Ruxpin

Now sold - 27p per mile over 130k - happy with that Hope the next owner enjoys as much as me - can't see why it wouldn't keeping going for another 150k

I would say BP ultimate doesn't cost you any more....my figures are slightly low for "BP" as when i go skiing in italy fully loaded up with roof box etc i don't take Millers so all the fuel for those trips gets lumped in the "BP" group - doing 80mph for 10hrs straight on the french m-ways the car only does 38-40mpg Millers certainly improves economy though and is well worth using. Faults - only the standard ones - leaky doors, peeling rear spoiler Turbo went at 132k miles, original clutch How do i drive? - well the front discs and pads have lasted 100k and recently passed MOT without comment, i also got 40k out of a set of 4 michelin tyres... i use the performance but don't abuse or rag around the bends

I think i paid about £10.5k from skoda main dealer when 2 years old and 23k miles. Not sold it yet - currently on autotrader or will be choped in when deal on new motor is agreed. Parts - i have all receipts at home so could add up - really not that bad. tyres is the biggie as i have always gone with "premium" brand so i guess £1600 on tyres, turbo was £400ish?, Radiator £90, Fog lamps x2 at £50, wipers say £100, bulbs say £50, battery £70, aerial £20 Services - again i have all receipts - inclusing turbo fitment and 2 oil changes for that i think the total is about £2800 Fuel costs?? At todays rates £17,340!!! wish i hadn't woked that out now :( Tax 120x5.5 = £660 Insurance say £500x5.5 = £2750 Total costs assuming 25% retained value (really not sure what it is worth) £33,855...ouch but only £0.27p/mile which i don't think is really that bad for the performance you get.

So after 5.5 years of ownership and some 130k miles it is finally time for a change - i will miss the car, overall experience has been very good. Is just about to reach 150k and you can't fault it. Over all that time and mileage it has let me down only 3 times. Once for a boost hose, once for a replacement turbo and recently a dead battery. Congratulations to skoda for building a tough little car with good performance and great economy. Some boring stats i have accumulated over the years: BP fuel over 14746miles returned 43.77mpg BP ULTIMATE over 34814miles returned 46.60mpg (Saving of 2.8%) BP ULTIMATE + Millers over 6645miles returned 47.55mpg (Saving of 4.8%) BP + Millers over 59567miles returned 47.33mpg (Saving of 8.1%) Maximum MPG on a tank 53.71mpg Minimum MPG on a tank 36.06mpg 12 services 2 Cambelts 1 exchange water pump 1 turbo 1 radiator 2 fog lamps 1 glove box lamp 1 brake pedal switch 1 roof aerial 1 battery Numerous headlight and general bulbs - gave up with fancy bright ones and now use cheapest with also last longest 16 tyres bought - Michelin Exaltos lasted the best and £/m were more economical than the Pirelli PZeros I've been to Scotland with bikes on the roof, skiing in italy 4 or 5 times, lyon, hannover, antwerp, numerous trips to london and bristol. All in a great car. I will be sad to see it go but time to move on to something a bit bigger and quicker

Humm..mine too has done this fairly recently (within last 6 months) Started small but quickly spread and now looks a mess. Also interested to see what people have done to fix.

i'd say fubar'd - mine sounded exactly like that after eating one of the blades off the compressor wheel......

yep same problem here this morning - no bong until -5C -8C when i started the car - frost on the inside of the windscreen!

