So at 17, just passed my driving test I was looking for a car. After driving my mums skoda fabia 1.4 16V. i quite liked it, so decided to have a look around for a skoda fabia for myself. After many a webpage and phonecall I found a fabia 1.4 MPI at a local garage for £1800 51,000 miles.

So off I went and test drove it, all seemed to be ok, so went to chat to the seemingly lovely gentlemen to talk some figures. i ended up paying £1700, with tax,MOT,Service,3 months warrenty included! So I had my nice new car in september 2008

Didnt think this was too bad.....UNTIL.

1 month down the line the front bushes and anti roll bar needed replacing-Coverd by warrenty

3 months down the line- heard a very strange whining noise in every gear over 1000RPM, took it to the garage, was told it was the clutch (i thought this was rubbish) so i left the car with them, got a phonecall the next day telling me I needed a new gearbox,:rotz: luckily this was going to be coverd by warrenty. JUST...if this had happened 3 days later, it would have been out of warrenty. So I left the car with them, and unsurprisingly got a phonecall to ask me if i wanted to have the clutch replaced at a reduced cost (think it was about £100 in total) so i agreed. THEN!!!!! I had to wait 2 weeks to get my car back because the gearbox had to be sent of to be proved it was broken. and then all that snow came along. but luckily they gave me a courtesy car....a nice octavia, pretty swish to drive in around at 17. So when i eventually go and collect my car im told it had a new radiator, as the one in the car had a hairline fracture.

could anything else go wrong with my car?!?! yes, oh yes it can.

Now at 58,000 miles

Last week, my car was taking longer and longer to stop!!

so went along to my local garage ( not where i bought the car, not really happy with the customer service) to needed new discs.pads. and the rear drums cleaned up and adjusted as they were in a "terrible state".

Cost: £150

And today im told i need new wheel bearings on the front passenger side

Cost: £126

WHAT NEXT?!?!?!?!?!

Does anyone think any of these bits should have been picked up in the aparent MOT and service?

Only got to last me till september till i get a new car! just dont want it costing me a bomb :(

Thanks for reading!

o be honest you've not done badly. Most problems fixed under warranty, and brake parts are consumables.

Welcome to the world of car ownership. It's exepnsive.

There's an argument that maybe the brake and bearing issues should have been picked up at MOT/service, but it depends. An MOT test is only valid at the time of testing.

I'm afraid I'm gunna agree with Chris, you've done ok getting the major stuff done under warranty. I'm not sure what happened with your gear box though, 50k for a box is a bit premature, but if the clutch went as well it's obviously not been driven with much care at some point in it's past.

Bushes, Brakes and to some extent clutch & bearings are items that do just wear as the miles clock up.. and at nearly 60k on the clock it's not unusual. I had a similar story with my first Fabia.. I did from 50k - 70k in it and had bushes, brakes and bearings all replaced.. Unfortunately 50k on the Fabia seems where middle age kicks in, but no more than any other car. Maybe Toyota would last a little longer.. but the brakes and clutch would still fail.

£150 for discs/pads is not bad- Our Lupo cost £70-80 in parts alone.

To put things in perspective, the Lupo is a well looked after low mileage (45k) 2000 W-plated car that we have owned for 5 years now. In the last year I've spent about £400 on minor paintwork, £50ish on servicing and minor mechanical fixes (oil, filters, throttle body gasket), about £40 on a battery, and the 80ish on brakes. That's bearing in mind all the servicing and minor repairs I've done myself- the only labour has been bodywork.

That does mean the Lupo looks nice and I can rely on it being safe for my wife to drive to work, but car ownership is never cheap.

i agree with wear and tear and middle-age, and also the fact that you're lucky to get most of the repairs under warranty... but guy, what's with the damaged gearbox? did the previous owner owner go off-roading or the camel safari with it?!?

Welcome to motoring.

