hi all,

not posted for a while, but have a problem on my Furby, which i would appreciate any assistance with. it is a Fabia 1.2 12v on a 03 plate, petrol.

this morning took a slightly different way to work due to having to drop the wife off somewhere. this left me going up a long, steady gradient (one i normally bomb down, not up). happily doing around 50-55 , all of a sudden there seemed to be a shudder from the engine together with a partial but noticeable loss of power, and the yellow engine light came on. struggled to keep it close to 40 in 3rd whilst going uphill however when on the level things seemed to get easier. carried on to work, and throughout the 15-20 min journey the yellow engine light kept on going on & off all the time. finally got it parked up at work and managed to have a look under the bonnet, and when idleing the engine is rocking backwards & forwards quite noticeable, something which can also be felt in the car when stationary.

i am hoping it is just something like a spark plug that's gone or something, but not really had a chance to have a proper luck. anybody any idea's or suggestions?

regards

Edited 27 July, 200916 yr by hxdave
edited to be more specific

gearbox mount?! i have it on my vrs, she lost power or it felt liek the clutch was slipping

Code scan will throw out a fault code rather than guess. Gonna be a coil pack though

Thanks Moggytech. coil pack - is that the equivalant of the spark plug? i took the engine cover off last night to have a nosey, and boy have things changed since the last engines i tinkered with. towards the front of the engine there were like 3 wired plugs on top of the engine block - are these the coil packs? whatever they were, i could not get them off, however didn't want to put too much pressure on them for fear of breaking anything.

hopefully i am going to get it on a VAGCOM machine to diagnose, but will be saturday at the earliest. will there be any problem running the car till then? on average, i am only doing about 15-20 miles a day at the moment.

Thanks Moggytech. coil pack - is that the equivalant of the spark plug? i took the engine cover off last night to have a nosey, and boy have things changed since the last engines i tinkered with. towards the front of the engine there were like 3 wired plugs on top of the engine block - are these the coil packs?

That's the badger. These days you don't have one ignition coil and seperate dizzy/HT leads, you have 3 (or more!) coils that sit on top of the plugs.

hopefully i am going to get it on a VAGCOM machine to diagnose, but will be saturday at the earliest. will there be any problem running the car till then? on average, i am only doing about 15-20 miles a day at the moment.

It won't do the cat any good if it is misfiring.

CJB, thanks for that. what would you suggest. leave the car stationary until i can get it in or risk it for the 100 or so miles until i get it in?

sorry, just another quick question. if it was the spark plug, rather than the coil pack, would this still show the orange engine light?

Thanks Moggytech. coil pack - is that the equivalant of the spark plug? i took the engine cover off last night to have a nosey, and boy have things changed since the last engines i tinkered with. towards the front of the engine there were like 3 wired plugs on top of the engine block - are these the coil packs? whatever they were, i could not get them off, however didn't want to put too much pressure on them for fear of breaking anything.

hopefully i am going to get it on a VAGCOM machine to diagnose, but will be saturday at the earliest. will there be any problem running the car till then? on average, i am only doing about 15-20 miles a day at the moment.

Hey man, that thing you describe is indeed the coil pack - if it was a spark plug that was faulty I don't think you'd get the engine management light coming on though I may be mistaken! The shaky engine is caused by the rough idle that the faulty coil pack creates due to the engine not firing on all cylinders. The problem with the coil pack is that if one of the coils is defective you gotta replace the whole thing - it's quite a common fault and has happened to me on a couple of my motors. Costs about £100-150 to replace.

thanks Big Mikey, but i thought all the coil packs were seperate, and could just replace 1 at a time.

Not sure on that one dude, when I had mine replaced on my old Corsa it was the whole thing. Fabia might be different.

i think it is slightly different, cos there are 3 seperate parts on the top, and each one looks like it can be removed individually. anyway, got it booked into a VW garage my mate works at, so hopefully get things sorted. i also have warranty on the car (Not skoda's own, but Tesco's Finest, which from what i can see is operated by the exact same people).

I'm pretty certain the packs are seperate. Drive the car as little as you can until it gets sorted.

cjb, she's booked in for tomorrow morning.

update;

car went in, and was found to have a faulty coil pack. this was duly changed then on the engineers test drive when slowing to a halt the revs dropped and often stalled. back onto VAGCOM and faulty cooling temperature sensor (or something like that) discovered. left overnight as part had to be ordered and replaced the next day (friday). come sunday, engine management light back on and still having trouble with revs dropping. also car still seems to be 'edgy', and not as smooth as it should be. back to the dealers and after more tests now having a new lambada sensor & new MAF sensor or whatever it is. parts coming in morning so hopefully should have her back tomorrow. in the meanwhile driving round in a quite nippy (but less well equipped) polo 1.2.

oh, and by the way, everything covered under the Tesco Car Warranty i bought last december!

Sounds like a good result, with it being covered under warranty

Final Update

Finally got my suzie back last night, and boy what a difference. very nippy, very responsive. in short, had the following done:

new coil pack

new coolant temp sensor

new MAF sensor

new Lambda probe

new timing chain

numerous times on VagCom

all done through a VW/Skoda franchise garage with genuine parts fitted. also had a 09 VW Polo as courtesy car for 9 days. (delay was due to suzie being sat on forecourt awaiting a warranty engineer to come out and inspect the car to authorise the warranty repair)

Total cost to me = £0.00. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Nothing.

All covered under Tesco's finest warranty (£199.00 for the year!). Also got a glimpse of the bill they were sending to the warranty company, and it is my understanding that the warranty company get a discount (not sure if a large discount or small discount), but their bill was just under £600.00.

Best £199.00 warranty i have ever bought!

Edited 13 August, 200916 yr by hxdave
stupid spelling mistakes!

Bloomin' Ek! Think I may have to ave a gander at Tesco's warranties myself!

the best warranty they do is the 'finest' one i took. £199.00 for the year, but car has to be under 6 years old and less than 60000 miles on date the warranty starts. covers loads, even wear & tear on a lot of items. however i am not an expert, so i would suggest you read the policy terms to decide if it is for you. after the 'Finest', there are 2 lower levels taht are cheaper and will also cover older / higher milage cars.

one other thing - the Tesco's warranty seems to be administrated by the same company that does the warranty offered by Skoda itself.

like i said before, best £199.00 i've ever spent - especially as i can pay it monthly rather than all in 1 go!

04 on 56k... they never saw me coming