I have used chains on my standard vrs wheels a number of times - Weissenfels 9mm Klack & Go Pro-Tech Not had any clearance issues but they do damage the alloys (only slight scuffing of the face but it is damage) My link Grip in packed snow is obviously very good. Quite a pain to fit - klack and go pro-tech's are fairly good ones but they still take a while to fit and unfit. FWIW i have just bought a second set of wheels and winter tyres for my other car with the hope of not using chains unless it is very bad (i drive to the alps)

Conti Sport Contact 2's - Fitted when car bought. Seemed quite noisy. Michelin Pilot Exalto's - Expensive at £100 each but lasted very well - 42k from a set of 4! Pirelli P Zero Nero's - Current tyres. £75 each but not wearing as well as the Michelin's. Currently done 26k but only 3-3.5mm left. Need to get another 6k out of them or the Michelin's are better value

Mileage: 138,000 Owned for: 118,000 Reliability: Generally pretty good and better than previous pug 306 Unexpected costs: Turbo at 132,000, anti roll bar bushes at 120,000, rear wheel bearing around 110,000

Mine was supposed to be a like for like replacement. Midland Turbo who also did my refurb didn't say any different and i didn't ask for an upgrade so i assume it is still a pd130 turbo. Seems we have a similar change in lag characteristics. I haven't had the car remapped and as far as i know it is standard. I like the bigger shove of the new unit but the lag is a little annoying. Humm.. i guess it might be worth having a specialist look at it to see if it can be adjusted and improved. Not really interested in a remap though as car already has 136k on it and i'd rather not fork out for a new clutch just yet!

Is it adjustable? Easy to do?

When mine went i had a refurbed turbo fitted. Not sure if it was or is now a garett or kkk, however, the refurbed unit definitely has more lag than the original. The off boost spool up around 1250-1500rpm is much slower and smokey. Overall the new blower has made the car significantly quicker though. I was thinking/hoping it might loosen up a bit and improve. After about 4500miles it has maybe improved slightly but not really any different......

The basic cambelt kit is about £110 Total inc a service for mine was approx £300 (indi mechanic) I guess a main dealer could be £4-500 Add £30/40 or so if you want the water pump doing.

My standard VRS ran 0-60 in 9.5s 0-100 in 30.5s the turbo lunched itself shortly afterwards (it had covered 130k). With the refurbished standard turbo it then ran 0-60 in 8.6s 0-100 in 25.4s 0-100 in 13s is quick for a little VRS

I've not had it remapped (I aquired the car at 20k) and given the performance i would guess it is totally standard - certainly seems on a par with claimed figures

Now that the new turbo has a few miles on it i ran some performance figures to check all was ok: 0-60 (Softish launches to not trash the transmission - the clutch has done 134k and i don't want to be changing it for a while!) Old Turbo 9.5s New Turbo 8.59s 50-65 (single gear) Old Turbo 3.57s New Turbo 3.23s The figures show it pulls better throughout the rev range. Quite suprised by the difference.

No gory picks of the damaged compressor wheel unfortunately. In the end i went for a refurbed turbo from Midland Turbos - £415, so a lot cheaper than a new exchange item from eurocar parts etc or a dealer. The car is now up and running although i'll be taking it steady for a few miles and do an oil change in 500miles. Interestingly the new turbo is near silent in operation. The old one used to whistle when initially loaded so there may have been a problem for a while which steadily got worse. At some point once the turbo bedded in i'll run some performance numbers to see if there has been any change.

I can't believe those figures are correct except for maybe single gear times. The numbers i have collected from a performance box through the gears for my standard vrs, standard abarth 500 and standard 118bhp elise S1 suggest otherwise: Rough figures: 50-70 Abarth 500: 4.6s Fabia VRS: 5.1s Elise S1: 3.5s Tuned Porsche 997GT2: 1.1s!! 20-40 Abarth 500: 2.6s Fabia VRS: 2.9s Elise S1: 2.0s

thanks for the link, definitely an option to consider. A bit of an update. The turbo is off, it's a KKK. Interestingly given the mileage the bearings seem good I'm told, must be that good oil.... The compressor wheel isn't in such good shape though.... A chunk is missing from one of the blades which explains the awful noise and lack of boost. It's probably going to go to midland turbos for a refurb but the above might be a better option. Decisions decisions When I see the broken turbo I'll try and get some gory photos

Yes it is the "wrong" oil according to VW/Skoda as it hasn't been put through VW's expensive certification process to get the 505.01 stamp of approval. However, I believe Millers only put their semi synthetic oil through the certification process due to cost implications on the end product. That's why the fully synthetic oil (a better oil) is only slightly more expensive than the semi synthetic - hence why i have run on fully synthetic since the end of warranty It's a personal choice, some people will just go by the book and follow what skoda say, i looked into it a bit and decided to go with the fully synthetic oil. Like i said i doubt it had anything to do with the turbo going but if anything comes up in the repair i will let you know.

