I bought some Shell diesel fuel instead of buying it from my local Esso garage. Withing a couple of miles the indicated fuel consumption went from 50 to 38. Again it took about 100 miles til the consumption figure returned to anything like the old figure. Why are these engines so sensitive to small changes? Or is it just my car?

It is a funny time of year for car engines. The oil companies change the formulation of fuel so that cars run OK in cold weather. BUT today (here in Norfolk) the temperature was 16 so it is too warm to require the cold weather fuel. Now diesel engines when cold struggle to idle smoothly. The compression ratio of a turbo charged engine barely produces a high enough temperature to burn the fuel. So the engine idles badly till it is warm. My car (also 1.6 diesel) stalls readily when puling away with a cold engine and needs more revs to avoid this. When it is warm it can almost pull away with no throttle. In a few weeks with colder weather the fuel mix will be for cold weather and the car should idle better when cold. Bad idling with a warm engine is another thing completely and may be a problem or a DPF regen.

Have a look at the linkage on the top of the gearbox. The set-up is adjustable. Something may have come loose, or there has been some wear which means adjustment would help. It may be the gear lever is not moving the mechanism in the gearbox fully so the gear is not fully engaged. This will wear the gears if left like this.

When I bough my car (a year old and 13,000 miles) the ignition lock was very stiff to turn. Skoda sold me a little spray of stuff like WD40 which fixed the problem. It is a very runny fluid and should flush any wear particles of dirt out of the lock. I would be tempted to use some WD40 sprayed in the lock using the thin red straw that usually comes with a new can. Spray, work the key in the lock and then spray again.

As there is no dashboard indicator to show when the DPF is regenerating, watch out for the idling speed (out of gear) rising from 800 to 1000rpm. In my car it also results in the engine idling badly like it was petrol with a broken spark plug lead or spark plug oiled up. It only lasts for 10 minutes and does not seem to result in signs of general overheating. Running and acceleration are normal. My car is the standard hatchback with a 105hp 1.6 diesel engine. Apart from the standard fuel consumption moan, I have no complaints about the engine set-up. My car has done 38.000 miles so far. I would check the engine fault codes with an ODBII reader or similar. I wonder if the EGR has stuck open or something similar.

Finally had to refill the tank. It took 35.6 litres to brim the tank after 396 miles. So I am getting a bit less than 50mpg. Which is pretty typical for this time of year. Therefore I don;t think the new tyres have improved fuel consumption by much if anything.

If I understand the problem correctly, then fixing it would mean making the engine burn fuel at a lower temperature. This avoids creating some of the NOx. BUT with an existing engine (as opposed to a new design) this means reducing the power output and according to Dr Diesel (him who invented the diesel engine) this also means reducing both power and efficiency. This would increase fuel consumption and CO2. Not nice. I got the dreaded letter yesterday. I am tempted to wait and see how the 'improvements' actually impact the car's performance. I hope to see reports from 'fixed' owners here before going ahead with my car. If the fixing is done on a limited time basis (bring your car next week, or else). I would then be tempted to get it done then get the ECU re-mapped or fit a piggyback ECU which I can remove at MOT time. Not what I expected but I am learning to cope with disappointments with the car.

Regarding fitting front or rear tyres first, it is hard to say where the noise in mainly from. I forgot to mention that I got the tyres mail order from Black Circles. Good price (£288 delivered) and speedy service so was very satisfied. Then found I had to pay £80 to a local garage to fit and balance them and a further £10 to leave the old tyres at the local recycle centre. So £378 in total. With hindsight I might have done better to shop around the local tyre centres or use a supplier who can provide a fitter. However, very pleased with the tyres. Up to now I have usually been able to change the tyres using a couple of tyre levers and my size 10s but the old tyres just didn't want to leave the rims. I was afraid of damaging the wheels or myself. I did a 40 mile trip this morning. On wet roads, the car was doing 51mpg. On the old tyres at this time of year I would have expected 45 to 48 so it looks like the Michelins are bit bit better for economy. I always log the amount when buying fuel so I will have a bett idea in a few days time as the tank is nearly full and I only drive about 500 miles/month.