Ive just been quoted £650 to get a towbar fitted to my new fabia estate, by the skoda garage in cambridge.

£190 for the towbar (seems reasonable if its a witter detachable)

£90 for the electrics (ouch)

2.5hours labour to fit the towbar

and a further 2 hours to fit the electrics.

This seems incredibly steep to me, especially as the witter site suggests 90 mins of

prime british DIY time.

Has anyone else been quoted a more reasonable price.

It looks like its going to be a home job at this rate.

This seems incredibly expensive Nick. Especially considering I've just had a Witter fitted to a brand new Focus hatch at Halfords for £190 inc VAT and all labour for a friend. I think they are having you on! And that price included the electrics too.

Edited 28 April, 201016 yr by Estate Man

I purchased a brand new OE Skoda detachable towbar off eBay for about £60. It was not a Witter, I think it was a German make (but Skoda branded). The electrical kit from the dealer cost me about £70 and then there was a small hatch for the bumper (about £10) and some paint cans (base and lacquer). Total cost was about £170. It took me about 2 hours to fit - its pretty easy (obviously I'd never done one before). The most difficult part was messing about with the trim in the boot area. The actual towbar fitting is dead easy.

Cheers Guys. That clears it up for me. Its gonna be a home job.

This garage has always been pricey for services, but this is clearly insane.

Add to the fact that i ordered a Fabia 1.9TDi estate, and when it turned up 12 weeks later it was a 1.6 TDI. They didnt mention this at all

and it was only when I noticed the paper work that i found out. It seems that Skoda discontinued the 1.9 whilst they were

building my car, but nobody thought it important to tell me.

Either that or as it spent about 3 weeks being shipped across the channel it must have got wet and shrunk.

All in all it kind of points to the garage being educated at the Arthur Daley school of motor sales.

Nick

Cheers Guys. That clears it up for me. Its gonna be a home job.

This garage has always been pricey for services, but this is clearly insane.

Add to the fact that i ordered a Fabia 1.9TDi estate, and when it turned up 12 weeks later it was a 1.6 TDI. They didnt mention this at all

and it was only when I noticed the paper work that i found out. It seems that Skoda discontinued the 1.9 whilst they were

building my car, but nobody thought it important to tell me.

Either that or as it spent about 3 weeks being shipped across the channel it must have got wet and shrunk.

All in all it kind of points to the garage being educated at the Arthur Daley school of motor sales.

Nick

That's amazing Nick. How would they know if you would be happy if they don't tell you. You should use this as a lever to get the price right down...that's just what I would do anyway. However, I under stand the 1.6 TDI is amazing. What model is it? 105bhp or 90bhp?

To be fair, Im very glad I got the new engine, and would have been REALLY annoyed if I had missed it by a week or so, simply because the garage didnt mention that

the new one was on the cards. The new engine is significantly more efficient, (hurrah!) and I was always suspicious of how long the Pumpe Duse bits of the PD engine

would last, especially as they require such a specific engine oil. My other skoda is a fabia VRS (this new estate is for the wife) so I guess I will will find out which is best some day.

So the reason I ended up with the new engine is because the garage "lost" the paperwork I posted them, and nothing happend for a month until I rang them up to enquire how it

was all going, whereupon they said that they were still waiting for the papers. This was kind of annoying as when I placed the order and paid the deposit they said that the order

would be kicked off immediately, where as what they really meant was they would sit on it until the document turned up, and then wait some more.

As it happens I spotted 2 copies of it in their customer folder. One for the lost copy that "their dog ate", and one for the second copy I had to send by registered mail.

They also charged me £120 for the tax, where as the 1.6TDI is band B and so is £0 for the first year (£20 after that) but I spotted that in time ;-).

They really are quite utterly hopeless, .... even for car salesmen. (oh and it had a dent in it by the time I got it, but lets not go there)

As for the car, Im still running it in so I havent been over 60 in it yet.

Im driving it like a nun, until I hand it over to the wife, who will fail to appreciate all the sophisticated variable turbo geometry goodness and almost certainly abuse it horribly.

Its the 105 HP version, so it should be perky enough, but i think the throttle is biased a bit so that you get all the welly in the bottom 25%, (for economy I guess)

and I havent ventured all the way down there yet, so I cant be sure.

There are a couple of deletions over the old estate model that I dont like, such as the loss of the fuel filler hatch release, (you now just pull the hatch open) and no

little draw on the driver side to put your loose change in. Also the odometer changes to KPH once you are moving.

All that aside I think its going to be a cracking little car. Her last one was a fabia1.4 8Valve jobby and it took everything she could throw at it.

Its now been put out to stud with my father, where I will be suprised if it does more than 500 miles a year.

So all in all Im happy. .... provided I dont have to go back to that garage ever again.

Congrats think you may be the first owner of the new Fabia to post on here. What spec did you get?

If your car has ESP it may have an interface into the towing electrics. The only reason I say is that I know with the Passat Estate if you go down the VAG route you need the dealer to go into the car computer to enable some of the towing functions.

I ordered a 1,9 105HP fabia 2 with blue /grey interior

and I got a 1.6 105HP fabia SE with black interior

I didnt get any accessories (apart from metallic paint) as unfortunately Im a cheapskate

so it doesnt have ESP. However im beginning to regret the lack of storage, mainly the lack of any little cubby home to stick

some spare change in.

Thanks for the tip about the ESP though. I may be tempted to buy the skoda wiring harness for the towbar, as I only want to

drag an old trailer around (not a caravan) and so i wouldnt be bothered about most of the clever towing features.

Im only concerned about the suggestion that any illegal connections to the wiring would invalidate the guarentee.

As im an electronics engineer, im tempted to knock up a relay box with some decent isolation on the relay inputs, and take the power

from the 12v socket in the boot. Then if i get a fault in the car in the years to come, and they try to pin it on my wiring i can

stand up in court and give an in depth technical explanation of how my wiring cant possibly have damaged anything.... honest.

did i mention that i was a cheapskate?

To be fair, Im very glad I got the new engine, and would have been REALLY annoyed if I had missed it by a week or so, simply because the garage didnt mention that the new one was on the cards. The new engine is significantly more efficient, (hurrah!) and I was always suspicious of how long the Pumpe Duse bits of the PD engine would last, especially as they require such a specific engine oil.

Hi Nick, glad you are pleased with your new motor. The 1.6cr should turn out to be a humdinger. In your postion, I too would be pleased to have the new model. Regarding the older PD engines either 1.9 or 1.4, you would not have had to worry at all about mechanical integrity. All PD engines are bullet proof and regularly will cover 400,000 miles plus without any difficulty at all and no spannering apart from consumables and other normal service items eg. cam belts etc. You will find your 1.6cr like all modern diesel motors require a very specific oil. One other point you may or may not be aware of...you can change the odometer setting to miles rather than Kph. Ask you dealer to do it. Please please keep us all in the loop as to how she is going as the miles go on. Post regularly.

Thanks