I can't honestly say it gave any signs it was about to go pop. In hindsight it maybe smoked a little more when laboured recently but given the mileage and coupled with the fact it used very little oil (less than 1ltr in 10k) i wasn't overly concerned. Noise wise it hadn't changed - generally very quiet with a little whistle under full load (hot and cold). I'm interested to try and find out what went wrong and why - don't really want to be changing it again any time soon. If it is just wear and tear in the bearings fine but if it is oil starvation or impellar damage we need to find the cause. Just before the failure we had been cruising on the M-way for probably 2hrs at around 70mph with 2 bikes on the roof so the turbo would have been working well but historically this has never been an issue. I've driven to ski resorts with a roof box and scotland with the bikes for 8hr+ journeys with the increased load. My mechanic hasn't been able to look at it yet but will update the thread when i get a report.

Is 132k a good innings for the turbo??? The car still runs but based on the horrible noise and lack of boost i think the turbo has lunched itself........ ended up being towed 60miles home at the weekend..... i wasn't best pleased but fair play to the AA we only had to wait 40mins to be picked up from the M5. Currently awaiting full diagnosis but i'm guessing turbo bearings. Given the car is serviced on the dot every 10k, oil kept topped up and the car is not abused i'm a bit disapointed that it has gone at only 132k. I know some people see to go through them like sweets but with good maintenance and sensible driving i was hoping for more, am i being unrealistic for a standard car? The options all look pretty expensive.... given the mileage on the car upgrading to a PD150 or hybrid turbo aren't an option as within days the clutch would go (still on original) and to be honest for a work car its fast enough and i can't really justify the costs of doing it properly with new clutch, turbo and remap - i'd rather spend the money on the other toys. Has anyone had experience of having turbos repaired? Midland Turbos have been suggested - any experience? I guess once it is in bits and the fault diagnosed we will know a bit more but at the moment i'm thinking a repair job rather than new. New seem to be around £700 on exchange, i'm hoping a repair will be significantly less than £500 all in. Anyone have any suggestions for Midlands companies for the repairs? Costs?? For reference i have run the car on Millers Powersport 4 for the last 50k miles and it has run Millers Fully Synthetic oil (so not VW 505 01 spec) for 72k miles. I don't think either of these brought a premature end to the turbo but it does make you wonder..... Any advice welcome. Cheers, Rich

My VRS is about to have a 130k service. 1st set of front discs and pads were changed at 50k (so completed 80k), 1st set of rear discs and pads were changed at 80k (so completed 50k). From what i remember the rears were mainly changed due to corrosion and the possibility of MOT failure. I've been informed neither need changing at the 130k service so a bit more life in them yet. I'm fairly light on the brakes but i've very impressed with 80k+ from the fronts. If your rears are worn at 47k there could be an issue but it maybe just corrosion the garage is referring to.

I fitted a pair of H7 Philips X-treme Power +80% bulbs in February 2009. Both failed simultaneously in December 2009 after only 10months. I'm pretty suspicious of the electrics in the fabia (and vw cars in general). I have gone through far too many bulbs in the Fabia - 4+ dip beam, 1 main beam, 2 number plate bulbs, 2 front side lights, 3-4 brake lights, etc. You also see lots of golfs on the road with blown rear brake lights or side lights. The dash lights in my vrs are fairly temperamental. They frequently changing brightness independent of the adjuster and the adjuster sometimes doesn't work linearly. To me for 2 bulbs to fail simultaneously points towards a car issue - i'm not going to be spending too much on bulbs in the future as they seem fairly disposable in the vrs.