TBH I think I would be thanking my lucky stars the gearbox was covered on the warranty

i agree with wear and tear and middle-age, and also the fact that you're lucky to get most of the repairs under warranty... but guy, what's with the damaged gearbox? did the previous owner owner go off-roading or the camel safari with it?!?

WELL, my mum brought her skoda from the same place, and her car was fine through its life, so went back and trusted the salesmen. Was told he knew the previous owner and she was an old woman who didnt use the car much.

but obsiously she didnt like to put the clutch down when changing gear.:thumbdwn:

WELL, my mum brought her skoda from the same place, and her car was fine through its life, so went back and trusted the salesmen. Was told he knew the previous owner and she was an old woman who didnt use the car much.

but obsiously she didnt like to put the clutch down when changing gear.:thumbdwn:

lol @ "obsiously she didnt like to put the clutch down when changing gear"

unfortunately that's the risk that comes part and parcel with getting a used car mate :confused:

how do you find the 1.4mpi engine? I assume it's the 8-valve version (63bhp I think)? I had one with that engine between 2004 and 2006... (now I'm waiting for my Fabia II Ambiente to come)

my fabia vrs has been the worst car ive owned....

handbrake failure

2 popped boost hoses

broken aircon

clutch and dmf failure

leaky doors

faulty brake switch

console bushes

rear wiper fault

washer pipe popping off...

basically every possible fault :(

Just to add some balance to an otherwise 'Fabias are crap' thread. Plenty out there with high mileages that haven't put a foot wrong. Also quite a few on here have broken due to chavy mods.

To the OP: The gearbox in your car is known to be a weak spot with that model, lucky it was in warranty.

Check any car Forum and you will see horror stories, as few people post to say my cars been great.

If you want relatively trouble free motoring buy a Lexus, but be prepared to be bored senseless.

my fabia vrs has been the worst car ive owned....

handbrake failure

2 popped boost hoses

broken aircon

clutch and dmf failure

leaky doors

faulty brake switch

console bushes

rear wiper fault

washer pipe popping off...

basically every possible fault :(

How did the handbrake fail?

Popped boost hoses, is the car mapped?

Broken Aircon (Is the aircon serviced per latest VAG recommendations)

Clutch and DMF, is the car mapped?

Leaky doors, easy 2 Hr fix on a bad day

Brake Switch 10 minute job

Consule Bushes, consumable rubber item, fail quicker on mapped cars

Rear Wiper Fault?

Washer pipe popping off, (is there enough screen wash additive to prevent freezing)

basically every fault possible. Oh no it's not, there's the Turbo, Tandem Pump, PD rockers, camshaft,

Try a Merc C class, then you really will have the worst car for problems.

To the OP: The gearbox in your car is known to be a weak spot with that model, lucky it was in warranty.

Really? the one I had was in the family for 4 or 5 years and never had any trouble with the gearbox, and here in Malta, driving is 98% urban, which puts more strain on the gearbox. It was the 1.4mpi 8-valve model. However, given the short distances here in Malta, I didn't have a high mileage on the car. IIRC it was between 20,000 and 30,000km.

The only real trouble I had was with the air-conditioning switch console (the a/c used to switch on by itself and the re-circulation function used to switch off by itself). I asked later at the Skoda dealer and they told me that apparently that particular model had a defective a/c console.

The other trouble was that occasionally, when I close the passenger door, the central lock used to start opening/closing by itself - but I have a feeling that that was happening because of a crappy job the electrician had done when fixing my after-market alarm.

The problem with the car was the high fuel consumption.

lol @ "obsiously she didnt like to put the clutch down when changing gear"

unfortunately that's the risk that comes part and parcel with getting a used car mate :confused:

how do you find the 1.4mpi engine? I assume it's the 8-valve version (63bhp I think)? I had one with that engine between 2004 and 2006... (now I'm waiting for my Fabia II Ambiente to come)

haha did laugh when typing that out.

As for the 1,4mpi engine i havent found any problems atall....im going to clean the throttle body out tonight to try and sort the idling revs out. but apart from that minor, almost nothing problem. its all good.

