Chatting today about fixing your own car, the topic drifted to what mistakes people have done. From pulling out a halfshaft but forgetting about the garage wall being in the way to having a gearbox fall on them - some interesting stories. So, what Skoda problems have you had? What started off bad and got worse from there? Time to share!

I will go first.

Eezibleed. I hooked it up to the spare tyre on the hottest day imaginable to see if I could sort my spongey brakes. After getting the Rapid up on the stands I sweated the wheels off and set up the spare tyre, bottle and all the other paraphenalia. After loosening the bleed nipple I got a good flow of brake fluid - with some bubbles - and I was about to stop the process when a HUGE bubble came through followed by air and spatters of brake fluid. The pipe in the Eezibleed had popped off and it was just chucking air into my system. It took several more pints of perspiration and a second bottle of brake fluid to get it refilled once more...

Rear shoes. I found to my dismay that the main shoe retaining spring can travel at such speed as to clear a 6-foot fence and never to be found again. Motto - start with the correct tools BEFORE removing it!

Distributor. You have a 50-50 chance of putting it back correctly, but it is always the wrong 50 as I found as my attempted start made a backfire so huge as to frighten the whole street.

Condenser wires. Get it wrong and you will see much smoke. I got it wrong once only.

Lets hear yours.

TH

Ah ... confession time.

Having learnt with age to sit down with a tea whenever "red mist" takes over, mistakes have greatly decreased. However, I've become a leading expert at loosing nuts and other small items of essential metal. Even last weekend, fitting the new heater valve, I lost a nut within the drivers footwell - vanished. Good thing the voltage regulator can hold on with just the one nut until I pick up a spare one ... the joys of Skoda using the same parts all over the car.

Filling up with tap water after a major leak in October with the thoughts "I'll replace that with proper coolant this weekend" and then forgetting ... leading to iceing up, burst pipes and corrosion once winter arrived.

Keeping spare water in plastic bottles in the car "just in case" then having one burst when it froze in the winter.

With the previous Estelle, driving way too fast on the last icy morning of spring, leading to rolling it in a field and writing it off (very safe car, every panel crushed and I was almost fine!)

To slightly twist the subject, I have a list of "things I wish I had done with the Estelle" :

- Taken a digital photo of bits BEFORE I took them apart, to save wondering which colour wire went where and which way up the bits were

- Tied a length of nylon string to the bonnet release mechanism and ran it into the cabin for when the cable snapped and I spent a good part of a weekend releasing it from outside.

- Carried a spare pressure cap for the overflow tank (would have spared a long tow hone)

- Carried cable ties (would have made life so much easier at times)

Any more?

Perhaps a good motto would be "The triumph of enthusiasm over mechanical qualifications"

Lots and lots of minor stuff.....but after years of mistakes on other cars nothing too serious. The worst being to forget to put thread lock onto the flywheel bolts which resulted in having to take the engine out again when the flywheel came knocking. The thing is, nothing you do on an Estelle takes too long to sort out and theres nothing you do that isnt similar on other cars........that take a hell of a lot longer to sort out. Try making a mistake on some of the tightly packed French cars that have been around since the 80s........you waste a day sorting it.

ive forgotten them all around 25 Rear Engined skodas ago.