Hi all,

New to this so please go gently.

I purchased a '98 Felicia 1.6 back in February. First Skoda I've ever owned and so far I'm delighted with it. I'm of the generation where Skodas were seriously uncool. How things change! It's probably the best car I've owned. But to the point...

Some days ago, I parked up and turned off the ignition. Oddly, the dash warning lights remained glowing dimly. With a vague sense of unease I left it for the night and forgot about it. The following day I returned to it. You'll not be surprised to hear that the battery was totally flat - not even a solenoid click. I got a friend to give me a jump start. It fired up immediately (oddly the CD player came on as well and I know it hadn't been on when I left it!) It ran perfectly well - lights and everything. My assumption was that something was staying on and draining the battery, so the next time I parked up I disconnected the battery. On reconnecting it again, all seemed well - started and ran fine - except that it seemed to want to cut out when idling.

Any advice from anyone more knowledgable than me would be gratefully appreciated.

Incidentally, the car was said to have had a new alternator fitted shortly before I bought it - it looks new.

Regards, Brian

Might be an ignition switch problem, they are known for faults. That's all I can think of; some crap between the contacts giving a high resistance path when the contacts are supposed to be "open".

You could try blasting some WD40 down the barrel and giving it a few key turns; might work; or might make it worse!!!

The cut out when idling is something I have come across in several vehicles with electronic ignition after a flat battery. The idle system gets upset and takes a while to stabilize again; sometimes it will sort itself in a few hours, sometimes it seems to take days.

agreed with the idle thing, it will self adapt back to normal after a while...

the battery draining thing could be a whole number of different causes but the ignition switch does seem quite likely, or possibly a sticky relay