To be honest my vRS has been rock solid, any little problems that do occurr have to be expected given it sees a bit of track action and 15 or so laps a year on the Nurburgring! Seriously I have owned a few shockingly bad unreliable cars in the last 5 yrs - the biggest culprit by far was a Ford Focus C-Max TDCi followed by another C-Max Zetec Petrol that Ive just rejected back to the dealership, a close third was my 206 1.1 Pug - constantly had electrical problems and all these cars were no more than 5 years old!

Good luck with your MPi though.

John

My Fabia vRS did 30k miles in my hands with nothing more that scheduled servicing, a dash air vent (warranty), and a headlight bulb. The only 'standard fault' I had was peeling paint on the front bumper.

Moggytech is right- all cars have their issues, and the Fabia is overall pretty good.

Lots of the problems are more likely on a car driven hard, or on one driven badly, or one not serviced properly, and after all, if you buy secondhand you cannot guarantee how it has been treated in the past. (NB: I'm not suggesting "driven hard" and "driven badly" are the same thing).

my fabia vrs has been the worst car ive owned....

handbrake failure

2 popped boost hoses

broken aircon

clutch and dmf failure

leaky doors

faulty brake switch

console bushes

rear wiper fault

washer pipe popping off...

basically every possible fault :(

i have had all these problems too, but i have managed to sort this out all but the aircon, i dunno whats up with it now only stopped working yesterday, but i still love the car and wouldn't swap it for anything

haha did laugh when typing that out.

As for the 1,4mpi engine i havent found any problems atall....im going to clean the throttle body out tonight to try and sort the idling revs out. but apart from that minor, almost nothing problem. its all good.

Erm... the idle revs are what they are, when idling, it stutters a teeny bit every number of seconds... I had that problem with mine and when I went to the dealer they said that it's the same on all Fabia's with that engine and that basically I had to learn to live with it.

i have had all these problems too, but i have managed to sort this out all but the aircon, i dunno whats up with it now only stopped working yesterday, but i still love the car and wouldn't swap it for anything

The aircon module is defective... mine was screwed up big time... it's apparently around £120 if I'm not mistaken to buy a new module (the buttons things on the dashboard I mean)

i'll just take all that out of her make her the lightweight version

i'll just take all that out of her make her the lightweight version

lol that's the spirit

Erm... the idle revs are what they are, when idling, it stutters a teeny bit every number of seconds... I had that problem with mine and when I went to the dealer they said that it's the same on all Fabia's with that engine and that basically I had to learn to live with it.

But im also getting an hesitation when pulling away and sometimes a judder.....anyways clearing it cant do any harm:thumbup:

But im also getting an hesitation when pulling away and sometimes a judder.....anyways clearing it cant do any harm:thumbup:

It's normal guy, but it's true, there's no harm in cleaning the thing...

I've owned 3 Skodas up to now and haven't had a problem with any of them. The most unreliable car I've ever owned was a T reg Vauxhall Corsa - everything that could have gone wrong with that car did go wrong. I pretty much gave up on it when when I had to shell out £1000 for a new engine after just 60000 miles.

I'm on my second car, both of which have been Fabias

My first one was a 1.4mpi too, got it at 50k miles and put another 10k on it in 7 months. It had pretty much the same idling and juddering symptoms as yours, and in that time I replaced the thermostat, some other switch to do with that I can't remember right now, timing chain and sprockets as it got rattly, water pump, head gasket (didn't overheat just started drinking coolant, so watch for that), plus the usual consumables, brakes and bushes.

The juddering and lumpy idle didn't really go away, but I was advised it could be the inlet manifold gasket. However, I sold the car to my physics teacher before I could find out

At least the parts for the 1.4mpi engine are cheap, and Skoda in general are fairly reasonable for parts prices by modern car manufacturer standards.

As for this car? Got it at 19k miles a year ago, sitting at 27k now, hasn't missed a beat yet (touches wood...).

Good luck with it