Adz_VRS

Lol well I'd expect to see higher than 30 mpg from this engine plus me driving in eco mode. I've got plenty of friends/ex customers of mine who have/had one of these cars and most achieve over 40 with ease and that's just local city driving. Of course my expectations may be too high Had a good check of that wire before work today and it looks like it's been joined in two places. It looks like another coolant flush and skoda thermostat is in order. Failing that a trip to the auto electricians :( I want to try get this sorted asap as this may well have been the original cause of the head gasket failure. I don't fancy having to get that done again..... oh and I also replaced the water pump and timing belt with OE items... forgot to mention that earlier. Is there any other bases I could check? Thanks again guys for the support...

Hey guys thanks for the reply. I'm on nights this week hence the late response. I paid to have all this work done so I'm going to have to investigate myself as to how the oil cooler is fitted. Unfortunately the parts were all delivered to the garage so I never saw how the configuration was before hand. I do assume that the original oil mode has been kept however it's been mentioned above that this helps warm the motor up - assuming the mo dine has some sort of sensor attached to it? After I purchased the car I noticed that there is a sensor in the modine and a wire has been cut and put back together with insulation tape. Now I'm not savvy enough to know why or what this will do to the running of my car but I haven't had any engine lights on Ect. .. knowing my luck this wire will be impedence based and now it's been cut that has increased and maybe giving the ecu the incorrect value? I've heard of silver soldering for MAF extentions and lambda probes. As for fuel economy, I can brim the tank with shells finest and the car struggles to see 30mpg as an average on my trip. I'm getting around 400-430 a tank and this is baring in mind I've still gotta keep my revs down as I'm running in the new cam shells. So that's not me heavy boosting or anything. Cheers guys

Hi guys. Some of you may well know that I've recently bought a lemon, a total Friday car! After having issues with coolant loss, I eventually managed to find a garage willing to take on the task ok fault finding. In the end I managed to replace the following items: *thermostat *coolant temp sensor *coolant reservoir *head gasket and head skim *cam shells *injector seals *and other small associated items. I spoke to a few tuners including darkside and they mentioned that the oil cooler in these cars are prone to degrading, so I ordered and had fitted darksides 13 row thermostatically controlled oil cooler kit too. Now since I've had my car back, the temp gauge barely moves, I can leave it idling for 20 mins on my drive and it'll be a smidge over 50 degrees. I take it on the commute to work and again the gauge will not budge past 50 degrees. Now if I boost the car the gauge will rise but it won't stay hot at all. Do you guys know if I should see a constant 90 degrees? I don't like this low temp as it also doesn't give much heat from my heaters. The car does have a wide mouth bumper and the garage is sure there's nothing wrong with the car. They seem to think the low temps are all down to the oil cooler but that shouldn't activate until plus 80 degrees my belief is. I'm getting poor consumption from the car to which I assume is down to the ecu reading a low engine temp? Ah this car has my head battered lol Thanks in advance

Oops I managed to repost sorry

I've just had mine back after two weeks of running issues. I had a perfectly running car but was loosing coolant and pressuring the header tank. Booked it in to have the head gasket replaced, the garage had the head lightly skimmed, cleaned the head/valves, lapped the seats, replaced the cam shells as they were badly worn, fitted a new coolant temp sensor(oem), thermostat, egr delete pipe and a darkside 13row thermo oil cooler. Got my car back and it was running like a pig! Drove it less than 15 miles home, parked it up and arranged for them to come collect it. It developed a misfire when warmed up, the engine was violently trying to leave it's mounts and I had a horrible high pitched noise that I thought may be the turbo starting to fail... Anyway the basics were checked, the timing was correct but in the end the judder and violent idle vibration was caused by an injector seal and injector. The turbo noise was actually my upper boost pipe hitting my alternator pulley!!! But all well now. So you may have an issue related to injectors matey

Yes I agree that's my experience with duel mass failures. I find it odd that I get a judder usually between 3rd to 4th gear at 1/1.5k rpm however depressing the clutch or at idle this doesn't happen. Not too sure what it is to be honest. Once I get the car back ill have a better idea of what's going on really.

Hey guys just a quick update. Can't upload video, for some reason it fails even after editing to reduce the file size. Anyway the car developed a knocking noise and for some reason it will not get up to temperature at all. I can drive it for over 20 mins and the gauge will not move. So the garage picked the car up on a flat bed yesterday. The car went off to what I'd presume would be a long while. To my surprise I got a call late on last night to inform me that the car was fixed. The funny noise on boost ended up being my upper boost pipe hose touching the alternator. This was due to the size of the Darkside egr delete and silicone 90 degree bend combo - so that's been trimmed down. Happy days it's not a turbo!!. VCDS brought up an injector fault so that was replaced and seals done. So hopefully that's my violent judder when warm gone. Now the only other issue is my car judders when driving below 1.5k rpm. This car when I bought it had receipts for the gearbox, duel mass and clutch from only last year. The garage inspecting my car is all but sure my duel mass is on its way out :( So I'm pretty happy with the outcome other than there being something else wring with this fooker being the clutch! The bigger issue that still in my mind is after having all the head work, head gasket, water pump, thermostat and coolant temp switch replaced, it still refuses to get up to temperature. I can drive my commute to work (10/15 min dependant upon traffic) and the gauge will not move at all. I have been informed that because I'm staying off boost my temp gauge does not rise as diesels take longer to warm up compared to petrols. Also because I now have darksides 13 row oil cooler kit fitted, the extra capacity and cooling ability is not allowing the car to get up to temperature(something which I find hard to believe as it's thermostatically controlled so it will not function as a cooler until a certain temperature is o tained). My question to you guys is, is the Fabias ecu similar to the octavia s in terms of temperture information given to the dash? I know in the 1.8ts that the temp always sits a 90 unless you have a huge issue and it will change. However the ecu reads live time temp which is not shown on the dash gauge. Should this be the same for my Furby? Thanks a million guys

Mine started like this and within a week/two there was small amounts of mayo under the oil filler cap. However the header tank was completely filled with Crap. Which was the most annoying thing as I'd only replaced the header tank days before this. I'm having a total nightmare with mine atm though. Head gasket sorted but the cars got a horrible judder, misfire, knocking noise and it sound like my turbos about to eat itself. You fix one thing ...........grrrrrr

Oh and I'd try cleaning those sensors too.

Dude is the traction control system linked to the ABS and the MAF/MAP sensor? The reason why your experiencing the temperamental behaviour could be down to sensor value fluctuations or dirt build up on the ABS ring/sensor. Unless they've mapped the car to be switchable (in which I've read somewhere on here the Fabia ecu is capable of) map, the car can't just change the software willy nilly. My back ground is mostly in Imprezas and the vast majority of top end mappers map in a switchable high/low boost map via the rear heated screen switch. Could be similar for you via pressing the tc button?

Thanks ash mate your a star. I'll upload asap

Sure can but I don't have a desk top/lap top so will have to use my phone. Do you know if I can upload mobile video/sound clips using andriod? Cheers

Hmm just took the car out for a ten mile run, windows down to keep ears on the motor. To my horror when boost builds (not high load foot to the floor as still running head in) these a horrible high pitched squeal that's not a boost leak! Sounds to me that the turbo impeller is catching the housing. FFS this car just gets better and better. The misfiring has got worse. Low revs building boost gradually results in a Horrorendous shudder acompanies by that turbo death cry! Hmm in not convinced a map will sort this out lol

Hey Ash thanks for the heads up on the VCDS software. Will Lite do the job for me to check this value? Cheers

I'm in the north east matey. The garage who carried out the head gasket replacement passed this info on. Typically I was going to/at work when they arrived (the joys of a 12hr night shift) to check over my car so they delt with the missus. This garage Brought a member of staff from the Performance Diesel Centre and he was the one who concluded my issue. Along with a picking up an aux belt replacement. I don't even think they test drove the car to experience the hesitation/mental vibrations from the engine. From what I gather they could have only been there looking at the car for no longer than 10 minutes - the time it takes me to get to work because as soon as I got to work, my other half was on the phone telling me this.. I'm a bit disappointed in this result considering I've worked for a high performance tuning store for quite some time and to me this sounds more like a fob off. I simply do not agree that the egr delete is causing this issue. They parted last night by informing my missus I should drive 600 miles or so to bed those shells in and see how it goes. Then try resolving my issue with a remap. Well call me daft, but I'm pretty darn sure the issue will still be there after the map and no doubt will be worse. I'm well fed up with this car

Smoke test buddy. Easiest way if you can't get access to ramp to remove parts. Did you notice any oil around the pipes while you were there?

Well I've just been informed that the car requires a special remap due to the egr delete hence my hesitation/bad vibration from engine. What do you guys make of that? I've been advised to remove the egr delete and run the car with the OE unit refitted. I personally have never heard of this issue and ive sold countless egr deletes to otherwise standard cars in the past :(

I know I'm gutted regards the purchase to be honest. But onwards and upwards now. Hopefully this is a teething issue that's a simple fix. If not petrol and a naked flame may well be involved pmsl.....

Oh and if the technician is found to be a newbie, those guys have rim protectors they can fit to wheels to prevent this from happening. If they don't and he is new at the job, he should never have been working on alloy wheels full stop. (I worked for Revolution Motorstore for 9 year and with all the best and latest machinery going but accidents still happen and no garage likes bad press) it's just down to them taking responsibility for the mistake (s)

Oh dear me. I have to agree with others. This looks like classic clamp down damage. You can ask to check their machine for nylon covers that should be over the clamps when working with alloy wheels. Unfortunately the operators also have tenancies of leaving valve and wheel weight extractors on the machine itself. So as the clamp rotates, the surface of your upside down alloy can get dragged across these items causing the damage. So albeit the machine may look perfect and should never damage your wheel (s) the operator using that machinery may be a lazy person and caused that damage in that manor. Good luck trying to sort it out fella. Keep biting at the bit as I'm sure you'll get somewhere. If it's a national chain communicate directly with their head office including the names of those you were dealing with at the outlet. You will get somewhere that way as it takes the personal frustrations away from both you and the accused.

Sound like that's your issue dude! That'll expand under load and may well be you location of a boost leak. Can't help you regards diameter but I bet plenty of the guys here will let you know

Oh and the evidence of over fuelling wouldn't show any signs until whatever has now caused it. The black smoke is produced due to the high volume of diesel in the combustion chambers and exhaust. If this smoke was tinted blur, it would be evidence of oil and therefore turbo oil seals. If you are burning white (plumes not condensation)then bad bad times as that is coolant. All can be perfectly fine one minute and then something finally let's go and you'll end up here as you are not, expelling black smoke. Thing is with pressurise systems, you will not get and warning of a failure until it spontaneously happens, at which point there's no easy fix until the seal or part is replaced. I really hope for you it is a daft boost leak and not a turbo buddy

I'm in the same boat mate. Bought my first fabia vrs and actually first diesel about 3 weeks ago. Got it home and the car suffered head gasket failure - check my new owner, bad experience thread. I haven't thrashed mine either but seems I've bought a lemon. Nearly 1k down already, got my car back and it's developed other issues!!!! Grrrrr

Ah mate probs worth getting yourself dirty, jacking the car up and taking all the boost pipes off. If your savvy with the tools get the bumper off and check the side mount for cracks in the end tanks too. All this is bolt on bolt off stuff that you can do in your own time, no pressure. Or you can pay a garage to do this for you. Once you've established the pressurised side is all ok, I'd have to say that one can only conclude that the turbos took the hit. Good luck checking matey

Oh ballz I only have one key with this car :(